WYSIWYG

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In computing, WYSIWYG (/ˈwɪziwɪɡ/ WIZ-ee-wig), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get,[1] refers to software which allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product,[2] such as a printed document, web page, or slide presentation. WYSIWYG implies a user interface that allows the user to view something very similar to the result while the document is being created.[3] In general, WYSIWYG implies the ability to directly manipulate the layout of a document without having to type or remember names of layout commands.[4]

History

Before the adoption of WYSIWYG techniques, text appeared in editors using the system standard

boldface, italics, or a different typeface or size. In this environment there was very little distinction between text editors and word processors
.

These applications typically used an arbitrary markup language to define the codes/tags. Each program had its own special way to format a document, and it was a difficult and time-consuming process to change from one word processor to another.

The use of markup tags and codes remains popular today in some applications due to their ability to store complex formatting information. When the tags are made visible in the editor, however, they occupy space in the unformatted text, and as a result can disrupt the desired layout and flow.

laser printers
. When the text was laid out on the screen, 72 PPI font metric files were used, but when printed, 300 PPI files were used. As a result, one would occasionally find characters and words that are slightly off—a problem that would continue up to this day.

Bravo was released commercially, and the software eventually included in the Xerox Star can be seen as a direct descendant of it.[7]

In late 1978, in parallel with but independent of the work at Xerox PARC,

BRUNO was then ported to the HP-3000 and re-released as "HP Draw".[8]

By 1981,

Apple Macintosh, released in 1984.[12]

The

multisync monitors, resolutions deviated from even multiples of the screen resolution, making true WYSIWYG harder to achieve.[13]

Etymology

The phrase "what you see is what you get", from which the acronym derives, was a catchphrase popularized by Flip Wilson's drag persona Geraldine, first appearing in September 1969, then regularly in the early 1970s on The Flip Wilson Show. The phrase was a statement demanding acceptance of Geraldine's entire personality and appearance.

As it relates to computing, there are multiple claims to first use of the phrase:

Variations

Many variations are used only to illustrate a point or make a joke, and have very limited real use. Some that have been proposed include the following:

  • WYGIWYG; what you get is what you get, often used in a similar way to WYSIAYG, WYSIMOLWYG, or WYSINWYW.[18]
  • WYGIWYS, what you get is what you see, used in computing to describe an interaction paradigm in results-oriented user interface. The term was used by Jakob Nielsen to describe Microsoft Office 2007's "Ribbon" interface[19]
  • WYSIAWYG; what you see is almost what you get, similar to WYSIMOLWYG.[4]
  • WYSIAYG, what you see is all you get, used to point out that advanced users are sometimes limited by the user interface.[20]
  • WYSIMOLWYG, what you see is more or less what you get, recognizing that most WYSIWYG implementations are imperfect.[4]
  • WYSINWYW, what you see is not what you want, suggesting that Microsoft Word often controls the user, not the other way around[21]
  • WYSIWYW, what you see is what you want, used to describe GNU TeXmacs editing platform.[22] The abbreviation clarifies that unlike in WYSIWYG editors, the user is able to customize WYSIWYW platforms to act (possibly in part) as manual typesetting programs such as TeX or troff.
  • WYTIWYG, what you think is what you get, found in Ward Cunninghams Wiki, the first user-editable website meaning: "What we look for is often what we find.",[23] Used as a principle for WackoWiki markup, meaning that "formatted output actually looks like you expect it to look" [24]
  • YAFIYGI, you asked for it you got it, used to describe a text-command oriented document editing system that does not include WYSIWYG, in reference to the fact that users of such systems often ask for something they did not really want. It is considered to be the opposite of WYSIWYG.
    TECO text editor system, and began to be abbreviated circa 1993.[26][27][28]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)". Archived from the original on 30 November 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2007.
  2. ^ "Oxford English Dictionary: WYSIWYG". Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 31 January 2013.
  3. ^ "WYSIWYG Website Builders for Online Business". HuffPost. 15 December 2015. Archived from the original on 16 December 2015.
  4. ^
    FOLDOC. Archived
    from the original on 5 November 2010. Retrieved 7 January 2011.
  5. ^ "Computing Now". Archived from the original on 7 October 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  6. ^ Markoff, John (18 October 2007). "The Real History of WYSIWYG". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  7. ^ Brad A. Myers. A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology. Archived 18 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine ACM interactions. Vol. 5, no. 2, March, 1998. pp. 44–54.
  8. ^ "Hewlett Packard: Computer Focus" (PDF). HP Computer Museum. September 1985. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 September 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  9. ^ Advertisement (March 1981). "Can your word processor pass this screen test?". BYTE. p. 269. Archived from the original on 31 August 2014. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  10. ZDNet. Archived
    from the original on 23 September 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2016.
  11. ^ "What You See Is What You Get". Softline (advertisement). January 1983. pp. 10–11. Archived from the original on 3 July 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  12. ^ Apple Computer, Claris (1984), MacWrite, archived from the original on 7 March 2019, retrieved 24 July 2019
  13. ^ "WYSIWYG History, Etymology, Variations, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". Wiki. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  14. ^ Markoff, John (18 October 2007). "The Real History of WYSIWYG". Bits Blog. Archived from the original on 1 August 2018. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  15. .
  16. .
  17. ^ Flynn, Peter (2014). Human Interfaces to Structured Documents (PDF) (Thesis). Ireland: University College Cork. p. 40 footnote 10. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  18. ^ "WYGIWYG". Archived from the original on 10 September 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  19. ^ "Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 10, 2005 "R.I.P. WYSIWYG"". Archived from the original on 31 July 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
  20. FOLDOC. Archived
    from the original on 5 November 2010. Retrieved 7 January 2011.
  21. from the original on 12 July 2017. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  22. ^ "Welcome to GNU TeXmacs (FSF GNU project)". texmacs.org. Archived from the original on 11 February 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  23. ^ Ward Cunningham (ed.). "C2.com". Archived from the original on 24 April 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  24. ^ "wackowiki.org/WYTIWYG". Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  25. .
  26. ^ Eric S. Raymond (ed.). "The Jargon File 4.4.7: YAFIYGI". Archived from the original on 29 June 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
  27. ^ "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal". Archived from the original on 18 December 2008. Retrieved 9 December 2008. (originally published in Datamation vol 29 no. 7, July 1983)
  28. FOLDOC. Archived
    from the original on 21 June 2010. Retrieved 7 January 2011.

External links