Overview

Anno-J is a Web 2.0 application designed for visualizing deep sequencing data and other genome annotation data. It is intended to run in modern W3C compliant browsers*, and allows flexible configuration of plugins and data streams from providers located anywhere on the internet.

*AJ has only been tested in Safari, Firefox and Camino at this stage. Mozilla and Opera behaviour may be unpredictable. There is no intention to support IE in the near term.

Features

  • RESTful modularity. Nothing to download, compile or install.
  • Simple interface. Don't need it? Not there..
  • Client side rendering. No more server side GD.
  • Server side agnosticism. Works with any server-side setup.
  • AJAX. No page reloads, ever.
  • Format flexibility. Nested, flat, idiosyncratic? Doesn't matter.
  • Remote data. Point straight at the source. No more cloning.
  • Syndication. Visible credit and full access control for data providers.
  • Extendablity. Simple development of remotely hosted plugins
  • Specialization. Coder. Designer. Admin → Separate.

License

Anno-J is available under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 license, although commercial use is permitted if permission from the author is first obtained. Please contact the author with any queries. News and bug information is available here

Architecture

Anno-J is built around the REST philosophy and is designed to leverage the distributed nature of the internet. The key benefit to web-applications designed in this way is clear separation of style, logic and data.

Style

The way data looks, when rendered in Anno-J, may be controlled by CSS. Designers of CSS assets do not need to concern themselves with any aspect of the program's internals and may host assets remotely.

Logic

Anno-J is a 100% Javascript application meaning that logical components may be included by simply pointing to them in an Anno-J instance. Engineers may design plugins without worrying about stylistic or data management aspects, and plugins may be hosted remotely.

Data

Data may be sourced from any number of remote providers. Providers may use any server-side configuration of choice without having to worry about compatibilty with Anno-J and do not need to worry about logical or stylistic aspects.