Atomic component, composite component and link component are the fundametal components of hypertext as defined in the Dexter Reference Model. HyperComponent is the abstract class for these three components.HyperAtom, HyperComposite and HyperLink are subclasses of HyperComponent. They represent atomic components, composite components and link components respectively..
Fig. XX Hierarchy of HyperComponent.
Different HyperComponents are interconnected together by HyperLink.Every component has a globally unique identity which is captured by its unique identifier (UID). UIDs are primitive in the model, but they are assumed to be uniquely assigned to components across the entire universe of discourse... [dexter]
An example of HyperComposite is a HTML document that contains an inline image with a URL as its UID. An example of atomic component represented by HyperComponent is a gif file with a URL as its UID. The link inside a HTML document is a good example of HyperLink.