Style

Synopsis

Style allows annotators to assert rendering expectations regarding how consuming applications should present the annotation to their users.

After discussion the consensus for a revamp to the May specification's Style is:

• oa:styledBy: predicate from Annotation to Style
• oa:Style: a base class for things which style annotations
• oax:CssStyle: A subclass of oa:Style

Style is only designed to be used for visualization and styling hints. It should not be used for conveying semantic information.

Diagram of new construction (with old hasStyle predicate):

Use Cases

• To avoid putting a black boundary over top of a black image or similar
• To enable communication to be explicit about which target (the yellow one versus the red one) at a human level
• To allow an annotator to share with herself across platforms and maintain their internal color coding system (genes are green, proteins are red)
• To visually display types of change annotation (eg delete = red strikethrough of text)
• etc.

Discussion

Withdrawn ideas:

• XSLT as a serious use case for Style
• Subclasses of Annotation to alert to the presence of style, and subclasses for associating a style.