Talk:WYSIWYG

What does the heading TMI in the article mean? Is is an acronym for something? If no one can answer this, I'm going to change it to External Links. —Frecklefoot 18:12, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I changed it; "TMI" is an acronym for "too much information." - Hephaestos 18:43, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Dude, all I need to know is how to strike through a couple of words of text in my blog. ARGH!

I changed the pronunciation back as I believe it is pronounced "whizzy-wig", not "wheezy-wig". Whizzy is a real word too. A google search for "whizzy-wig" returns 249 pages, whereas "wheezy-wig" produces just 2. Angela 18:29, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I always say "wizzy-wig" but I'm not sure it's a major issue. - Hephaestos 18:43, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

My preference is "wissy-wig", with a hard 'S', and most people I know also pronounce it this way. I'll add it to the list, but feel free to revert if you think that's unusual. JulesH 11:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I've only ever heard 'wheezy-wig' - maybe it's different in Australia. I'd prefer to change this entry to "It's pronounced phonetically". It bugs me when American (and Americanised) publications put plain-text pronunciations for words... that's how you end up with stupid things like 'herb' rhyming with 'bear' and 'love' rhyming with 'smurf'... My point is that Americans aren't the only English speakers out there, so it's meaningless to encylopdia-ise an American pronunciation of a globally relevant word.

Woah, don't blow a tandrum there. ;) I am an American. Unlike my family, I try to be more "unviersal". Anyways, I have always heard "Wuzzy-wig" myself. Though, some clustering came out with "Wizzy-wig". [1] [2] [3] [4] as the "better" term. ~Linuxerist L / T 03:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Constant vandalism

Alright, I'm really curious here: this page is on my watchlist since I did some minor copyediting a couple of weeks ago. Since then, it seems I've reverted some sort of vandalism at least once per day, and other users have done dozens of reverts in between. Now I'm really wondering what makes WYSIWYG such a tempting target for trolls and vandals...in a way, I can understand why the article on Adolf Hitler, for example, is constantly vandalized, but with this article, I have to admit I just don't get it... -- Ferkelparade π 00:55, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

LOL! I think it's because of one of the external pages that links here has immature audience. --Menchi 17:29, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My edits explained

• Added example, because it's the most important application of WYSIWYG.
• Removed the 'unable to fine-tune' line becuase it's not true in most programs.
• Added a much quoted benefit of WYSIWYG.
• Removed reference to Office, partially because a general computer science term shouldn't have such direct references to programs, partially because the main layout program (Word) does have a true WYSIWYG mode.

Shinobu 16:37, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Its good that you removed the Offic refernece, but Page View in Word isn't true WYSIWYG. User:ccool2ax 7:19, 4 Nov 2005 (CST) If you turn off the grid, and display fields in the "results" mode rather than in the "field codes" mode, it should be as close to WYSIWYG as realistically achievable considering the different resolutions, and the possibility of a printer only being able to output B&W. If significant differences are visible you've either stumbled upon a bug in Word, or should update your printer driver (much more likely). I've had some experience using various versions of Word on various computers and never noticed deviations. Shinobu 09:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

WYSIWYG vanished?

I removed the statement that "true WYSIWYG vanished" because it lacked justification. If "true WYSIWYG" is meant a pixel-per-pixel identity, "true WYSIWYG" never existed in the first place. If WYSIWYG is allowed to be achieved when there are resolution differences, then it doesn't matter much what the scaling factors are (the locations on screen can be determined with an accuracy of one pixel, or even better if one allows for the increased use of anti-aliasing). In fact some programs in use today do quite a wonderful job in presenting the page on screen as it will look when printed without giving the user wrong ideas about the appearance of the final result. Shinobu 23:18, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I more or less agree with you. However, I don't know how to pin this down in an NPOV way, but there has been a decline in the degree of WYSIWYG-ness in PC (and Mac!) software over the last few years—much as there has been a decline in usability. A good example of this would be the leading Mac tax-preparation software packages. In 1985 MacInTax was released, and it was strictly WYSIWYG--or at least as much so as the screen resolution permitted. At all times you were working on a facsimile copy of the final printed form. MacInTax went through a chain of at least two company acquisitions and became TurboTax.

