[annotator-dev] To Web Annotation (from Annotator 2.x)

Thu Jul 30 16:25:21 UTC 2015

On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Ben Leinfelder <leinfelder at nceas.ucsb.edu>
wrote:

> Hi Benjamin,
> I haven’t been following 2.x development closely, but I thought supporting
> an Open Annotation model natively was on the TODO list for AnnotatorJS.
> Sure enough, the road map lists it -
> http://docs.annotatorjs.org/en/latest/roadmap.html
>         - Internal data model consistent with Open Annotation
>         - A (beta-quality) storage component that speaks OA JSON-LD
>
> Pretty sure that got pushed back to target a later release though that
> decision is not yet reflected in the roadmap. Getting Open/Web annotation
> models from AnnotatorJS is one of the features I really really want from
> 2.x, so I’m wondering how your plugin conversion work relates to the goals
> on the 2.x roadmap?
>

It's that goal done as a plugin, basically. :)

I actually extracted the conversion code from this storage plugin project:
https://github.com/bigbluehat/annotator-pouchdb/tree/web-annotation

PouchDB (and CouchDB) are "just" JSON document stores with no JSON-LD
"smarts" (without extension anyhow). However, you can see from that code
that the plugin is basically just running the conversion during storage and
retrieval...nothing more.

In theory, if this piece can indeed be made to be this common, it could be
hooked into a storage plugin (as I've done) or put in as it's own plugin
that converts the annotations whenever they're JSON'd.

One thing to note from this is that Annotator 2.0's model is nearly
compatible already with Web Annotation.

The one piece un-expressable (so far) is the XPath ranges--which is work
needed on the W3C Working Group's end...which is also on my list to ask
about. ;)

If you've got experience with Open/Web Annotation Data Model, I'd *love*
help on this project. Especially if you've got experience with a "smarter"
JSON-LD-loving storage provider, so we can see if this "un-smart"
conversion at storage time thing could actually provide what's necessary.

Any and all thoughts are welcome. :)

Cheers!
Benjamin
--
Developer Advocate
http://hypothes.is/

>
> Thanks,
> -ben
>
>
> > On Jul 30, 2015, at 7:54 AM, Benjamin Young <bigbluehat at hypothes.is>
> wrote:
> >
> > I've been working on some (deliberately very) basic conversion code to
> turn Annotator 2.x JSON output into Web Annotation Data Model.
> >
> > Here's what I've got so far:
> >
> > http://bigbluehat.github.io/to-web-annotation/
> >
> >
> > Code lives at:
> >
> > https://github.com/BigBlueHat/to-web-annotation
> > The hope is to build the SimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork to move
> Annotator JSON docs into the wide world of Web Annotation.
> >
> > I've posted more JSON-LD related thoughts to the W3C list (which is
> public for anyone to join FYI!):
> > https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-annotation/2015Jul/0225.html
> >
> > It'd be great to hear thoughts on this project and approach from the
> Annotator side.
> >
> > The slightly longer term objective is to make this conversion (once I'm
> sure it's correct/working well) available as an Annotator plugin for use
> with storage providers that "speak" Web Annotation.
> >
> > Feedback welcome!
> > Benjamin
> > --
> > Developer Advocate
> > http://hypothes.is/
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>
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