I recently checked out Diigo after a long time. They seem to be continually updating the app. It has many of the features of something like Pocket or Instapaper but also some other stuff, like an outliner. The outliner is like a stripped-down version of Workflowy. It supports zooming, but not tagging, and the iOS app can read outlines but not edit them. Hopefully these features will continue to be improved. The thing I like best right now is the ability to make highlights and annotations on one's bookmarked items. Instapaper has this, but not Pocket, and unlike Instapaper it supports tags. It also allows you to store and annotate PDFs, although there are limits on what you can do if you don't pay for a pro account (like PDF storage limits).

https://www.diigo.com

http://getliner.com/ is newish and offers similar web annotating to Diigo.

Diigo does much more than annotation. It serves as read-later service, an outliner, a collaborative research platform and more. Not sure if it is for me, but certainly worth a look if you tried it out a few years ago and haven't gone back since.

Luhmann wrote:

Diigo does much more than annotation. It serves as read-later service,
an outliner, a collaborative research platform and more. Not sure if it
is for me, but certainly worth a look if you tried it out a few years
ago and haven't gone back since.

It is powerful. If you are doing research online on a topic, the annotation plus outliner is super. Just crank through a bunch of articles/PDFs on a topic, annotate/comment, drag quotes/comments to outline, organize and in no time you'll have a solid overview of a topic in a nice structured form.

Some other positives:
With the premium version you also get cached pages of your bookmarks so you don't have to worry about pages/websites disappearing(Ive encountered a few too many bloggers deleting their entire sites off the web). I also love seeing annotations I made on a webpage months after the face. I haven't tried the collaboration, and prefer Instapaper for read-later.

I'd say it is a great tool at the project level. However it feels too heavy/clunky as an everyday bookmark/internet clipping bucket. Also, it is often a pain to get annotations out of Diigo and IFTTT type automations aren't that great (that's why Ive been using Liner recently => easy share to Evernote, text).

I have used Diigo for several years but hate it. It is vendor lock-in software. Its API does not permit exporting of all your data. I took a very hard look at using its API to move data back and forth between NoteCase Pro using NC Pro's scripting capabilities, but was completely blocked by Diigo's API. You can get some but not all data types out and the ability to restore it after processing in NC Pro is non-existent.

In my mind, that fact weighs very heavily against Diigo's convenience of use. I was seduced by that convenience but am now making the transition back to Zotero. I don't think there is another digital research assistant out there that comes close. Yes, it has a steep learning curve, but it is an extremely versatile system so that's to be expected. Take a look at the quick-start guide if you're interested. https://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide

The Zotero system is open source software and the API is mature. And no vendor lock-in in sight.

Marbux wrote:

I have used Diigo for several years but hate it. It is vendor lock-in
software. Its API does not permit exporting of all your data. I took a
very hard look at using its API to move data back and forth between
NoteCase Pro using NC Pro's scripting capabilities, but was completely
blocked by Diigo's API. You can get some but not all data types out and
the ability to restore it after processing in NC Pro is non-existent.

In my mind, that fact weighs very heavily against Diigo's convenience of
use. I was seduced by that convenience but am now making the transition
back to Zotero. I don't think there is another digital research
assistant out there that comes close. Yes, it has a steep learning
curve, but it is an extremely versatile system so that's to be expected.
Take a look at the quick-start guide if you're interested.
https://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide

The Zotero system is open source software and the API is mature. And no
vendor lock-in in sight.

Marbux, does Zotero allow you to clip just one sentence or paragraph from a PDF or webpage and put just that sentence or paragraph into an outline or list? That functionality is pretty key for me and I don't seem to see it in the initial Zotero documentation. For instance, I want to have an outline of all the definitions of a particular term that I've found on the web or in literature. I don't want the outline to include the entire documents - just the definitions. But I want the definitions to have citations (and ideally hyperlinks) back to the full document. I can do that with Diigo - albeit clumsily - using the "convert annotations to bullet points" feature. But I share your concersn about Diigo and would switch to Zotero if it supports this functionality.

There's a lovely, little-known Mac utility that does something like that, and although the citation functionality looks a bit rudimentary at first sight, it's actually pretty powerful. It's called Research Wrench (it used to be called something else, but I can't remember what). It's an extraordinarily convenient tool for gathering together bits of text from pretty much any source, including the web. You'll find it on the Mac App Store for a nominal price.

Cheers,
Bill

MadaboutDana wrote:

There's a lovely, little-known Mac utility that does something like
that, and although the citation functionality looks a bit rudimentary at
first sight, it's actually pretty powerful. It's called Research Wrench
(it used to be called something else, but I can't remember what). It's
an extraordinarily convenient tool for gathering together bits of text
from pretty much any source, including the web. You'll find it on the
Mac App Store for a nominal price.

Cheers,
Bill

Thanks, Bill. The reasons to switch from Windows to Mac keep adding up :)

Ha, yes, I must say I enjoy working on Mac in a way I never really did on Windows (note that I still regularly use the latter for various technical reasons); I can't easily imagine going back, even though I used to be a Windows sysadmin (and Apple have just nuked Apple Server, which despite its dreadful reputation, did have one or two useful features. But hey.)

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: the integration of Mac and iOS is one of the things that keeps giving me enormous pleasure. My mobile's downstairs? Somebody gives me a ring? No problem, I just answer from my desktop (or iPad, or notebook). Such a little thing, so beautifully executed.

Back on topic again: Research Wrench is one of those unsung bits of loveliness that really deserves to do much better than it has. I regularly use it to keep track of interesting tidbits I don't want to save to my main reference database (sad geek that I am, I have a huge database of material compiled from all sorts of sources on all sorts of subjects). It automatically pastes in web references, but I've found it also absorbs a lot of information from PDFs of research papers, too. Oh, and I may have given the impression it only handles text – no, it does handle images, too.

Keep It is a similar concept, of course, and a vastly more versatile app (especially in always-on-top "Compact" mode), but there's something about Research Wrench's simplicity that is very appealing, especially the built-in web browser.

Cheers,
Bill

what web annotation do most currently use?

1. to highlight someting on a webpage

2. make a note of that highlight so you know what the note is referring to

3. and is kept on the webpage when you revisit at a future date in time