I see the version of Marginalia installed on this site is quite old - I think it dates to last December. I have implemented some significant bug fixes and a number of improvements (particularly supporting sharing annotations between users) since then.
At the moment, I am working on a new release to patch some bugs from recent reports (nearly all involve IE). It's close to ready; I'm currently doing IE sanity tests[1]. Once I'm done, I will recommend updating this site.
[1] IE always tests my sanity; sometimes I wonder why I decided to support it.
Geoffrey Glass
Posts made by Geoffrey Glass
Shoot. That error (node not found class=null) is one of those things that's never supposed to happen, which is why the error is so cryptic. Unfortunately it's also pretty generic (many things could cause that to happen), so it doesn't help me track the problem down. If you can give me any additional information (e.g. exactly what led to this behavior and how the browser responded), it might give me an idea of how I might try to reproduce the behavior.
You say you were using Firefox? I just want to confirm, because I'm aware of an IE-only bug that can cause this to happen (I'm working on getting the fix into the Moodle release of Marginalia). Could you point me to the post you were trying to annotate?
You say you were using Firefox? I just want to confirm, because I'm aware of an IE-only bug that can cause this to happen (I'm working on getting the fix into the Moodle release of Marginalia). Could you point me to the post you were trying to annotate?
Hmmm. I don't see the yellow bar either. That's odd. The Show/Hide Annotations button at the top is from an older release, so that might have something to do with it (the newer versions use a drop-down list).
However, you can also select text and then use the Enter key to create annotations. I tested that here and it works fine.
However, you can also select text and then use the Enter key to create annotations. I tested that here and it works fine.
Thanks for bringing this up Derek. One other user ran into the same problem. Oddly enough it just popped into my mind again the other day. I'll be implementing a couple of minor fixes to Marginalia in the next little while; I'll consider including a mechanism for toggling smartcopy on and off.
My current thinking is a hotkey to switch it on and off; this would be remembered by the software so you wouldn't have to change it repeatedly. The main trouble would be making users aware of the existence of the hotkey, and finding an elegant way to respond to it when pressed (I'm thinking of using the browser status bar, or possibly a brief tooltip-type message).
My current thinking is a hotkey to switch it on and off; this would be remembered by the software so you wouldn't have to change it repeatedly. The main trouble would be making users aware of the existence of the hotkey, and finding an elegant way to respond to it when pressed (I'm thinking of using the browser status bar, or possibly a brief tooltip-type message).
I agree, that is a problem, and I really like you're solution. The problem is, I can't do it.
You see, Smartcopy is a huge hack. Cutting and pasting is all taken care of by the browser; the particular web page and site you're viewing at the time have nothing to do with it. So Smartcopy does not know - cannot know - when you perform a copy operation, whether it's via the edit menu, ctrl-C, whatever.
Instead, Smartcopy keeps track of when you use the mouse to select text. It secretly inserts the thread title, author, and date into the web page wherever you have made your selection. You can't see it, but it's there (you may see some flickering of the text sometimes when smartcopy is on - this is why). Then, when (if) you copy the text, the additional information will be included. (If you click somewhere else and remove your selection, the additional information is silently deleted.)
It would, on the other hand, be possible to test for a command key (or what have you) when you select the text, but that seems unintuitive. It would also be possible to allow users to explicitly switch Smartcopy on and off.
Ideally, Smartcopy is a feature that should be in the browser or a browser extension, but that won't happen anytime soon because the browser won't know what all that information is (post title, author, date, etc.). A standard may be coming (the hAtom microformat for the curious); perhaps in 5 years or so this can be resolved properly.
You see, Smartcopy is a huge hack. Cutting and pasting is all taken care of by the browser; the particular web page and site you're viewing at the time have nothing to do with it. So Smartcopy does not know - cannot know - when you perform a copy operation, whether it's via the edit menu, ctrl-C, whatever.
Instead, Smartcopy keeps track of when you use the mouse to select text. It secretly inserts the thread title, author, and date into the web page wherever you have made your selection. You can't see it, but it's there (you may see some flickering of the text sometimes when smartcopy is on - this is why). Then, when (if) you copy the text, the additional information will be included. (If you click somewhere else and remove your selection, the additional information is silently deleted.)
It would, on the other hand, be possible to test for a command key (or what have you) when you select the text, but that seems unintuitive. It would also be possible to allow users to explicitly switch Smartcopy on and off.
Ideally, Smartcopy is a feature that should be in the browser or a browser extension, but that won't happen anytime soon because the browser won't know what all that information is (post title, author, date, etc.). A standard may be coming (the hAtom microformat for the curious); perhaps in 5 years or so this can be resolved properly.