Summary
v.11.2.0 includes features allowing users to create amendments inline and apply selected amendments to the bill. While early versions of these features were available in previous releases, this is the first release to contain versions of the features which are comprehensive and fairly stable. They are however, still in beta because further extensions are planned and user feedback from live use is required to refine them further.
The release also includes a number of bug fixes.
Inline amendments
One of the biggest and most eagerly awaited new features being brought in by Lawmaker is the ability to create amendments through inline changes to the bill text. Lawmaker will convert these changes into traditionally formatted amendments which can then be managed on the 'Amendment Manager' tab in the same way that traditionally generated amendments are currently - including their submission to the relevant Parliament for tabling/lodging.
The core 'leave out', 'insert' and 'substitute' type amendments for all jurisdictions have been implemented, although there are edge cases where manual intervention may be required. To find out more about how to use these features, please consult "/wiki/spaces/UM/pages/8978643" in the user manual.
When you save changes to your inline document, the traditional versions of the amendments are automatically generated. To view them, open the 'Inline Amendment Tools' right-hand panel and click on the 'View traditional amendments' button. This will open a new tab displaying all the inline amendments in traditional format (and enabling you to make manual adjustments to the traditional amendments if required).
Auto-application of amendments
In conjunction with inline amendments, this release also enables the auto-application of selected amendments. This can be used for amendments at any state and whether or not they originated from inline amendments or were drafted in the traditional manner. This feature is available to all users.
To use it, select the amendments you want to apply to a copy of the bill from the 'Amendment Manager' tab, and select the action "Apply amendments". You can choose to create a new bill version with your selected amendments applied; or apply them to an existing version of the bill (this can be useful if you are updating 'Agreed' amendments at the end of a multi-sitting amending stage). All applied amendments will be visible as tracked changes in the document and listed on the 'Inline Amendments' right-hand panel. If any amendments couldn't be applied (e.g. the instruction wasn't recognised, or they overlapped with another amendment), a note will appear in the 'Review' right-hand panel so you can clearly see what wasn't applied.
Once you are happy with the application of amendments (including removing any amendments you no longer want applied, and incorporating any necessary non-substantive printing changes required) you can use the 'Accept all' button at the top of the 'Inline Amendments' right-hand panel to remove the tracked changes and produce a clean version of the Bill.
To find out more about how to use these features, please consult "05 Auto-Application of Amendments" in the user manual.
Other
A number of bugs and issues have been resolved in this release:
Ticket | Description of bug/change | Lawmaker feedback log reference/Raised by |
Refactored Save function and Edit portion of document feature to cope with very large documents and resolve other issues | OPC | |
Smart paste not handling phrases beginning with a number properly, e.g. "1984 Act" | Lords | |
SPT-566 / SPT-734 | FRBR document check errors no longer appearing | N/A |
SPT-569 | "Manage lifecycle events" - 'Update' button not clickable | Scottish Parliament |
SPT-583 | XML in quoted structures going wrong after PDF generation | Parliament Digital Services development team |
SPT-645 | SI PDF - display of commenceDate | SI drafters |
SPT-646 | SI PDF - sub-paragraph nums in quoted structures look squished. | SI drafters |
SPT-654 | Insert table - cannot insert a table with greater than 10 rows | SI drafters |
SPT-660 | Pasting schedule into bill no longer being wrapped in 'schedules' container | OPC |
SPT-687 | Smart quotes not operating in the Long Title | Parliament Digital Services development team |
SPT-693 | House Bill page 1 starts at different place on page from normal Bill | Lords |
SPT-694 | Seal image @src attributes don't match actual image in zip file | TNA |
SPT-703 | Space-before UK Bill Schedules should be 36 pt | Lawmaker feedback LPM195 raised by Lords |
SPT-717 | Pushing schedules into another document that already contains schedules doesn't work properly | OPC |
SPT-731 | Copy/paste paragraphs creating nested //p elements | SI drafters |
SPT-751 | red highlighting no longer appearing for overlapping amendments in amendment lists | Lawmaker feedback LPM198 raised by Lords |
SPT-753 | UK Bill's long title is being converted (upper case changed to lower case) when enacted | Lawmaker feedback LPM199 raised by Lords |
SPT-754 | PDF - Line spacing in SP Amendment Lists for bill title | Scottish Parliament |
SPT-759 / SPT-757 | Issues with PDF bookmarks | PCO |
SPT-765 | Amendment Manager' doesn't display anything if a single amendment has XML issues | Lawmaker feedback LPM201 raised by Scottish Parliament |
SPT-773 | Update x-ref behaving incorrectly in the presence of tracked changes | Lawmaker feedback LPM202 raised by PCO |
SPT-775 | SP Manuscript amendment list no longer renumbering published amendment lists | Lawmaker feedback LPM201 raised by Scottish Parliament |
SPT-778 | Can't update table to have 1 row (Remove restriction on minimum of 2 rows) | Lawmaker feedback LPM208 raised by Commons |
SPT-780 | Unable to Renumber Building Safety Bill | Lawmaker feedback LPM189 raised by Commons |
SPT-782 | Nums dropping down a line due to line numbering | Lawmaker feedback LPM206 raised by Commons |
SPT-782 | Manuscript lists are renumbering previously published amendments | Lawmaker feedback LPM205 raised by Scottish Parliament |
SPT-788 | PDFs generated from Project tab are different from those generated from Editor | Lawmaker feedback LPM207 raised by Lords |
SPT-789 | Line numbering out by 1 line on 5 pages | Lawmaker feedback LPM207 raised by Lords |
SPT-792 | Comparison failing when document contains formula | Lawmaker feedback LPM210 raised by OPC |
SPT-793 | Compare documents - "change" attribute showing up in PDFs | Lawmaker feedback LPM211 raised by OPC |
SPT-796 | Inserted SI text is formatted incorrectly and throwing out line numbering | Lawmaker feedback LPM213 raised by Lords |
SPT-802 / SPT-804 | A fix to the issue whereby a document couldn't be seen on the 'Project' tab by some users | Raised by OPC |
SPT-820 | Auto-opening of dropdown menus on the 'Create new project' and 'share version' dialogue boxes | N/A |