Seat Slate
A local-first seating chart editor for building rooms, setting rules, saving named snapshots, and exporting PDFs.
What it is
Seat Slate is a local-first classroom seating chart editor for teachers. Build the room with individual desks, shared tables, groups, and furniture. Add students, set seating rules, generate an arrangement, or move assignments by hand.
The working chart saves in the browser as it changes. Teachers can also keep named snapshots, download a Layout file for backup or transfer, and export a printable A4 PDF. Undo and redo cover ordinary chart edits, which helps when a quick change turns into the wrong change.
The tool can run offline after its first production load. That fits the job: collect names, match the real room, try a few versions, print one, and then change it again when the first version meets reality.
Why I built it
I used PowerPoint for seating charts in the past, and it was very manual. Every change felt like a chance to forget a kid, duplicate a kid, or move half the room and lose track of what I just did.
I wanted something that could import names, generate a chart, handle real seating rules, and make common room setups less annoying. Teachers should not have to build the same rectangle-and-name-tag layout from scratch every time.
The annoying part of seating charts is not only the first version. It is the second, third, and fourth version after you learn who cannot sit next to whom, who needs to be closer to the board, and which desk arrangement looked better in your head than it does in the room.
I wanted the tool to support that back-and-forth. Try a layout. Move a few seats. Save a named copy. Print it. Come back later.
What mattered
Classroom documents stay in IndexedDB on the teacher’s device. The current release has no accounts, analytics, cloud storage, or sync, and the server does not receive charts. Layout downloads and PDFs are deliberate actions, so the teacher stays in charge of files that can contain student names.
The seating rules needed to be more than a random shuffle with a nicer button. Seat Slate understands locked assignments, tag preferences, and rules for keeping students together or apart. Required conflicts stop generation. Best-effort rules can finish with a clear warning instead of quietly pretending everything worked.
The room itself matters just as much as the roster. Shared tables have assignable seats, desks and furniture can rotate, and labels stay readable while the objects move. The PDF renderer uses the chart’s actual geometry but leaves out selection boxes, menus, warnings, and the rest of the editor interface.
Teachers should not have to wonder where a list of student names went. A seating chart tool can be useful without turning into another account, another upload, or another system to explain.
Where it stands
Seat Slate is live at the same classroom-tools address under the new name. The name fits what the project has become: a room editor that can generate a chart, not just a generator with a few movable boxes.
The current release supports local saved charts, Layout files, printable PDFs, undo and redo, keyboard editing, and offline use. Its boundary is intentional: browser storage belongs to one browser profile on one device, so downloaded files are still the backup and transfer path.
The real test is still the rushed school day. A seating chart editor has to be useful when there is time to plan and when three seats need to move before the bell.