[okfn-discuss] Open-Source Annotation Toolkit for Inline, Online Web Annotation

Fri Nov 12 12:00:24 UTC 2010

Hi All,

I've just put up a announce about a new 'annotator' library for inline
online web annotation we've been working on for open shakespeare for
the last year or so:

<http://okfn.org/projects/annotator/>
<http://blog.okfn.org/2010/11/12/open-source-annotation-toolkit-for-inline-online-web-annotation/>

Regards,

Rufus

## Excerpt

In collaboration with Nick Stenning, I've been developing an annotator
project [annotator] to create a new, simple javascript (+ backend)
library for web-annotation. Our main goals were (and are):

  * **Annotation of *arbitrary* text ranges**
  * **Annotate** any web (html) document
  * **Easy to use** -- 2 lines of javascript to insert this in your
web page/app etc
  * **Well-factored and library-structured** -- easy to integrate and
easy to extend

Nick's has been responsible for writing all of the frontend (i.e. the
annotation stuff you actually see!) while I've developed the backend
annotation store.

The system is completely app-agnostic and is incredibly easy to use --
adding annotation to your web page only requires one line of jquery
javascript (assuming a backend is set up):

>     $('#your-element-id').annotator()

**Interested?** Below are links to project information including the
source code and docs and mailing list. We're especially eager to get
feedback from those looking to integrate into other apps or who would
like to help develop the library features.

### Project Info

  * [Official project home page][annotator]
  * [Mailing list](http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-help)
  * Email us directly at *annotator [at] okfn [dot] org*.

### Source code

  * Javascript library: <http://github.com/nickstenning/annotator>
[docs](https://github.com/nickstenning/annotator/blob/master/README.markdown)
  * Backend: <http://github.com/nickstenning/annotator-py-store>
[docs](https://github.com/nickstenning/annotator-py-store/blob/master/README.markdown)
    * SQL + Python backend
    * Alpha couchdb backend

### Features

  * Open JSON-REST annotation protocol - simple JSON and REST-based
  * Javascript (jquery-based) library for inserting inline annotations
in a given document supporting this protocol
  * One or more backends implementing this protocol (emphasis on
backends that are easy to deploy using standard tools e.g. using sql
database or couchdb)
  * Really simple: just do (jquery-esqe) $('myelement').annotator() to
get up and running
  * Fast even on large documents
  * Support of multiple users
  * Pluggable backends