Not active by default

[fikriauliya]

I use Chrome extension. Every time I want to see the annotations, I have to click Hypothes.is Chrome's button first:

Only after clicking that, the annotations and the sidebar appear.

Is it intended behavior (why?) or bug?

[robertknight]

Hello @fikriauliya - Yes, this is the intended behaviour. @dwhly perhaps you might know the thinking behind this default?

[katrinleinweber]

Please do explain this intention. The sidebar sliding away upon every click onto the page or PDF that is being annotated easily doubles the number of clicks for me. Esp. when I'm not the first annotator, I often want to switch between reading, highlighting something myself, appending an annotation to my highlight and reading other people's annotation.

Please consider adding an option (maybe pin button) to keep the sidebar open.

[dwhly]

I think there are two conversations happening here.

Every time I want to see the annotations, I have to click Hypothes.is Chrome's button first.

At present yes, if you turn on the sidebar, by clicking the extension icon, it will stay active on that tab, and for any subsequent pages you browse to on that tab. That decision was made because we felt generally that people were enabling the annotation capability selectively and we didn't want to have to force it on them for all pages. We could make this behavior configurable, but we also long ago made a decision to focus on the optimal default behaviors and to skip config heavy admin capabilities. We're always open to feedback about what people want however.

The sidebar sliding away upon every click onto the page or PDF that is being annotated easily doubles the number of clicks for me

This is a separate issue. Many have asked for a way to "pin" the sidebar open, and even to have it not "cover the page" but be side-by-side. This is a frequent request and one that we should prioritize.

@dawariley ^

[lkraav]

This is a separate issue. Many have asked for a way to "pin" the sidebar open, and even to have it not "cover the page" but be side-by-side. This is a frequent request and one that we should prioritize.

Hi. This is also my first reaction after getting familiar with the workflow.

I don't see a "pin to top" feature issue in the open or closed list. Would it make sense to open one?

[klemay]

See also: https://github.com/hypothesis/product-backlog/issues/94

[klemay]

Request for this came in via Chrome webstore today - tracked here: https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/3270

[klemay]

Another request: https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/3280

[judell]

@klemay One reason to be opt-in on a per-tab basis, vs active by default, is that the H app can conflict with key productivity tools like Slack and Gmail. (That's still a problem if you load Slack or Gmail into a tab where H is active.)

[klemay]

Agreed! Seems like a happy medium could be a configurable option, maybe with the ability to whitelist/blacklist certain sites?

[judell]

https://github.com/hypothesis/product-backlog/issues/175 considers that possibility, but also notes that it'd be ideal to not have to do blacklisting, but rather work out why we conflict with certain sites and solve that.

[klemay]

Another request for this came over the weekend: https://twitter.com/nicknikolov/status/1071768432830492679

[eeril]

+1 for this request.

I use hypothesis to take notes a lot and I want it to be active-by-default.

[klemay]

Hey everyone, this isn't something we're likely to work on soon, as we have lots of other roadmap items to tackle. I did want to mention, though, that you might look into an extensions manager like Extensity to accomplish this for Hypothesis and any other extension you may have installed.

Some of you may already be doing this, but thought I'd say something in case you hadn't tried it!

[neongreen]

I would love the ability to make Chrome extension active by default.

"We also long ago made a decision to focus on the optimal default behaviors and to skip config heavy admin capabilities" makes sense as well, though.

@klemay Can Extensity actually activate the H extension? It doesn't look like it can, or at least I haven't found how to accomplish this. It can enable/disable the extension, but that's different.

[klemay]

We continue to get feature requests for this, and some brief internal testing shows that the extension doesn't cause major conflict with tools like Slack and Gmail.

There's still this issue mentioned by Dan above:

we felt generally that people were enabling the annotation capability selectively and we didn't want to have to force it on them for all pages. We could make this behavior configurable, but we also long ago made a decision to focus on the optimal default behaviors and to skip config heavy admin capabilities.

I think it's unlikely that we'll add more config options to the extension any time soon, as we're heavily focused on the LMS app at the moment. However, when we do get to a place where we can focus on the extension, this will be a good candidate.

[neongreen]

Btw, what is the LMS app?

[klemay]

@neongreen our LMS app brings Hypothesis into LTI-compliant Learning Management Systems like Canvas, Blackboard, etc. More info on that here: https://web.hypothes.is/education/

Edit: Dropped the wrong link above at first. That's been fixed now.

[ykessler]

I'd like to add my vote for this feature!

we felt generally that people were enabling the annotation capability selectively and we didn't want to have to force it on them for all pages. We could make this behavior configurable, but we also long ago made a decision to focus on the optimal default behaviors and to skip config heavy admin capabilities.

Couple notes on this:

• While optimal default behaviors are always good, if the behaviors are not configurable then they're not 'default' behaviors, they're the only behavior. Moreover adding some basic configuration options in no way detracts from the default user experience- it just enables particular users to get more out of the tool.
• Please consider also that if someone has already taken the time to add their own annotations to a particular webpage, then the logical default behavior for that page should be to automatically show those annotations whenever I load it. In other words, you may want to have different behavior for pages depending on whether they do or don't already have highlights/annotations.

I understand your team is focused on other things, but please consider this feature when you can, as this one setting would be a big improvement. Thanks!

[woodgear]

vote +1

[luchaoqi]

vote +1. I would recommend Weava for anyone who wants this feature.

[desiringsubjects]

Vote ++1 ((it pains me that such an option- isn't available)) This "off by default" issue has kept me from truly using the app for years. I've tried setting complicated keyboard maestro shortcuts to fix this myself. Is there anything else I can do about it? PLEASE CONSIDER

[jussihuotari]

Curious why the security/privacy is not mentioned on this issue? Perhaps I'm missing something?

Anyway, from security perspective it sounds very good that the extension is off by default. Like you know, it says on install: The extension "can read and change all your data on the websites that you visit"

That's a strong authorization for any piece of software, especially for a browser extension when many people use a browser to access email, private messaging, photos, online banks, etc.

[JJJHolscher]

vote += 1 Using Extensity for automatically activating hypothesis did not work for me on brave. Mapping a shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+Y conflicted with nothing for me) for opening the extension at chrome://extensions/shortcuts alleviates some pain, but this doesn't work in app windows.

[boehs]

I'd just like to share that most articles contain

<meta property="og:type" content="article">

In their header, for embeds in various websites like twitter. Hypothesis could check for this, and if it is present, activate (based on an option, probably). IMO this is a happy medium of not being annoying everywhere, while anticipating user intent often.

would a pr to https://github.com/hypothesis/client to add this be accepted?

[JJJHolscher]

I'm perfectly willing to hack something together to get this feature, but I'm unfamiliar with the hypothes.is client so if anyone could give me pointers I would appreciate it. Until then, you could consider paying for memex which does provides this option. (Without necessarily cluttering the side of the screen with an annotation bar.)