3 ms·
Every time I see a new WYSIWYG text editor, I wonder: do people really need to set single words in bold, italic, underline, and strike-through? I feel like thi
by jwr 9y ago
Every time I see a new WYSIWYG text editor, I wonder: do people really need to set single words in bold, italic, underline, and strike-through?
I feel like this is a leftover of the old times, back when first WYSIWYG editors appeared and these capabilities were impressive. I think these days what one needs is not bold/italic, but facilities for editing structure, inserting links, and positioning images, all according to a style template.
- emodendroket 9y agoObviously one can do without but it's useful.
- kijin 9y agoProgrammers love semantic structure, but the vast majority of ordinary people just want to make some letters bigger, italic, purple, etc. It's all about presentation. Those of us who do care about semantic structure can often do without WYSISYG editors anyway, since we have much cooler alternatives such as Markdown and LaTeX.
- roryisok 9y agoDepends on your use-case I suppose. That's why most of these editors are customisable. When writing posts on SO, I've used bold, italic, and strike-through in the same post. In every day usage, bold/underline/strike may be superfluous, but I would argue that italics are essential. Without at least the ability to emphasise a word in some way, your only option is uppercase.