Both TurboTax and TaxCut are not WYSIWYG at all. What you see on screen is not at all a facsimile of the printed form. It has roughly the same layout, but only roughly. Many page details, such as inline microinstructions, are omitted. The form itself is interrupted by "miniworksheets" and the like within the form. Boxes are shaded, typography is different, etc. etc. What you have now is a fancy specialized spreadsheet with only a rough approximation to the final form. The only way to view the actual layout is with the Mac's built-in print preview functions.

And the more or less pure WYSIWYG word processors have been largely displaced by Word, which has three or four different view modes, only one of which, "page view," even attempts to be WYSIWYG. The others are necessary because of various minor unsolved usability problems with page view. Dpbsmith (talk) 09:59, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! I'll give you my ideas on this on an item-by-item basis.

TurboTax - I have unfortunately no experience with this program, but I suppose it is something like the belastingdiskette. The primary goal of such a program is not to layout and format a document, but to generate a tax-return form based upon user input. WYSIWYG doesn't add much to such an application.

Word - Word indeed has four different view modes. The normal view is provided for nostalgia, I think. The web view is meant to preview how a document will look in a non-paged context (like a webbrowser). The page view is almost WYSIWYG, except that things don't appear in grayscale or patterned if you've got a black-and-white printer, like I do. The structure view is designed to make the document structure visible, show headings, move them around and such. Since the document will not be printed with collapsed paragraphs, such a mode is necessarily non-WYSIWYG.

Programs often are WYSIWYG, except when it's not practical, in which case they usually have a print-preview mode. In my personal experience it is a lot easier to write an "almost WYSIWYG" program than a program that is not WYSIWYG at all, since it saves you the trouble of writing the drawing code again for the printer. Although to get things absolutely right you might still need to fiddle around a bit.

In any case, I don't think that the programs mentioned above are WYSIWYG or non-WYSIWYG because hardware resolutions have changed, like the article suggested. I think usability is the primary reason, since word processors, DTP applications, drawing programs etc. often are WYSIWYG.

I don't think making observations, like you do, or like I do, is being POV by the way.

Bye! I'd appreciate your comments. Shinobu 17:00, 6 Apr 2005

Gosparty's edits

I reverted Gosparty's edits. I think most of the added information doesn't belong in this article. You can use the history feature to add the information to another article if you feel the urge to do so. However, I recommend wikifaction and style improvement before doing so. Shinobu 21:36, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I concur. That content consisted of a description of the HTML editing features available in the "Composer" component of Netscape and in Mozilla. Although these are sometimes described as WYSIWYG HTML editors, they are not of any particular importance in describing either the WYSIWYG concept or its history. They are also not terribly pure examples of WYSIWYG since they do not implement all of HTML and must always be checked by viewing the finished result in an actual browser. Finally, it can be argued that a "WYSIWYG HTML editor" is a contradiction in terms because HTML defines only a general intention, not a specific appearance. That is, HTML is intended to, and does have a different appearance depending on your browser, screen size, settings.

Since Gosparty appears to be new to Wikipedia, I would note that the deleted material has NOT been lost. To recover it for use e.g. in another article, go to WYSIWYG, click on History, and click on the link "16:10, 22 Apr 2005" You will see the article as it was before your material was removed. You can recover it by clicking on Edit This Page and copying your Wiki text out of the edit box and into Notepad or some other text editor. DO NOT press the Save Page button! Click the Cancel link or the Main page link or just close that browser tab or window. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:39, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Really useful?

While I appreciate critical views of everything, I appreciate them even more if no non-facts are presented as facts in the process.

@WYSIWYG, is becoming increasingly difficult to realise: this is not true. If you can print it, you can make it appear on screen just the same way, and vice versa. Resolution problems, black and white problems, etc. don't count as deviating from WYSIWYG. The point is to get when editing a view of a document that is as true as possible to what it will look like in the final version. In a lot of operating systems it is possible to use the same drawing code for the screen and the printer. The only thing that usually needs to be done to make a program WYSIWYG is to set up the coordinate system.

After that the section makes even more claims, some of which don't have anything to do with WYSIWYG. I've put up a Disputed-notice. Shinobu 10:16, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Disputed?

