Hyperlink Terminology Re: Comments on June 8 draft

Ralph Ferris (ralph@ossi.com)
Wed, 14 Jun 95 18:25:57 EDT

> Dan Connolly wrote:
>
> The HTML 2.0 spec cites the DEXTER reference model. That's what
> TimBL's hypertext research was based on, and what most modern
> hypertext literature is based on. Now I admit that I haven't actually
> read the seminal DEXTER paper, but I have read related papers, and
> they're pretty consistent:
>
> * a link is a pair of anchors (or a set of anchors)
> (kinda like an edge in a graph)
> * a anchor is an endpoint of a link
> (kinda like a vertex in a graph)

HyTime follows a similar model. From the standard:

3.1 anchor: An object (or aggregation of objects) that is linked by a
hyperlink.

NOTE 9 The term "object" is not a formal construct in HyTime; an anchor
could be a document, an element, an arbitrary chunk of data, or any
other thing.

NOTE 10 An object is an anchor if and only if a hyperlink identifies
it as such.

NOTE 11 An object could be identified as an anchor by several link
ends, in the same or different hyperlinks.

3.15 hyperlink: An information structure that represents a relationship
among two or more objects.

NOTE 22 Objects that are related by a hyperlink are called the "anchors"
of the hyperlink. An anchor is identified by a property of the
hyperlink called a "link end".

NOTE 23 Hyperlinks can be assigned link types and names by applications
and architectures that use HyTime.

**********************************************************************

Ralph E. Ferris
Project Manager, Electronic Publications
Fujitsu Open Systems Solutions, Inc. (FOSSI), Engineering Services
Phone: (408) 456-7806 Fax: (408) 456-7050
E-mail: ralph@ossi.com

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