Prevent overlapping annotations

[hbast]

Is there a way to prevent overlapping annotations? I would like to prevent users from creating new annotations within annotations or starting/ending annotations within existing annotations.

If not, would that be something that could be implemented? This would prevent some race conditions in collaborative work.

[rsimon]

I'm afraid not. Overlapping annotations are a feature ;-)

Not sure how one would go about implementing this. It's certainly possible, and would have to go into the selection handling somehow. But personally, I'm no longer developing this library any further, since all focus is now on the successor - also & especially because of realtime issues such as this.

[hbast]

We have created a well-running prototype with the current library. A switch would probably mean a few days of work. How different are the libraries? Where can I find out about the interfaces? Our purpose is still that we want to integrate the annotation library as JS into a website.

[rsimon]

Fully understood. There are some interfaces that are similar to the legacy API. (There's still an r/anno object with some of the same methods and events as RecogitoJS. But much of the advanced features, especially the stuff to drive collaboration, sits in a new state management object.

I'm aware the new version has no documentation yet. This will change over time. But some patience will be needed. I wish I could suggest something more encouraging: but, for now, you'd need to dig into the code itself, I'm afraid.

[hbast]

Don't get me wrong. I am very grateful for the work you put into the projects and the super fast support you provide. I can also understand that you no longer want to support the old library. My Javascript knowledge is limited to the basics and I haven't had any experience with React so far. I also get the new library compiled, but at this point I'm lost. With a minimal example, like the one here in the project, access to the new library would perhaps be much easier. You must be testing the system locally somehow, right? Wouldn't it be helpful for newcomers to include a simple example in the repo?

[rsimon]

No offense taken! I'm totally aware that improving the docs would mean removing a huge roadblock, and be beneficial to the dissemination of the library. It is high up on my list, but, well, there's always something new getting in the way ;-)

However, yes, I am testing locally of course. It's a super simple setup that doesn't show a lot of the features. But it's all in the test files here (vanilla JS version) and here (React version).

These files are what gets launched when your run npm install -> npm start in the corresponding package folders.