Hypermedia Controls: Feral to Formal

A defining characteristic of hypermedia systems is the presence of hypermedia controls. In this paper we examine hypermedia controls as found "in the wild", in particular in the World Wide Web. These hypermedia controls are analyzed to derive a functional hypermedia mechanic that can be used to characterize them. This functional mechanic is used to create first an informal and then formal definition of the term "hypermedia control". Using this formal definition we then derive a generalization of the concept, referring contextually to the World Wide Web. We then examine two hypermedia technologies that implement this concept of generalized hypermedia controls: htmx, which does so in the context of the WWW and Hyperview, which does so in a mobile context.