[wp-hackers] Idea for a GSoC project - Image annotation plugin

[Stephen Tigner]

I have an idea for a GSoC project I wanted to get some feedback on.
What I'd like to do is create an image annotation plugin for Wordpress
using (http://blog.flipbit.co.uk/2009/03/jquery-image-annotation-plugin.html)
this jQuery image annotation plugin and AJAX.

I was inspired by the implementation of this on dannychoo.com and
figure.fm (running on the Mirai Gaia platform), and wanted to bring
similar functionality to my Wordpress blogs.

Basically, in that implementation, readers can leave annotations as
comments that reference specific sections of an image. Much better
than having to say things like, "Who's that guy third from the left in
the second row?" Instead, you can say, "Who is this?" and just put
that as an annotation to the image, where the annotation box on the
image is around the person in question.

Now, as far as how the annotations are presented to the readers, there
are two scenarios that come to mind. One, which I've seen on some
sites, is to keep the annotations and comments completely separate.
The other is, like on Mirai Gaia, to make the annotations a special
kind of comment.

I prefer the latter, because then the annotations aren't removed from
the conversation. Instead, they become part of it, as I feel they
should be, and can be replied to (and handled) just like other
comments.

However, this brings up another question, as while there are post meta
and user meta tables, no such thing exists for comments. While I would
like to not have to add extra tables, it seems that to store the
relevant metadata about the annotation comments, a new table would be
required for this plugin. Does that sound reasonable?

Also, I would like to give said comments a slightly different
presentation than normal comments. For instance, include a thumbnail
link back up to the particular image the annotation is for. I can
probably add a filter to the comment_text function for that. However,
to trigger that, I was thinking of adding an additional comment type
of "annotation," and I was wondering if doing so would break things.

Sorry for the long-winded email, and thanks in advance. ^_^

-- Stephen