3b. Annotating with Obsidian
In progress. Not ready for use.
So, you've downloaded our starter vault, "HGS - 2024 - Shared Vault". What to do with it now?
I'm going to show you two ways to add annotations as Obsidian notes.
Obsidian Annotator
The plug-in Annotator allows you to annotate local files and web resources (ePub and pdf formats), which makes it a bit easier to use than browsers like Chrome/Safari. It doesn't always solve the problems with reading books protected by Digital Rights technology (that often break hypothesis links), but if the book is a pdf sitting on your device then it works solidly.
To annotate a pdf, for example, you need to open up a new note in Obsidian. Once you start annotating a file, both the annotations and the source (or "annotation-target") needs to stay in the same place. So don't start reorganizing your files mid-annotation.
In our shared vault, I have a folder entitled, "Readings Annotations". Right-click on the Readings Annotations folder and select, "New Note". Or you could click on the paper/pen icon in the top left cornder of the window, and then drag the new untitled note into the Reading Annotations folder.
On the left-most sidebar there are icons. Click on the one that looks like "<%" (=Templater). It will open up a window to select from existing templates in the vault. Start to type "annotation" or scroll down until you see the option "annotation template". Click on the template.
It will automatically add new text to your formerly blank note. First, change the title of the note to "Annotations - Author - Date of Publication.", where Author is the author's name of the file you want to annotate (etc.). You cannot change the name after you have begun to annotate.
Second, change the "annotation target" property. For this example, I'm starting to annotate Draycott's 2022 article. I've deleted the URL as the annotation target from in between two square brackets. The [[ and ]] designate to Obsidian that a link is there, so you need to make sure you keep them. You can simply start typing the name of one of the readings (pdf's) and it should automatically pop up. Click on the file. Then wait a second. If nothing happens, click on another note and then click back onto the note you've created. It should have changed from a text note to something that looks like a hypothesis comment window (because the creator modded hypothesis).
You can annotate the files as you would hypothesis (except these do not sync with hypothesis).
If you want to go back to the text format, you can click on the ellipsis on the top right corner. Choose the option, "Open as Markdown".
If you've done several annotations, the note will look a bit confusing (lots of code), so I recommend you clicking on the ellipsis again and selecting "Reading View", which will make it look much more readable.
If you want to return to annotating, click on the ellipsis and choose "Annotate" and it will return you to the hypothesis-like interface.
Hypothesis-Plug-in
There are other times you want to use Hypothes.is. It allows you to annotate html for example and other formats that Annotator does not. So, in this case you will want to sync your annotations with Obsidian with the Obsidian-Hypothesis Plugin after you have annotated via a browser.
To get this setup, you will need to be signed into hypothesis and you will need to access your Hypothesis API Token (more on this in a second).
Make sure your Obsidian vault is open. Click on the setting icon (a small cog icon in the bottom left corner of the window). It will open a settings window. On the left hand of the window is a selection of options. Click on "Community Plugins" and then in the list of installed Plugins, scrolls down until your find the Hypothesis Plugin. Click on it.
This will open up the setting panel for the plugin. Now, go back to your browser window where you are signed in to hypothesis. You could go to our annotation group if you wanted.
On the top right corner of the window is (another) cog icon. Click on it and select "developer". It will open up a new page that looks like this. Copy the API Token (a long string of letters and numbers).
Return to Obsidian and click on the Options button for the Hypothesis plugin. Then click the "Connect" button at the top. It will ask you for your API token. Paste it into the provided box.
Great. You've set up the possibility of syncing with Hypothesis. There is no need to change any other settings for the plugin right now – though perhaps check to see that the "Highlights folder location" has "Reading Annotations" selected. If not, click on the drop down menu to select that folder. All synced annotations will now download to this folder.
Now, go back to the Obsidian window and there should be a hypothesis icon in the leftmost sidebar. Click on the icon and this starts syncing your annotations. They should download to your Readings Annotations folder. You can play around with settings later (you could get Obsidian to sync annotations whenever you restart Obsidian for example...). These synced annotations are the raw material for future literature notes.
But mostly you're done connecting Obsidian with two types of annotation.
You can also annotate in Zotero and connect those to Obsidian. If you want to do this, take a look at an amazing online tutorial here: http://elenarazlogova.org/?page_id=13. Or this walk through put together by Alexandra Phelan.
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