Hypothes.is + Obsidian = Hypothesidian for easier note taking and formatting

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Hypothes.is for all my online highlighting, annotating, and general note taking. They also know that if one isn’t actively using their notes to some better end, then it’s likely not worth having taken them at all, so I store mine in markdown in Obsidian for future-proofing and portability.

Hypothes.is + Obsidian

A while back I came across RoamHacker’s work to dovetail Hypothes.is for use in Obsidian and finally managed to get it up and running with my Obsidian vault. I’ve previously outlined a method for pulling in my notes from Hypothes.is using RSS, however this doesn’t give one any formatting capabilities and it also doesn’t provide any of the Hypothes.is tags as RSS has no layer for taxonomies.

RoamHacker’s work, which leverages the Templater Plugin for Obsidian, fixes both of these problems. I suspect that I’ll keep my prior method in place to create the individual notes, but use this additional work to clean up my fleeting notes from Hypothes.is in my actual commonplace book. Since there’s no server involved, it’s harder to automate the entire process so that every time you create notes they’re automatically ported across either in real-time or in batches every few hours.

Formatting your notes

I did spend some time last night to modify some of RoamHacker’s code to re-format the annotations to better suit my current notes format and layout. I’m excerpting the most relevant part below, but the entire Gist can also be downloaded or further modified for easier copy/pasting into one’s own vault for the needed set up.

I’ve only modified the section of the original Gist at the bottom that follows the line:
/* TEMPLATE STARTS HERE */

The changes still keep all the relevant data fields, but reorder them and add a bit of formatting to fit the layout and the way I use my Obsidian notebook. I changed the formatting so that tags in Hypothes.is are turned into [[wikilinks]] rather than #⁠hashtags as in the original. (The original also doesn’t do so well with multi-word tags, which I use quite a lot.)

Hopefully the small changes I’ve made and comparison with the original Gist will allow those who aren’t as code-savvy to better understand the template and potentially let them make changes to suit their own needs.

/* TEMPLATE STARTS HERE */ 
if (tp.file.content.length==0) {
  //likely a new document, insert front matter
  tR += `---\n`;
  tR += `fileType: HypothesisAnnotations\n`;
  tR += `creationDate: ${tp.date.now('YYYY-MM-DD')} \n`;
  tR += `annotationDate: ${articleAnnotations[0].created.substring(0,10)}\n`;
  tR += `uri: ${articleAnnotations[0].uri}\n`;
  tR += `---\n`;
}

tR += `# ${articleAnnotations[0].title}\n`
tR += `URL: ${articleAnnotations[0].uri}\n\n`

for( a of articleAnnotations) {
  let tags = '';
  let user = '';
  if(a.tags.length>0) tags = ' ' + (a.tags.map(t=> '[['+ t + ']]')).join(' ');
  if(insertUser) user = ' _(' + a.user.replace('acct:','').replace('@hypothes.is','') + ')_';
  if(a.text) tR += `${a.text}\n—[[${user}]]\n\n`;
  tR += `## Source \n`;
  tR += `> ${a.highlight}[^1]\n\n`;
  tR += `[^1]: [${articleAnnotations[0].title}](${articleAnnotations[0].uri}) | [syndication link](tk) \n`;
  tR += `\n---\ntags: \nlinks: ${tags} \n- broader terms (BT):  \n- narrower terms (NT):  \n- related terms (RT):  \n- used for (UF) or aliases:  \nconnected ideas:  \nMOC:  \n\n---\n`;
}
%>
Replied to Tags vs labels by Amit (amitp.blogspot.com)

But are “labels” and “tags” the same thing?

A long time ago, I read that they're different. The distinction as described was:

  • “labels” are when you mark your own content (first party)
  • “tags” are when you mark other people's content (third party)
I like the framing you’ve made in the definition of “label” and “tag”. I wish the distinction was respected by a broader range of people and programs as it could be more useful that way.

I’ve mentioned a subtle way of doing this on my site before: 

I also find that I have a subtle differentiation using singular versus plural tags which I think I’m generally using to differentiate between the idea of “mine” versus “others”. Thus the (singular) tag for “commonplace book” should be a reference to my particular commonplace book versus the (plural) tag “commonplace books” which I use to reference either the generic idea or the specific commonplace books of others. Sadly I don’t think I apply this “rule” consistently either, but hope to do so in the future.

Now I’m wishing that I had a separate “labels” taxonomy on my site to distinguish between “mine” and “theirs”. In using the Post Kinds Plugin for WordPress, I’m passively collecting labels (though it’s called tags) others put on their content (which is currently hidden in my internal metadata) and that is separate from the metadata tags I place on it. Being able to separately search the two could be a powerful feature.

Ryan Barrett in bookmark of Amit’s Thoughts: Tags vs labels ()

RSVPed Attending WordPress Custom Post Types and Taxonomies with Marco Berrocal

June 20, 2020 at 11:00AM- June 20, 2020 at 01:00PM

There are times when a WordPress installation may come up short in relation to what is required by your client. You need content of another type that isn’t a page or a post, and you need to label it differently. Enter Custom Post Types and Taxonomies.

