Last summer, I made a bare-bones syntax tree application entirely in javascript, which I’m calling the Larch Tree Drawer, after the Monty Python sketch. The software:

• Is written entirely in JavaScript, so it can do fast real-time updating.
• Creates a png image which can be easily copied elsewhere.
• Uses efficiently spaced trees (see [1])
• Automatically closes brackets.
• Automatically opens brackets (triggered by an ALL-CAPS node label)

Check it out and let me know any bugs and/or feature requests. I’m considering an option to output qtree-style latex code, but I haven’t implemented it yet.  Also, I know that the dimensions of the png files are a little too large right now.

Using the default options can feel a little weird, but you’ll soon see how fast it can be to input standard trees.  For instance, type “S NP” and you’ll see:

Then, add “John] VP” to get:

Round it out with “V loves] NP Semantics” to get:

And you only needed two brackets!

[1] An algorithm from http://billmill.org/pymag-trees/ based on:

Buchheim, Christoph, Michael Jünger, and Sebastian Leipert. “Improving Walker’s algorithm to run in linear time.” Graph Drawing. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2002.

Walker, John Q. “A node‐positioning algorithm for general trees.” Software: Practice and Experience 20.7 (1990): 685-705.