[humanities-dev] Possible extensions of Textus; Looking for collaborators

Wed Feb 20 17:33:48 UTC 2013

Dear Sam,

Thanks! Unfortunately I couldn't make 5pm GMT (I'm in Boston), but I'll try
to make it next week. Thanks for inviting me!

I'm currently focusing on integration with content hosted on other websites
(inspired by thepund.it, but less versatile and focused more on
linking/annotating). A screenshot:
http://abelcorver.com/files/emails/ibtp_screenshot_20022013.png

I could transform this toolbar to be a more generic Textus toolbar. The way
I imagine it is that documents could be displayed in the Textus interface
when possible (e.g. text format, pdf format), but that the toolbar would
appear when the user navigates to an external webpage

A couple of questions:

(1) Do you think we could merge the functionality I have in mind with
Textus, or would I only be building things "on top"?

(2) Right now comments are displayed in the right sidebar. Is there any
chance we could restructure the code not to need a sidebar div, but instead
to allow annotations to "float" on the right or left side of the screen?
This would enable the use of this system on external webpages and make the
system more versatile.

(3) Could the current comment system be migrated to AnnotateIt.org, which
I'm currently using? The only thing that it is lacking right now is the
ability to annotate "overlapping" pieces of text, but adding this
functionality would be a valuable addition. It already has a great plugin
system, so it should be easy to extend it to support source-to-source
linking.

(4) These questions all amount to the same idea - and please tell me what
you think: I think it would be great if the two functionalities of Textus -
storing texts & facilitating discussion - could be separated. Projects like
<http://openlibrary.org/> already hosts a lot of sources, so if we could
make the Textus interface run 'on top of' such services - e.g. with a
toolbar - which would expand the user base enormously.

Another thing that Textus provides is structured metadata about internet
resources - currently stored on the Textus server, but I imagine it could
come from other places like OpenLibrary. E.g. OpenLibrary already does this
for their own sources, but content hosted on individual webpages, say
UN.org, are not indexed. Textus could maintain a database of metadata -
title, author, etc - on all these different sources.

I think these changes retain the basis of Textus, while focusing its
qualities on the places where there are currently no other services. I'm
curious to hear what you think.

I'm really excited about the project! Can't wait to talk to you next week!

Best,
Abel.

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 5:04 AM, Sam Leon <sam.leon at okfn.org> wrote:

> Dear Abel,
>
> Wow this is so exciting!
>
> I'm sure many of the features that you mention above could be built on top
> of the existing TEXTUS codebase. If you haven't already do check out the
> TEXTUS documentation:
> https://github.com/OpenHumanities/textus/tree/master/docs
>
> It would be great to discuss your ideas further on our weekly Open
> Humanities Hangout. There are often devs there working on similar projects
> who should be able to help you and get to grips with the feasibility of
> building what you want on top of TEXTUS.
>
> The Hangouts take place virtually at 5pm GMT every Wednesday.
>
> Does that sound like something you would be able to join?
>
> All the best,
> Sam
>
>
> On 14 February 2013 19:50, Abel Corver <acorver at college.harvard.edu>wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> For some time I've been working on an online project that will allow
>> people to collaboratively research sources relating to government policies,
>> as well as related documents. These sources could range from UN
>> resolutions, ICJ decisions, World Bank reports, government legislative
>> records, etcetera. Furthermore, all annotations, highlights, etc., will be
>> open to all other viewers.
>>
>> The system will support highlighting, annotation, but most importantly
>> the linking of 'evidence' in source A - e.g. a report by the Congressional
>> Research Service - to a 'claim' in source B - e.g. a speech by a
>> politician. Other viewers will be able to vote on the quality of these
>> 'links'.
>>
>> A new visitor of the website will thus get a good picture of the accuracy
>> of certain sources, and can easily access the 'supporting' sources if
>> he/she is interested.
>>
>> Until now I was unaware of Textus, and I'm excited that there seems to be
>> a lot of overlap with my project. A number of things that I would be
>> interested in adding are:
>>
>> - Support for source formats other than text, i.e. PDF (I'm already
>> working on a free pdf-to-html conversion server), HTML, Audio, Video
>>
>> - Automatic indexing and conversion of large databases of documents and
>> reports from governments, international organizations like the UN, Red
>> Cross, IMF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, news articles,
>> public books (e.g. Google Books, Gutenberg), etc.
>>
>> - a voting and search mechanism to prevent an overload of links &
>> annotations for the user.
>>
>> - support for news articles, and possibly integration with the browser so
>> that if a user visits a news website, annotations are automatically
>> displayed.
>>
>> Could these features be built on top of Textus? Or would it be more
>> appropriate to make this into a completely seperate platform?
>>
>> Are any of you interested in participating?
>>
>> I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
>>
>> Best,
>> Abel Corver.
>>
>> P.S. A work-in-progress wiki can be found here:
>> http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~ibtp/devwiki/
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Sam Leon
> Project Manager
> Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://okfn.org/
> Skype: samedleon
>
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