During this Meetup, Marco will discuss what they are, show you how to create them, what his recommendations are when it comes to creating them, and how you can see WordPress as more than just a blogging or a simple site platform.

BIO: Marco Berrocal, Partner Relations at GreenGeeks
Marco is a talented WordPress developer who has worked for more than a decade making custom themes and plugins. He absolutely loves working with WordPress and with his local community (Costa Rica) as a WordCamp Organizer. When he is not in WordPress mode, he's all about my kids, travel, and food.

As always, we'll get the latest news and information going on in WordPress and answer your questions in a mini-version of a Happiness Bar.

RSVPed Attending WordPress Custom Post Types and Taxonomies with Marco Berrocal
Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 11:00 AM
OVERVIEW: There are times when a WordPress installation may come up short in relation to what is required by your client. You need content of another type that isn’t a page or a post, and you need to label it differently. Enter Custom Post Types and Taxonomies.
During this Meetup, Marco will discuss what they are, show you how to create them, what his recommendations are when it comes to creating them, and how you can see WordPress as more than just a blogging or a simple site platform.
Read The Difference Between Good and Bad Tags (Zettelkasten Method)
When I search in my archive for the tag #diet I get really annoying results. I don’t only get notes on diet. I get notes on carbohydrates, insulin sensitivity and many other. “Why is that a problem?”, you might ask. “All the above topics are relevant for diet, aren’t they?” No, and here is why.

There are two different types of tags:
Tags for topics. You use tags to group notes under a topic.
Tags for objects. You use tags to group notes around an object, real or conceptual. 

Annotated on March 23, 2020 at 05:06PM

The tags for objects are much more precise and reveal real connections. They narrow down the search way more which is hugely important if your archive grows. They only give you what you want, and not the topic which also contains what you want. 

Annotated on March 23, 2020 at 05:07PM

Replied to Feed WordPress 101: Feeding The Machine by Alan LevineAlan Levine (CogDogBlog)
If you are just syndicating a few feeds into your own site, or maybe for a single class of students, it’s not much work to manually add the feeds. Collecting them can be as simple as asking students to email you the address for their blog, or collecting them via something like a Google Form. Many of us dream of a single one button solution, but my experience in creating at least half a dozen of these sites are is… feeds can be messy.
Alan, this series is great. Coincidentally I came across it courtesy of Greg McVerry (#) after having spent some time over the past few days discussing feed discovery with David Shanske who recently wrote a small WordPress plugin for helping to uncover RSS feeds for tags and categories. Today he wrote some broader thoughts about feed discovery you may appreciate.

In addition to all of this, since you’re a coder, you might also appreciate some of the more advanced feed discovery code David has written into the Yarns Microsub Server for WordPress (code on Github). You may be able to build some of the discovery bits into some of your syndication hubs/planets in the future.

Of course, like FeedWordPress and the relatively similar PressForward plugin, you might also be able to bend Yarns into an aggregator in similar ways.

Read Web client crashing Chrome frequently when adding tags · Issue #1689 · hypothesis/client (GitHub)
I'm currently using Chrome Version 79.0.3945.117 (Official Build) (64-bit) via the chrome extension on Windows 10 (v1809) and I'm noticing just within the last two weeks that as I&a...
Catching up on the replies and potential solutions. Some interesting functionality hiding under the hood here with respect to local caching and taxonomy.
Read Fun synonyms for art museum guards by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
I’m brainstorming ways of describing art museum guards.  Art museum security guardArt protectorGallery attendantLaw enforcementMuseum access controlMuseum patrolMuseum protectorObserver of visitorsParcel inspectorPolicy enforcerPreventer of suspicious actionsPreventer of touchingProper propriety maintainerProperty guardProtection services officerSecuritySecurity officerVandalism deterrent My favorite might be the last one, Vandalism deterrent. It’s so true, but also feels so odd to describe that …
I like the idea of having a generator for tangential taxonomies for improving search. How could I build this into my website?
Read Add class attribute to WordPress "the_tags" markup by WebrockerWebrocker (Webrocker)
I'm in the process of gradually enhancing my site's markup with microformats, in order to "indiewebify" my site further. On thing I noticed while working on this at the Düsseldorf Indiewebcamp, is that WordPress (or the way my theme handles) tags on posts has no way to get an additional class insid...
David Shanske is sure to appreciate this if he hasn’t come across it. (I didn’t see it in his IW26 theme repo, so perhaps not?)
Liked a tweet by Dmitri ShuralyovDmitri Shuralyov (Twitter)
Liked a tweet by Melanie Mitchell (Twitter)
In the case that the Twitter image doesn’t live, I’ll excerpt it here in more accessible text:

The fact is, the interpretation of a situation is inseparable from the analogies (or categories) it evokes. Our categories are thus organs of perception; they extend our physiological senses, allowing us to “touch” the external world in a more abstract fashion. They are our means of applying the richness of our past experience to the present; without them, we would flail about helplessly in the world.

Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander p.256 (Chapter 5)

A fascinating quote and a cool conceptualization of our ontologies.