Write a little article about Matrix Highlight

content/blog/introducing_highlight/index.md

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+---
+title: "Introducing Matrix Highlight"
+date: 2021-12-13T16:49:42-08:00
+tags: ["Matrix", "Project", "Matrix Highlight"]
+draft: true
+---
+
+I wanted to briefly introduce a project that I've been working on in my spare time over the past couple of months.
+It's called __Matrix Highlight__, though this is a working title. However, it does exactly what the title claims:
+this little project is a browser extension to annotate the web, using [Matrix](https://matrix.org) as a communication and storage protocol.
+My goal with this project is a __decentralized, federated,
+collaborative annotation system for web pages and documents (that can be self-hosted).__ 
+See the image below for a quick sneak peek at what it looks like.
+
+{{< figure src="mhl_many.png" caption="Text randomly highlighted with Matrix Highlight" class="fullwide" >}}
+
+### Project Goals
+#### Decentralized
+Quite literally, the word "decentralized" lies in opposition to "centralized". In a centralized application, the data,
+or computation, or anything really, is controlled by a single entity. An example of this might be Google Docs: Google
+is in charge of Docs, and no one else. You log in through Google, and Google manages your various documents and edits
+to them authoritatively. 
+
+I don't think that's a good idea. Although convenient, this kind of arrangement shifts control out of your hands
+as a user, and into the hands of the entity running your software. Google has the power, if they wanted, to ban you from
+using Google Docs, or to manage your content in ways you don't like. They can (and do) impose storage limits. You are,
+in a sense, at their mercy. Furthermore, in the (admittedly unlikely) case that Google goes down, Google Docs goes down
+for everyone. There's a single point of failure. Whereas it's hard to imagine Google itself having any real trouble (although
+the recent AWS outage proves that such a thing is possible), most services aren't Google.
+
+A decentralized application does not suffer from these problems. As the Matrix website briefly explains:
+
+> Fully decentralised conversations with no single points of control or failure
+
+The failure of a single server in a decentralized system does not bring it down for everyone. Furthermore, users have
+the ability to switch between different servers or providers if one becomes abusive (or simply stops existing). Users
+have more choices, and more control.
+
+__For Matrix Highlight specifically__, this means not having to rely on one specific group or company
+for storing and managing your annotations or notes.
+
+#### Federated
+Decentralization by itself does not make for useful software. There might very well be multiple servers providing access
+to a particular piece of software. However, there's no guarantee that users of one such server can meaningfully interact
+with users of another server. Microsoft's Office 365 has collaborative document editing, and so does Google Docs. However,
+users of the two services cannot collaborate with _each other_.
+
+In a federated system, the various providers establish a way of working together. The [Fediverse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse)
+is a big example of this. Users of various [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) servers can see each other's messages and posts,
+despite residing on servers with differing rules and administration. Users of Matrix can send messages between servers, with only
+one account.
+
+__For Matrix Highlight__, this means that users who choose to use different servers or providers are still able to collaboratively highlight
+and annotate pages together.
+
+#### Self-Hosted
+Self-hosting is the practice of running the various software you use yourself. This allows you yourself to be in charge of your data,
+instead of _any_ other entity, however trustworthy. A popular self-hosted solution is [Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com/), which
+may be used, among other things, as a Google Drive replacement that you run on your own server. With Nextcloud, your files
+are completely under your own management, rather than that of some other person or company elsewhere.
+
+__For Matrix Highlight__, this means that users can choose to run all the necessary software themselves, and thus remain in complete
+control of their annotation and other data.
+
+### What it Looks Like
+First of all, you can watch a little demo video I recorded here:
+
+{{< youtube Q3h5A0DsE1s >}}
+
+You already got a little taste of Matrix Highlight in the opening screenshot. However, I'd like to show you some more of what I have
+so far. The most important aspect of the tool is the ability to annotate web pages. The tool can be brought up on any page;
+I typically test it on my blog, but that's just because it's convenient. Selecting some text brings up a little highlighting tooltip:
+
+{{< figure src="mhl_tooltip.png" caption="A matrix highlighting tooltip appearing over one of the sidenotes in a different article." >}}
+
+Selecting one of the colors in the tooltip creates a new highlight of the text you had selected:
+
+{{< figure src="mhl_highlight.png" caption="The result of clicking a color in the previous screenshot." >}}
+
+Annotations applied in this way are shared across all active instances of a Matrix Highlight page, including those shared with other users.
+
+{{< figure src="mhl_multi.png" caption="Two chrome windows with the same annotations." class="fullwide" >}}
+
+Highlights created by users can also be browsed as a list:
+
+{{< figure src="mhl_quotelist.png" caption="A list of highlights from another page." class="medium" >}}
+
+Highlights are stored in Matrix rooms. Since Matrix rooms are effectively chat rooms, they are built for being shared with other users.
+Thus, it is very simple to give another user access to the current list of highlights.
+
+{{< figure src="mhl_userlist.png" caption="A list of users for a particular page." class="medium" >}}
+
+This also means that a single page can have multiple
+independent sets of highlights, allowing you to organize them however you like. For instance, if you're proofreading a page of your own,
+you may have a highlight set (Matrix room) for every editing pass. The rooms can be switched at a moment's notice:
+
+{{< figure src="mhl_roomlist.png" caption="A list of rooms for a particular page." class="medium" >}}
+
+### Current and Planned Features
+
+The following are the current and planned features for Matrix Highlight:
+
+* __Current__: Create and send website annotations over Matrix.
+* __Current__: Store data in a decentralized and federated manner.
+* __Current__: Share highlights with other users, including those on other servers.
+* __Current__: Group annotations together and create multiple annotation groups
+* __Planned__: Use Matrix's End-to-End encryption to ensure the secure transmission and storage of highlight data.
+* __Planned__: Leverage the new [`m.thread` MSC](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/gsouquet/threading-via-relations/proposals/3440-threading-via-relations.md) to allow users to comment on and discuss
+highlights.
+* __Planned__: Use something like [ArchiveBox](https://archivebox.io/) to cache the current version of a website and prevent annotations from breaking.
+* __Planned__ Highlight PDFs in addition to web pages.
+
+### Project Status and Conclusion
+For the moment, I'm refraining from publishing the project's source or output extensions. This is a hobby project, and I don't want to share
+something half-baked with the world. However, I fully intend to share the code for the project as soon as I think it's ready (which would probably
+be when I feel perfectly comfortable using it for my own needs).