What Is The Concept Of HTML
HTML is an acronym for “HyperText Markup Language” and put 2 key concepts together, hypertext and markup language.
The language of HTML is used to create documents that use “tags” to determine structure and format.
Hypertext provides a way to organize and present data in a way, it’s the first HTML element. It’s purpose is to link documents in a non-linear manner.
Hypertext documents contain active links, aka “pointers, to other informational sources, like other web pages.
The individual using the page and click a link and move to another hypertext area in the same document, or move to another web page altogether.
Microsoft Word uses bookmarks in the document for navigational purposes, also you see that the main idea of the search engine is to provide an index of webpages that link to each other.
One of the reasons for the “World Wide Web’s” incredible growth is because of its intuitive nature. It’s easy to “surf the net” by clicking links on hypertext documents which tie them together.
Hypertext systems are naturally used for navigating and exploring presented information.
The textual term for the linked text is “Hypertext”, and when it pertains to media, like videos, audio, images or other multimedia, we can consider them “Hypermedia”.
Who Came Up With The Idea?
A guy by the name of Ted Nelson came up with the idea for hypertext in 1965. He coined the terms hypertext and hypermedia in 1963 and published them in 1965.
The 1st widely commercialized hypertext product was the HyperCard
The Hypercard was conceived by a fellow named Bill Atkinson, and it was introduced in 1987 by Apple Computer. The application incorporated many hypertext and hypermedia concepts, but was really proprietary and only worked on Mac computers.
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard):
“HyperCard is a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard combines a flat-file database with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface.
HyperCard is based on the concept of a “stack” of virtual “cards”.[5] Cards hold data, just as they would in a Rolodex card-filing device. Each card contains a set of interactive objects, including text fields, check boxes, buttons, and similar common graphical user interface (GUI) elements. Users browse the stack by navigating from card to card, using built-in navigation features, a powerful search mechanism, or through user-created scripts.[6]”
Cross Platform Equivalent
HyperCard was only usable on Apple machines, but “HTML” was and is a cross platform language, which can be used by Microsoft, Apple, Linux, Chromebooks, and all other machines I may have missed.
Also, remember that HTML and the rest of the Web is a client/server system, and Hypercard only works on the Apple Macintosh computer.
