CUNY Academic Commons

I forgot to add that i tested the plugin today here and ran into the same issue:

https://classtestbmcc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/readings-3/

It looks like the via link tool used to be open proxy but because of malicious activity, is now closed proxy: https://web.hypothes.is/blog/changes-to-via-hypothesis-proxy-server-for-annotation/

They DO have an allow list: https://web.hypothes.is/blog/why-we-no-longer-run-an-open-proxy/

I could reach out to them and ask about putting the Commons and referrals from a commons domain on the allow list? I know we use amazon for hosting the pdfs in the library but I wonder if adding the commons as an allowed referrer might help? Boone I can loop you into my outreach if you think I should go ahead with this.

https://web.hypothes.is/via-request/

It looks like we might be able to get away with something less than a full Via implementation. Via itself is a wrapper for a PDF.js implementation that the Hypothesis team maintains, which can be run as a standalone: https://github.com/hypothesis/pdf.js-hypothes.is I've thrown a copy of this onto the Commons and it seems to load your test PDF just fine: https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/pdf-viewer/viewer/web/viewer.html?file=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Ffiles.commons.gc.cuny.edu%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F4016%2Ffiles%2F2022%2F08%2FVygotskys_Sociocultural_Theory.pdf You can test with any other Commons PDF (be sure to use a tool like https://www.urlencoder.org/ to encode the URL before appending it as the 'file' parameter).

I can see this hypothesis is working on the PDF linked above. (not sure how to use a url encoder but will test this process today) This sounds like a good workaround to me -- the two faculty who want to use hypothesis on the Commons this upcoming semester are looking to host PDFs on the Commons, though they may have a few external webpages but I can see if they are willing to limit annotation to pdf.

Something I don't really understand about your initial report is how a URL like https://via.hypothes.is/https://nobaproject.com/textbooks/laurie-hurson-new-textbook/modules/factors-influencing-learning is intended to work. That base URL is not a PDF, but is a WP webpage. Is this ticket relevant to uses of Hypothes.is on the Commons for things other than PDFs? (Sorry, I still don't have a full understanding.)

Yes, sorry- the Via link system worked for any url so I would use the via link extender in my course to "hypothesize" both links to Commons PDF and links to open web pages. I should have chosen a better URL example for my post. Of course, I do not expect us to be able to rebuild the via tool for open web annotation, just for pdfs hosted on the Commons. Here is an example of where I used a via link on a pdf on the Commons: https://via.hypothes.is/https://classtestbmcc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/4016/files/2022/08/Operant-Conditioning.pdf

Anyway, if your testing makes this seem OK, I can take the next step and attempt to re-rig the URL rewriter in the Hypothesis plugin so that it uses our own PDF viewer rather than the one provided by via.hypothesis.

I will test today and report back but this seems like we are going in the right direction. I am meeting with the two faculty members who want to use this later this week so if we are able to have something running I can show them then -- even if just on the classtestbmcc site and then I can help them build a site to host their pdfs and we can also maybe test on there.

I guess my next questions are -

what needs to be done to make this usable on PDFs uploaded to the Commons?

how will this be used on the user end?
Will they install the plugin, set settings to run on PDFs, then upload PDFs to media library and provide access to PDFs through site?

A caveat - I believe the old plugin did not allow annotation of PDFs on private sites because the page was technically inaccessible to hypothesis. Would creating this workaround allow PDFs on private sites to be annotated?

what needs to be done to make this usable on PDFs uploaded to the Commons?

I just added the viewer so that you could test that direct URLs seemed to load Hypothesis the way that you expected (I have never used the tool and I'm not 100% sure what it's intended to do, so I don't trust myself to test.) It seems that you're confirming this, so the next step is for me to rewrite our tool that detects PDF URLs so that it uses our version of the loader rather than the one from via.hypothes.is. I've made this change in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/961cc6dcf802a6f54e09e0714c42c79da260af16 and pushed it to the production site so that you can test.

The key thing is to ensure that the 'Enable annotation for PDFs in Media Library' option is enabled; see https://classtestbmcc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=hypothesis-setting-admin. If I'm understanding it correctly, this is the toggle that site admins are already using, so the swapout should be completely seamless for existing and new users. See https://classtestbmcc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/readings-3/ for an example. I should say again that I'm not totally sure how this is intended to work; you originally cited https://psy327f22.commons.gc.cuny.edu/course-schedule/ but I don't see the PDF links there. So perhaps you could go through and test a few sites where you know this functionality was previously working and see whether it's once again possible to use Hypothesis on the PDFs.

A caveat - I believe the old plugin did not allow annotation of PDFs on private sites because the page was technically inaccessible to hypothesis. Would creating this workaround allow PDFs on private sites to be annotated?

I'm not sure. It might indeed allow them to be annotated. This is worth testing.

I just added the viewer so that you could test that direct URLs seemed to load Hypothesis the way that you expected (I have never used the tool and I'm not 100% sure what it's intended to do, so I don't trust myself to test.) It seems that you're confirming this, so the next step is for me to rewrite our tool that detects PDF URLs so that it uses our version of the loader rather than the one from via.hypothes.is. I've made this change in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/961cc6dcf802a6f54e09e0714c42c79da260af16 and pushed it to the production site so that you can test.

I tested this on a private site and its working as intended. I changed the plugin settings to run on PDFs and made a new page with link to PDF in media library and it works.

https://psy327f22.commons.gc.cuny.edu/hypoth-test/

The key thing is to ensure that the 'Enable annotation for PDFs in Media Library' option is enabled; see https://classtestbmcc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=hypothesis-setting-admin. If I'm understanding it correctly, this is the toggle that site admins are already using, so the swapout should be completely seamless for existing and new users. See https://classtestbmcc.commons.gc.cuny.edu/readings-3/ for an example. I should say again that I'm not totally sure how this is intended to work; you originally cited https://psy327f22.commons.gc.cuny.edu/course-schedule/ but I don't see the PDF links there.

The pdfs on PSY 327 were linked using a via link anyway so they would not work, for example "observational learning | OER Commons" week 4: https://psy327f22.commons.gc.cuny.edu/course-schedule/

But when I set up access to the "observational learning" pdf another way (link to pdf through a link on a commons page, described above) hypothesis works.

A caveat - I believe the old plugin did not allow annotation of PDFs on private sites because the page was technically inaccessible to hypothesis. Would creating this workaround allow PDFs on private sites to be annotated?

I think this is true - the plugin will now run on pdfs on private sites, which is great. I have two faculty who plan to use this during the fall 2026 semester. Meeting with them later this week and will report back.