Hi Dan,

Why is highlighting/annotations not supported? That's a very essential function in my regard, and the tools provided by Zotero are good but can be improved.

Why are they are not synced?
Will the changes done by a third party highlighting tool, synced by zotero?

Will Zotero still support this functionalit (highlichting/annotations) in the future?


Thanks for all your answers.

thanks!

I have tested several highlighting applications for websites.
So far I can say that in their functionality every single one of them is virtually identical to zotero's built-in highlighting function.

They simply modify the website's html code inside the browser to change the background colour of the text.

I also noticed that in every single case it is possible to sync the highlightings to the zotero server, but you have to create a new snapshot of the page and replace the older snapshot in your library. This works with the built-in highlighting function as well!

The problem is not the functionality of the highlighting function itself. The problem is simply that zotero does not allow to comfortably save and overwrite website-snapshots in its harddisk database.

If it did, the highlightings in the html-code would be synchronized like every other document.

I think this save-function deserves a separate feature request.

The problem is simply that zotero does not allow to comfortably save and overwrite website-snapshots in its harddisk database.

Not sure what you mean by that. Snapshots are just files on disk, not in the database. If the highlighting program saves the highlights to the original HTML file and updates its modification time on disk, Zotero will sync the changes.

Soo... no comment? From no one?

Bottom line is: We need a save-button that overwrites the existing file.
The concept itself seems simple, how about implementation?

The function itself isn't particularly unusual. All it does is save the the displayed html file, just like with any other document type. The nature of the changes isn't important either. If I felt like changing the contents of the site via Firebug those changes would be saved too.

Since Zotero's own highlighting function does nothing else than editing html code in-browser, using external tools won't even be necessary.

It would be great if the highlighting function would be supported again

Would it be possible to add an autosave feature? Each time the user highlights or annotates the snapshot, the html file would be re-saved.

This should probably be part of the annotation plugin and not Zotero. If it were part of Zotero it would also introduce more inconsistencies between Firefox and Chrome/Safari. IMO Zotero should take a similar stance on HTML annotation as it does on PDF annotation/viewing. Allow the end-user to decide what he wants to use. Zotero can make recommendations, but since there is minimal (if any) integration between HTML annotation and Zotero (besides, perhaps, pulling out annotated text), pretty much any annotation plugin that saves annotations in the same HTML file, or even folder, should work.

The way the current integrated annotation plugin works right now is a bit weird. As RaVik points out, the highlighting works by modifying the HTML directly, so saving the HTML file in the same directory and overwriting the old file would be a very simple solution. However, the actual annotations (i.e. the notes you attach) are not saved inside the HTML file, nor are they saved as additional files in that directory. They are saved internally by Zotero as they get inserted, which is why the annotations are persistent but do not sync.

Anyway, as I said, I think the annotation plugin should not be integrated with Zotero. Annotator plugin looks like a promising open source annotation solution that could be tweaked to fit Zotero's needs. It could be offered as a simple bookmarklet (if it isn't already) after decoupling it from the storage backend. The only issue then becomes saving the pages.

I'm not sure saving pages automatically is a great idea anyway, since I don't see any "undo" functionality in these plugins. Saving manually should not be a big deal, except that (at least for me) saving a page defaults to my Downloads directory instead of the location where the page was served from (would make sense for a local file, IMO). That's somewhat a big problem, which I'm not sure that it will be solvable, but I'll investigate further.

As a non-technical user, but one who has been using Zotero religiously for about 3 years, i just want to add my voice to the mix of those calling for some kind of annotation tool for webpages.

I have used it super-extensively and have tons of saved webpage snapshots.

I think it could also be helpful to think about the er, philosophical side of this :

Given the realities of the information age, where more and more info comes at us in the form of webpages (ie, not simply books, PDF articles, etc.), i think there's a huge case to be made for being able to mark up and save "information" from webpages. Zotero has been a way to better digest information, as opposed to always feeling like all past webpages i've visited i've got to re-digest (ie, re-read) each time i return.

Some ex's of how i've used the annotation tool might be worth noting (and i'd humbly suggest these could be new selling points for Zotero--eg, "Digest the information age w/Zotero by tracking anything you see, download or read on the internet"):

-As someone who has been involved in analyzing public policy to various degrees, i mark up online articles and save them often (a purpose that extends to the many kinds of online articles i read)

-When investigating PhD programs previously, i marked up many a detailed set of admissions criteria, professors' specialties, etc.

-As a part of an NIH-funded grant now, i've marked up health-related webpages to better understand symptoms and other characteristics of the type 1 diabetes disease we're focusing on

I highly-value Zotero and am considering paying for extended storage, but this may be a deal-breaker for going paid vs. not honestly.

Thanks for the consideration and all the great work you all do--i do appreciate that Zotero is engaging w/users like this regardless of what happens

Annotation tool (text marker) was extremly helpfull and the main reason for using Zotero for me. To bad that it is gone away.

I second Hans' point, as the annotation tool was a highly-unique way to remember and note what i've seen online, without having to re-read whole websites the next time i visit them--and was one of the main reasons i used Zotero as well

my understanding is that Zotero would definitely like to bring annotations back - they were there in the first place because people thought they were a good idea - but there is currently no one working on it and it won't happen any time soon unless someone else submits a patch, which would of course be very welcome (remember that any 3rd party tool to be included in Zotero needs to come with a GPL3 compatible license).

Hi, I'd like to add my voice to those asking for this feature to be restored.

I've created a bug report about it here: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/435

Cheers.

Zotero didn't delete any annotations. You just cannot add new ones and they have never synced.

I don't understand - that's what ZotFile does already.