SWAD-Europe Deliverable 12.2.1: RDF-based annotation system readme

Project name:
Semantic Web Advanced Development for Europe (SWAD-Europe)
Project Number:
IST-2001-34732
Workpackage name:
12.2. Annotations demonstrator
Workpackage description:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/plan/workpackages/live/esw-wp-12.2.html
Deliverable title:
12.2.1 Annotation Demo Single Schema
URI:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/annotation_demo_single_schema/
Authors:
Charles McCathieNevile, W3C
Abstract:
This document provides basic information about the Annotea tools developed as part of work package 12.2 of the SWAD-Europe project.
Status:

First version published 2002-12-03. This is a completed report, last updated 2003-06-06.
This document may be updated during the life of the SWAD-Europe project to reflect or link to further developments in this area.

Comments on this document are welcome and should be sent to the public-esw@w3.org list, archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-esw/. General discussion of annotation techniques and especially Annotea should be sent to the W3C Annotation list www-annotation@w3.org, archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-annotation/

Summary

This document provides basic information about the Annotea tools developed as part of work package 12.2 of the SWAD-Europe project.

The tools are written as ruby programs, and are available for re-use or adaptation under the terms of the W3C software license. Unless otherwise noted these tools have been tested against the W3C experimental annotea service, and against Brent Hendricks' Zope-based server. Currently available are the following:

annoget.rb
This tool retrieves annotation information from the specified server, optionally using a supplied username and pasword. It returns the information as XML/RDF.
annomake.rb
Creates the RDF to be posted for an annotation, given URI's which point to the object to e annotated and the annotation itself. Optional parameters are a creator (the script defaults to a creator of "anonymous coward" - a standard phrase in annotation systems which record provenance) and the type of annotation (otherwise defaulted to "comment").
annpost.rb
Posts an annotation to an Annotea server, calling on annomake.rb to create the RDF information.
earlget.rb
Gets EARL annotations for a specified URI, using a specified server or W3C's experimental EARL-only Annotea server. This is an example of using the algae query language to specify criteria for the annotation data to be returned.