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by javamonn 1891 days ago
Though not textual annotation, some of my favorite recent examples of the value of annotation have been NYT's Close Read series [0], in which they annotate works of visual art as part of communicating an idea or narrative. In some ways it feels like a museum tour or lecture, but more precise (can really call out specific aspects deserving focus, literally _zooming in_ the browser window) and yet also more broad (can easily change subjects, display new visual aids).

I'm currently working on a textual annotation product, Literal [1]. It's open source and implements the W3C Web Annotation spec [2] natively (Yes, there's a web spec for this kind of thing!). You can see a 1m video of how it works here [3]. It's currently Android-only but if you found this article interesting and / or find yourself wishing you could annotate or save bits of text that you read, I'd love to connect with you!

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/column/close-read

[1] https://literal.io/

[2] https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH1ukQY3Ia8
1 comments
dejj 1891 days ago
Are there other viewers for the W3C annotation model you can recommend? Literal is not on F-Droid, and only displays a login screen.

I'm a big fan of static type analysis and code surfing, and that extends to book margin notes and indexes somehow.

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javamonn 1890 days ago
It's unfortunately not a widely supported spec. hypothes.is [0] is the most widely used desktop client, but they don't have a mobile client, and as of last time I checked they don't actually use the data model internally, they just expose a Web Annotation API.

I've heard you loud on clear on the feedback on Literal. I'll have a release out to make sign-in optional in the coming weeks and will follow up here once it's released. I'd be happy to create you some guest credentials in the meantime as well, shoot me an email if you're interested.

I wasn't aware of F-Droid but just created an issue to track publishing releases there here [1]. I'm not sure the inclusion timeline on their side but the work on my side should fast follow guest auth support.

Edit: to clarify _why_ authentication is currently required - the username is used as a primary key on associated data (e.g. annotations), and since I'm actively working on this, I try to personally reach out to everyone via email in order to solicit feedback. You can view the privacy here [2]. I'll move to support an optional auth flow regardless.

[0] https://web.hypothes.is/

[1] https://github.com/literal-io/literal/issues/80

[2] https://literal.io/policies/privacy

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