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And I've found that text mostly meets my needs too. But that's partly because I'm technical and willing/able to deal with formatting codes for things that shoul

And I've found that text mostly meets my needs too. But that's partly because I'm technical and willing/able to deal with formatting codes for things that should be rendered as more than text: html, restructured text, markdown, etc. In a sense it's a step backwards to WordPerfect and their split screen. There's a lot to be said for wysiwyg. Most people are unwilling or unable to learn or use formatting code in plain text and no immediate rendering of the result. But fundamentally there's no reason why anyone should have to deal with plain text source that produces nicely rendered output (unless we want to). Computers are really, really good at displaying things nicely, and hiding details. The problem is that Word (and the creeping Sharepoint ecosystem) are much too powerful for almost everyone's needs. My work is typical: all our documents are a single font, and they have tables. The docs are kept in Sharepoint, and we do nothing with Sharepoint but keep documents. That over-engineered solution would be better replaced with a very simple word processor like WordPad or some similar rtf tool, and the file system. I don't need to use the truck that takes space shuttles from the vehicle assembly building to the launch pad just to get to work.

dredmorbius 15y ago
The key problem with WYSIWYG is that it doesn't exist any more. The key point as I read of the original article was that Word is a WYSIWYG tool aimed at print. The Slate article could have been a lot better if the author noted the distinction between WYSIWYG and WYSIWYM. Followed immediately by the standard observation that WYSIWYM is a tougher nut. Most of the solutions I'm familiar with rely on either markup (HTML, LaTeX, Wiki parkup, markdown, etc.) or structural conventions (my text docs strongly resemble 1970s typewritten documents in line-length, paragraph style, etc. formats). The great thing about LaTeX is that your document is entirely semantic, and the style is applied by the stylesheet. With tools such as Lyx, this is reasonably intuitive, though stylesheet production itself is a nontrivial task. Similar concepts exist for Web, obviously, with HTML and CSS. The problem is that for the typical user, print remains a simple conceptual model to understand, regardless of how brittle it is in a world with mulitple output formats. There's been a lot of thought put into this area over decades, and for a good tool to emerge and become prominant is yet another tough nut. I agree (from a limited and somewhat old exposure) with your assessment of Sharepoint. I've mostly seen it used as "Christmas Tree" in which individual document blobs (or other objects) are hung, rather than a Wiki in which documents are interlinked, readily refactorable, and dynamic.

dredmorbius 15y ago

The key problem with WYSIWYG is that it doesn't exist any more. The key point as I read of the original article was that Word is a WYSIWYG tool aimed at print. The Slate article could have been a lot better if the author noted the distinction between WYSIWYG and WYSIWYM. Followed immediately by the standard observation that WYSIWYM is a tougher nut. Most of the solutions I'm familiar with rely on either markup (HTML, LaTeX, Wiki parkup, markdown, etc.) or structural conventions (my text docs strongly resemble 1970s typewritten documents in line-length, paragraph style, etc. formats). The great thing about LaTeX is that your document is entirely semantic, and the style is applied by the stylesheet. With tools such as Lyx, this is reasonably intuitive, though stylesheet production itself is a nontrivial task. Similar concepts exist for Web, obviously, with HTML and CSS. The problem is that for the typical user, print remains a simple conceptual model to understand, regardless of how brittle it is in a world with mulitple output formats. There's been a lot of thought put into this area over decades, and for a good tool to emerge and become prominant is yet another tough nut. I agree (from a limited and somewhat old exposure) with your assessment of Sharepoint. I've mostly seen it used as "Christmas Tree" in which individual document blobs (or other objects) are hung, rather than a Wiki in which documents are interlinked, readily refactorable, and dynamic.