Introduction

Hypertext is a system for marking up documents with informational tags that indicate how text in the documents should be presented and how the documents are linked together. With Hypertext, lies the power to create a multi-platform and multimedia application. It is easy to use, because it is not a programming language, and the writer/author does not have to be a programmer in order to make one.

Hypertext systems are emerging as a new class of complex information management systems. These systems allow people to create, annotate, link together, and share information from a variety of media such as text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and programs. Hypertext systems provide a non-sequential and entirely new method of accessing information unlike traditional information systems which are primarily sequential in nature.

Unlike book, hypertext is a non-linear text. This gives readers many choices of reading materials to choose and read. Different readers can follow different paths through the work; readers can choose among all the links that the authors provided those associations most relevant to their immediate needs.

In the early days of hypertext, links only contained textual data. Now, it can contain various kinds of data, such as graphics, audio, video, animated images, or other kinds of information. The Hypertext with multimedia is called hypermedia.

Benefits of the architecture

Since the architecture of hypertext is based on open design philosophy, it allows applications to participate in the architecture at various levels. An application can choose to fully support or only support part of the architecture.

An application also does not have to manage the links and anchors data, because those have been managed by the architecture, therefore applications can be designed at minimal cost, moreover, the data stored in the architecture also not affected by the applications.

The architecture system serves as a global model for building distributed hypertext environments. It is scalable since the anchor and link components are separated within the hypertext layer, so that multiple applications can utilize the components.