Taking highlights from Wikipedia?

Davidal
Is it possible to highlight selections in Wikipedia article and import that into Zotero?
  • Davidal
    I came across this in the documentation. What 3rd party tools do they mean that can do this...
    https://www.zotero.org/support/screencast_tutorials/annotation
  • adamsmith
    Hypothes.is might be one option:
    https://web.hypothes.is/
  • Davidal
    @adamsmith Nice. But I take it that the annotations made by 3rd party cannot be imported to Zotero.

    "Third-party tools can be used to annotate and highlight web pages before saving them to Zotero."

    Probably best thing to do would be go to the website, eg Wikipedia, and select>highlight>copy the bits you want and make a note in Zotero, also snapshot the webpage.
  • bwiernik
    (The idea would be to import a snapshot of the third-party annotated page to Zotero, rather than the original page.)
  • Davidal
    Aha, thanks @bwiernik
  • adamsmith
    that's not how most html annotation tools work, though -- mostly data is saved to a different file or, in the case of Hypothes.is, Genius, etc., on a server, so saving the annotated file to Zotero wouldn't work very well (or rather: it wouldn't sync).

    I've talked to Hypothes.is about writing a tool that pulls annotations into Zotero -- at a technical level that's pretty easy to do, but time is scarce...

  • Davidal
    @bwiernik
    Somehow it isn't working for me. I have created a Hypothes.is account.

    Highlighted a random bit, see here
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5jonaezdsqsrj1/highlight.PNG?dl=0

    but when taken snapshot, it's w/o annotations
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/x6qr1vlobfr5j6h/non-highlight.PNG?dl=0
  • Davidal
    P.S. I realised that I had the setting "only me" on, so I changed it but still the snapshot is devoid of annotations
  • bwiernik
    I was mistake about how Hypohes.is works (I assumed it worked similarly other tools/browser extensions I’d previously used—couldn’t say what those were). See adamsmith’s comment above.
  • Davidal
    edited October 18, 2017
    No problem, bwiernik. From adam's comment and my test I take it doens't work unless integrated on code level, which has not happened yet.
  • adamsmith
    It actually kind of works in Wikipedia (for those interested in the technology: because Wikipedia has a rel="canonical" link on every page) but you need to
    a) actually fire up the hypothesis tool on the snapshot which
    b) only work using the bookmarklet, not the Chrome extension

    So the order of steps would be:
    1. Make annotations on the page
    2. Save page with snapshot in Zotero
    3. Open snapshot in your browser
    4. Use the hypothesis bookmarklet to see the annotation (and make further annotations)

    Given the way Wikipedia is coded, this annotation will travel wherever the site is, whether it's synced to a different computer or whether you're online on Wikipedia.
  • Davidal
    Fairplay to you man! Seriosuly kudos for the time and effort. But no thanks, it involves too many steps and besides it isn't exactly what I want. I think taking parts if Wiki page into clipboard and making a note in Zotero will be the finest, accompanied by a snapshop. Thanks again.
  • LPassenger
    Just leaving a +1 vote for a web annotations that could be pulled directly into zotero @adamsmith
  • cheflo
    I opened a new thread here to track discussions around the development of webpage annotations and potential current workarounds https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/89301/feature-request-add-annotations-for-web-pages

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