[annotator-dev] Annotator

Fri Jul 22 10:10:37 UTC 2011

Hi Charles,

At the moment we don't have plans to write a PHP backend so if you
were interested in doing so that would be great (it would also likely
force us to beef up the spec for backends -- we have something of a
spec already but no doubt some of the spec is still 'the
implementation').

At the same time, this may not be necessary (depending on the degree
of control you want). As with disqus for comments, annotateit could be
used as the storage service for annotations. Given the rich API you
can probably get most of what you want in your system via integration
with the API (I note, for example, that things like Wordpress and
Drupal both have plugins that allow you to 'outsource' comments to
disqus while retaining much of the admin panels etc in Wordpress or
Drupal).

Which option you choose depends on how much you want to have the
annotations stored locally on your system (and the cost of maintaining
the storage system locally going forward).

Rufus

On 21 July 2011 14:30, Aron Carroll <aron.carroll.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Charles,
>
> It's great to hear that you're interested in using the annotator
> within your website.
>
> I don't think there are currently any intentions to build a PHP
> backend for the annotator however I certainly agree that it would be
> extremely useful to have especially for those looking to get up and
> running quickly.
>
> We've been working on improving the documentation for the annotator
> store but getting a basic backend up and running should be relatively
> simple. If you're looking to build you own backend some good places to
> start would be the wiki for the store plugin
> (http://github.com/okfn/annotator/wiki/Store-Plugin) which describes
> the endpoints required and the actual annotation format is described
> here, http://github.com/okfn/annotator/wiki/Annotation-format.
>
> I've copied the annotator-dev mailing list in on this message incase
> anyone else wants to chip in and feel free to drop me (and the list)
> an email if you have further questions.
>
> Cheers,
> Aron
>
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Charles Seale <seale61 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Greetings Aron,
>>
>> My name is Charles Seale and I am the developer for a site called
>> coursedocs.com, an AJAX Web application that allows college writing courses
>> to be taught online using a real-world classroom workflow model and stores
>> all data (papers) on the server (in the cloud).  The only real shortcoming
>> of our product is peer and teacher commenting on student papers.  Your
>> annotator script/program is an ideal solution to our problem (it's a
>> beautiful piece of work by the way)  The problem is that our app is written
>> in PHP using a MySql database, and Annotator is Python with an sqlite.  I
>> was wondering if any plans were in the works for a PHP backend.  If not, I
>> would be willing to give it a shot, if for no other reason than to better
>> incorporate Annotator into our Web application (giving you proper credit of
>> course), but also to make Annotator more accessible to the many Web
>> applications that, like ours, are PHP based.  I would really like to get
>> your thoughts on this, and wonder if you would be interested in a PHP branch
>> for Annotator.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Charles Seale
>> seale61 at gmail.com
>> charles at coursedocs.com
>> +1 205 454-9181
>
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