The Annotations Service

The Annotations Service is a mozdev-hosted, open source XPCOM component for the Mozilla web browser. It provides a simple, yet powerful interface that allows any Mozilla application to create and manage Annotea-compliant annotations. By handling the complexities of client-side annotations--communication with multiple annotations servers, RDF manipulation, local annotations storage -- the Annotations Service makes it easy to use annotations in Mozilla applications.

This talk will begin by showing the Annotations Service at work in a client with which it interfaces, Annozilla. Through Annozilla we will demonstrate the common requirements for using annotations, including such tasks as loading, creating, deleting, and replying to annotations. Next, we will show how the Service fulfills these common requirements. We'll look at the interface between the Service and it's client applications. Additionally, we'll take a look under the hood, at the architecture of the service and how data flows internally.

To close the talk, we will explain how to use the annotations service to add annotations to any Mozilla-based client. As time permits, we will explain how several other technologies assist in this process, including the mozdev project XPointerLib, and the open source Zope Annotation Server.

Doug Daniels
co-developer for Annozilla, XPointerLib, and Annotations Service (in development/testing at annozilla)