Who is this article for?
- Site owners interested in embedding Hypothesis and using one of our Publisher Groups options over their site.
- Sites that want a social, comments-based approach to discussions.
What is Comments Mode?
Comments Mode is a configuration of the Hypothesis client available to sites embedding our app over their content. It is designed to replace the usual Highlights and Annotations available to site users and instead mimic a more traditional focus on comments alongside web page content.
Here are sample images of an annotation and a comment for comparison. Notice that an annotation is linked to a specific piece of text in the document, while a comment is not attached to any particular text.
You can implement Comments Mode using these instructions. Enabling Comments Mode suppresses the Hypothesis Adder (our Highlight/Annotation popup) and changes the nomenclature in our Sidebar to use the term Comments. Annotations made in the group (say, via our Chrome extension) won’t show up in the embedded Sidebar, only Comments.
Comments mode can be used on its own, but it can also be used as part of a larger suite of options including Publisher Groups, selective loading of Groups, and Pre-Moderation, which together allow site owners to offer a highly controlled, social commenting experience to their users.