anchor

<hypertext> (Or "hyperlink", "button", formerly "span", "region", "extent") An area within the content of a hypertext node (e.g. a web page) which is the source or destination of a link. A source anchor may be a word, phrase, image or the whole node. A destination anchor may be a whole node or some position within the node.

A hypertext browser usually displays a source anchor in some distinctive way, e.g. marked with a special symbol or drawn in a different colour, font or style. When the user activates the link (e.g. by clicking on it with the mouse), the browser displays the destination anchor to which the link refers. Some anchors only look different when the mouse is over them but this forces the user to hunt for them when they should be obvious.

In HTML, anchors are created with the <a..>..</a> construct. The opening "a" tag of a source anchor has an "href" (hypertext reference) attribute giving the destination in the form of a URL - usually a whole node or "page". E.g.

	<a href="http://CompuLexi.org/">
	Computing Lexicon</a>

Destination anchors are only used in HTML to name a position within a page using a "name" attribute. E.g.

	<a name="chapter3">

The name or "fragment identifier" is appended to the URL of the page after a "#":

	http://fairystory.com/goldilocks.html#chapter3

(Though it is generally better to break pages into smaller units than to have large pages with named sections).

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