I agree that some comments need to be justified and have done so. Is the clarificatoin and justification sufficient to remove the disputed header?

I think the article's accurate as it currently stands. JulesH 11:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Difficulties of implementation

Does anybody think a section on the difficulties of implementing true WYSIWYG would be useful? This would cover the problem currently mentioned in passing of using different font metrics for display and print, what problems it causes, the solution currently employed by MS Word and others (using a scaled down version of the printer's metrics) and its disadvantage (that layout can change when you select a new printer), and the solution employed by PDF (using standardised font metrics and ignoring the printer's own ideas about them). JulesH 11:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

  Yes, I believe this would be useful rgardler 11:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Do these problems still exist?

For example, when designing a poster intended for billboard hoardings, a seemingly insignificant half pixel rounding error can become a noticeable artifact in the final output format. Similarly, an incorrect colour balance on a standard advertising flyer can make a significant difference to the final product.

I think the first was solved when the zoom function was invented, and the second has been solved now we can save colour-space information with documents. Shinobu 06:51, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

What's the problem with WYGS ?

WYGS means "What You Get Sucks". Yes, it can be regarded as stupid / lame but well, there are a bunch of similar more or less humorous acronyms on this page.

Failures at it

Two programs that're rather bad with this are Netscape Composer/Navigator and the old Corel WordPerfect 3.5e for Macintosh.

You'd think that a web browser and HTML editor that come together, from the same company, would display the same HTML exactly the same. Nope! Copmoser displays many HTML elements very differently than the same version of Navigator. I can't think of any good reasons why Netscape could not make them display identically. They _should_ have the same display engine but apparently there are differences.

WordPerfect 3.5e can _create_ HTML and it looks pretty good. What it cannot do is properly load and display the file that was just created and saved. If the file is saved again, without any editing, it saves the screwed up mess so it'll display that way in browsers. So unless you get your HTML right the first time in this program, you're stuck. I didn't try loading an HTML document created with a different program so I don't know how badly it interprets other programs' code. It does a bad enough job on its own code!

Spam

I dont have a username, I'm just passing through... I have removed what I thought was some kind of spam from the end of the "related acronyms" section. It appeared to be just HTML put into the body of the text, as code was showing all the way through. Does this happen often? Wikipedia's a pretty tight ship so I've never seen it before.

Obvious vandalism like the incident you described is usually reverted quickly. In this case, the text managed to stay for 15 minutes which is pretty good for an article like this. More subtle vandalism and mis-information usually takes longer to be corrected; I've seen vandalism stay in an article for nearly 5 months. Thanks for the revert. Graham talk 13:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

wetpaint

http://wetpaint.com/ looks like a WYSIWYG and is a Wiki.

I am in no way endorsing this wiki.

http://brickiwiki.wetpaint.com/page/Home

Competes with the Much more poplar

An I natural like MediaWiki So much better because I can re edit my comments and i know the formatting so well.--E-Bod 02:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I get your point. I don't think we should be listing WYSIWYG software here, as there is so much of it, most of which isn't even approximately notable. We rely on a few important examples (e.g. MS Word and Adobe Acrobat) to illustrate the points the article makes. I'm dubious about the need for any links to WYSIWYG software from this article. JulesH 22:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The related acronyms

I've just deleted a load of them. I've kept the ones that seemed important -- the ones that discussed important concepts related to WYSIWYG, for instance, plus those that contain links to other wikipedia articles. I've deleted a number that seemed to just be jibes at problems with WYSIWYG software, or which were basically arbitrary distinctions (e.g. the separate term for WYSIWYG Wikis... totally pointless, just call them a WYSIWYG Wiki), or weren't related to WYSIWYG (e.g. 'WYSIWYN', which apparently simply means 'not WYSIWYG' in the context of web editors... a totally pointless term that is probably only used for marketing purposes).

I just don't think this is the kind of thing that should be in an encyclopedia. JulesH 22:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

First useage/history

Actually, the first use of the phrase "What you see is what you get." dates from the late 60s, and was one of the best known phrases used by the comedian Flip Wilson. The magazine in the 70s obviously adapted it.

There should be a small section under history about him as well, since the phrase is also commonly assiciated with him.