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bengalih · 10-22-2023, 07:36 PM

I'm enjoying Calibre, it is clear it has a lot of great development behind it.
One thing that I wish was developed more is annotations. I would say this is the case with almost every single product out there and Calibre, like the others has good features and bad in this department.

I would like to use Hypothes.is annotations with Calibre because it was developed specifically for that purpose and has some advantages that Calibre does not. However it will not work with the Calibre Content server embedded viewer.

In short, https://hypothes.is is a platform which uses an open standard to make annotations on epub, pdf, html content. It is cross platform and highly adapted to collaboration. It uses a javascript library and an open standard.

I think the problems are two-fold:

Calibre has it's own javascript for annotations/highlights
Book content appears to be rendered in a frame. I'm not sure that this is even the case (see calibre-web comment below)

I think #2 can be solved fairly easily if an option is added to enable hypothes.is within the frame (again, this may not even be needed?).

#1 might be a big more complex, but I think an option can probably be added to the viewer which in effect enables hypothes.is and in doing so also disables the built-in annotations.

I'm posting this in hopes that the developer might consider something like this, or if I am best served finding another solution to serve up my ebooks. I have tried calibre-web and I am able to do what I need there, however I find the Calibre Content Server superior even to Calibre Web (despite the latter focusing on that, I think Calibre does it better).

Or, perhaps there is another way to get this working from the client side that I am overlooking.

I really think it would be a huge bonus to allow Calibre users to integrate this feature and I believe that to someone familiar with the Calibre code it is probably not a huge integration (I could be wrong!).

For example, using Hypothes.is would automatically give Calibre the ability to share annotations between users and libraries and even completely different installations. Would be less prone to some sort of issue in a library, etc. It seems that the effort to get this working would be much less trying to develop the same type of functionality internally.

I am not capable enough to do this myself, but I would certainly give it a shot, especially if I had any other coders who might want to assist and if the Devs would welcome this functionality?

Here is some relevant info I think to getting it to work (as well as some examples of how it can work):

https://web.hypothes.is/blog/epub-annotation/
https://web.hypothes.is/help/embeddi...and-platforms/
https://web.archive.org/web/20221108...framed-content

10-22-2023, 07:36 PM	#1
bengalih Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2023 Device: smartphone	Hypothes.is support I'm enjoying Calibre, it is clear it has a lot of great development behind it. One thing that I wish was developed more is annotations. I would say this is the case with almost every single product out there and Calibre, like the others has good features and bad in this department. I would like to use Hypothes.is annotations with Calibre because it was developed specifically for that purpose and has some advantages that Calibre does not. However it will not work with the Calibre Content server embedded viewer. In short, https://hypothes.is is a platform which uses an open standard to make annotations on epub, pdf, html content. It is cross platform and highly adapted to collaboration. It uses a javascript library and an open standard. I think the problems are two-fold: Calibre has it's own javascript for annotations/highlights Book content appears to be rendered in a frame. I'm not sure that this is even the case (see calibre-web comment below) I think #2 can be solved fairly easily if an option is added to enable hypothes.is within the frame (again, this may not even be needed?). #1 might be a big more complex, but I think an option can probably be added to the viewer which in effect enables hypothes.is and in doing so also disables the built-in annotations. I'm posting this in hopes that the developer might consider something like this, or if I am best served finding another solution to serve up my ebooks. I have tried calibre-web and I am able to do what I need there, however I find the Calibre Content Server superior even to Calibre Web (despite the latter focusing on that, I think Calibre does it better). Or, perhaps there is another way to get this working from the client side that I am overlooking. I really think it would be a huge bonus to allow Calibre users to integrate this feature and I believe that to someone familiar with the Calibre code it is probably not a huge integration (I could be wrong!). For example, using Hypothes.is would automatically give Calibre the ability to share annotations between users and libraries and even completely different installations. Would be less prone to some sort of issue in a library, etc. It seems that the effort to get this working would be much less trying to develop the same type of functionality internally. I am not capable enough to do this myself, but I would certainly give it a shot, especially if I had any other coders who might want to assist and if the Devs would welcome this functionality? Here is some relevant info I think to getting it to work (as well as some examples of how it can work): https://web.hypothes.is/blog/epub-annotation/ https://web.hypothes.is/help/embeddi...and-platforms/ https://web.archive.org/web/20221108...framed-content Last edited by bengalih; 10-22-2023 at 07:38 PM.