Hypertext
Hypertext, sometimes also called hyperlinking, is a technique for organizing and retrieving related, but not necessarily sequential, pieces of electronic information called hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are preset or user-created cross-references that allow a user to "link" (quickly move) from one electronic document to another. More specifically, these links go from a particular location on a web page or document to another particular location on a web page or document. The act of linking often gives the hypertext document a look of being "interactive" as the user actively jumps back and forth from page to page. When a particular hyperlink is selected, whatever it is linked to will appear on the screen. For example, while reading an electronic encyclopedia article about the discovery of gold in California in 1849 the Internet user might "click" on the bolded word "gold" to display a web page that describes the properties and characteristics of the metal gold. Hyperlinks can be such objects as text, video, audio, and programs, to name a few. Hypertext is most well known on the Internet, but is also used on intranets (private networks based on Internet standards but designed for use within companies and organizations), as well as in many CD-ROM multimedia applications.
American computer scientist Ted Nelson created the term "hypertext" in 1965 to describe a collection of documents, or "nodes," containing cross-references, or "links," that would help users move from one document to another. Nelson used the prefix hyper to describe the speed with which users could jump to and from related areas of text. Nelson first applied hypertext to his Xanadu system that he envisioned would become a giant network of hyper-linked documents distributed on servers throughout the world. Nelson's system eventually became the primary concept that led to the invention of the World Wide Web (WWW or Web), which is basically an enormous amount of information connected by an enormous number of hypertext links.
The network or "branching" structure of hyperlinked information differentiates with the "linear" structure of traditional (paper) encyclopedias and dictionaries that can only be physically accessed by means of a fixed sequence of entries, normally in alphabetical order. Hypertext links, on the other hand, are able to cross-reference with flexible, near-instant access to the target piece of information. Such links are most effective when used on a large database that is organized into many smaller, related pieces, and when the user requires only a small portion of information at any one time. Hypertext has been used most successfully by the interactive multimedia computer systems that came into commercial use in the early 1990s.
Hypertext documents are based on and created in a markup language (a programming language specially designed to give structure to documents on networks). The most general markup language is Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). Hypertext documents on the Internet are created in a more customized form of markup language called HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTML is the underlying format for WWW documents in which tags are embedded in text to determine how the user links to other documents in the browser.
Hypertext documents may exist as stored program files on a computer user's hard drive, on external memory storage devices such as DVD-ROMs, or on Internet servers. Computers use a program called a web browser to view hypertext. A browser is software that allows a user to view HTML documents and to access files and software related to those documents. Browsers normally display hyperlinks within plain text in bold, in a different color, or underlined. Two very popular web browsers are Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Explorer. A document is accessed through a hyperlink when a user points and clicks at the appropriate link typically by using a mouse. The browser then downloads and displays the document targeted by the hyperlink. Moving between hypertext documents is called navigating. On the Internet, every hypertext document has a unique address, called a Universal Resource Locator (URL), which permits other hypertext documents to locate it. There are several hypertext systems available on the Internet that enables users to develop their own unique databases. Such systems are often called authoring systems, with HyperCard software from Apple Computers being one of the more popular systems.
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