MyZ Suite

User Guide (MyZ Annotator) ​

This document explains how to use MyZ Annotator’s core highlighting features and the Dashboard settings.

Important (network features)

  • The extension provides no remote service. Any optional network requests are sent directly from your browser to third-party services you configure (for example: S3-compatible storage).
  • Encrypted sync is end-to-end encrypted (E2EE): only ciphertext and minimal metadata go to your storage; the sync secret stays local.
  • Be careful with sensitive/private data.

UI language note

Some menus/buttons in the extension are currently labeled in Chinese. This guide includes the exact labels in backticks so you can find them easily.

1. Installation and entry points ​

  • After installing, pin the extension to your browser toolbar.
  • Popup: click the extension icon for a quick view of highlights on the current page.
  • Dashboard (management & settings): in the popup, click the “Open Dashboard” button (Chinese UI: 打开 Dashboard) to open the options page.

2. Basic annotation (highlight / underline / wavy underline) ​

  1. Select text on the page.
  2. A floating toolbar appears near your selection:
    • 添加标注 (Add annotation): creates a replayable highlight annotation (with color/style).
    • 保存文字 (Save text): saves the selected text as a “text-only” record (no highlight DOM is applied to the page).
    • 截取选区截图 (Capture selection screenshot): captures a screenshot of the selection (the extension temporarily clears the native selection highlight before capturing to avoid blue selection artifacts).
  3. The extension badge on the toolbar icon shows how many highlights exist on the current page.

3. Manage and organize (Popup / Dashboard) ​

3.1 Popup: quick view for the current page ​

  • Shows the highlights/text clips for the current page.
  • Provides quick actions such as open details, edit, delete, and jump to Dashboard.

3.2 Dashboard: global management & settings ​

The Dashboard top navigation contains:

  • Highlights list: shows all annotations with card/list views (your last choice is remembered), multi-select tags, full-text search, date-range and site filters, and lazy loading for performance.
  • Highlight viewer: open any highlight at /highlights/:id for continuous reading of same-page annotations, scroll-to-end auto-advance, and previous/next navigation.
  • Settings (Chinese UI: 设置): highlight preferences, appearance, import, and encrypted sync (see section 4).

4. Dashboard Settings ​

4.1 Highlight preferences ​

  • View mode: default card or list view for the highlight list.
  • Color palette: the 5-color palette used for annotations; colors are customizable.
  • Default style / Default color: default style (marker / underline / wavy) and color for new highlights.

4.2 Appearance ​

  • Theme: Follow system / Light / Dark.

4.3 Import highlights ​

  • Supports MyZ JSON, RainDrop CSV, Weava CSV, and Chrome bookmarks HTML files.
  • Choose a conflict strategy: skip / overwrite / keep latest; a summary is shown when the import finishes.

4.4 Encrypted Sync (E2EE) ​

Encrypted sync uses your own S3-compatible storage; we do not run any online service. Only ciphertext and minimal metadata are stored remotely, and the sync secret stays on your device. The sync secret is derived from the password you enter, and we do not store that password.

Recommended storage: AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, or any other S3-compatible storage provider.

4.5 Setup steps ​

  1. Open Dashboard → Settings → Encrypted Sync (加密同步).
  2. Fill in the S3 settings:
    • Endpoint: the S3-compatible endpoint URL
    • Region / Bucket
    • Access Key ID / Secret Access Key
    • Session Token (optional)
    • Prefix (optional): isolate data across devices/projects
  3. Click Save settings (保存设置), then Test connection (测试连接).
  4. Set the Sync secret (同步密钥) — it stays local; use a strong passphrase.
  5. Enable Sync (启用同步) and click Sync now (立即同步) once.

The status panel shows KeyId, Manifest version, last sync time, and key updated time.

Important

The sync secret cannot be recovered. If you forget the password, new clients cannot decrypt old data; you must re-encrypt and re-sync from scratch.

Public audit

The E2EE implementation is open for review at https://github.com/myz-suite/sync/.

5. PDF reading and annotation ​

Open a PDF

  • In the popup, click the PDF icon: if the current tab is a web PDF it opens directly in the reader; otherwise you land on the reader home and can choose 打开本地 PDF (Open local PDF).
  • Right-click any PDF link on a page and choose 在 MyZ 中打开 PDF (Open PDF in MyZ).
  • Local PDFs are opened via the file picker (Chrome only, using the File System Access API).

Reading

  • Continuous scrolling by default, zoom (50%–300%), and automatic reading-progress memory (reopens at your last position).
  • Supports scanned/image PDFs including JPEG2000 / JBIG2.

Navigation & search

  • Click the sidebar button on the left of the toolbar to open the navigation sidebar (its open state and active tab are remembered):
    • Table of contents: reads the PDF outline (bookmarks); click an entry to jump to that section, and the current section is highlighted.
    • Highlights: lists annotations grouped by page; click one to jump precisely to it and select it. Use the search box to filter by text / note / tag, or the kind buttons (all / highlight / saved text).

Annotation

  • Select PDF text with the mouse → a floating toolbar appears: 高亮 (Highlight) / 保存文字 (Save text) / 取消 (Cancel).
  • The inspector on the right edits style (marker / underline / wavy), color, note and tags; click 保存 (Save) to write (blur also auto-saves).
  • New annotations reuse the last used style and color.

Restore & jump back

  • Reopening the same PDF restores highlights automatically: web PDFs match by URL, local PDFs by file fingerprint (open the same file on another device to restore).
  • Dashboard cards / list / viewer show a “第 N 页” (page N) badge; click 在阅读器中打开 (Open in reader) to jump to that page.

Note: local PDF support is currently Chrome-only.

6. Zen Mode ​

On pages with a detectable article body, you can use the right-click menu:

  • 禅定模式 (仅显示文章) (Zen Mode): keeps only the primary article content for a distraction-free view (designed to be non-destructive to DOM structure so highlight restoration remains stable)
  • 保存文章为图片 (Save article as image): available only when Zen Mode is enabled; captures the article body

If you don’t see the menu, the extension couldn’t detect a suitable article container on that page.

7. Troubleshooting ​

  • Highlight cannot be located? Page structure changes may temporarily prevent restoration; downgrade the entry to plain text from the Popup or Dashboard so its content isn’t lost.
  • Overlapping highlight? The extension warns you and refuses to create the annotation to avoid nesting, which would break positioning.
  • Highlight not refreshed after SPA navigation? The extension listens to History API and URL changes and replays highlights; if it still misbehaves, reload the extension and try again.