Annotator Instructions

Insert a note: (check the "note" box)
Choose text to annotate from the document in the right-hand frame. Your note will appear as a marker at the end of the text you select. Highlight the text with the mouse, and copy it: CTRL-C (or Mac Command-C). Paste the selection into the "Note placement" box on the Annotation screen: CTRL-V (or Mac Command-V). Because the computer will place your note marker based on this text, it is important that you copy the text precisely. The selection should be unique in the document -- since the marker is placed at the end, select more text if you are unsure.

Type your note into the text box or cut and paste this from another application. You may include HTML, but faulty HTML may cause the note to display incorrectly.

Insert a link: (check the "link" box)
Follow the above procedure for selecting text and copy it to the second "Note placement" box. A link marker in the document will link to another web page. Type or copy the complete URL of the page you want to link into the "link to" box.

General Information:

The Annotation Master uses frames: The document to be marked is displayed on the right side of the screen, and annotations are displayed on the left. The hyperlinked [text] in the annotation screen calls up the marked page at the point to which the note refers. Clicking the note markers in the document will call the corresponding note.

You can resize the reading and annotation by grabbing the bar between them and dragging it right or left. The annotation display is most effective at a screen resolution of at least 800 x 600 pixels. The back button should work correctly in recent versions of Netscape, Internet Explorer, and other browsers. If you are using an older browser, right clicking in a frame will allow you to go back within the frame.

You may add annotations to the document you are reading by clicking the Annotate hyperlink in the bottom bar. In place of the notes screen, you will get a form in which to add your notes or comments. If your new annotation is displayed when you hit the "Submit" button, it has been entered. You may have to hit "reload" before it appears in the window.

Background on the Annotation Engine and its Perl source code are also available. The Annotation Engine takes inspiration from the CritLink Mediator.

This stuff is still an early release. Barring the project being "embraced and extended" by your favorite software company, however, please give me your feedback and bug reports. Although the Master tries to fix all graphics and relative links in the pages it serves, it may not always be successful. If you encounter a problem page, please send me the URL.

--Wendy