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Posted to commits@lenya.apache.org by ts...@apache.org on 2005/04/12 22:22:43 UTC
svn commit: r161111 - in lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs:
1_4/concepts/ 1_4/concepts/wysiwyg.xml site.xml
Author: tschlabach
Date: Tue Apr 12 13:22:42 2005
New Revision: 161111
URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs?view=rev&rev=161111
Log:
Added a document about WYSIWYG in general. (To be extended and related to Lenya concepts in particular.)
Added:
lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/1_4/concepts/
lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/1_4/concepts/wysiwyg.xml
Modified:
lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/site.xml
Added: lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/1_4/concepts/wysiwyg.xml
URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs/lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/1_4/concepts/wysiwyg.xml?view=auto&rev=161111
==============================================================================
--- lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/1_4/concepts/wysiwyg.xml (added)
+++ lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/1_4/concepts/wysiwyg.xml Tue Apr 12 13:22:42 2005
@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!--
+ Copyright 2002-2004 The Apache Software Foundation
+
+ Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+ http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+ Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ limitations under the License.
+-->
+<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.2//EN" "http://forrest.apache.org/dtd/document-v12.dtd">
+<document>
+ <header>
+ <title>WYSIWYG</title>
+ </header>
+ <body>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>Why WYSIWYG is good ...</title>
+
+ <p>WYSIWYG (pronounce "vee-zee-weeg") stands for "What you see is what you get". To make most
+ people who's personal experience with computers does not at least date back into the 80ies, a little
+ history lesson is needed here. In case you have even used punch cards or you are a *IX person who
+ knows why vi is considered a visual editor (compared to ed), this section will not contain a lot of
+ news for you and you can safely skip to the next section. Anyone who grew up with windows
+ and mice read on.</p>
+
+ <section>
+
+ <title>Editing without WYSIWYG</title>
+
+ <p>An electronic document - for example an HTML page - is nothing but a file on your system
+ which contains a character stream. You can edit an HTML page with a simple text editor such as
+ vi or Notepad. In that case, you have to put HTML tags into your text and ensure yourself that
+ the resulting file is valid and can be rendered by the browser.</p>
+
+ <p>This has nohting to do with WYSIWYG at all, as what you see on your screen while editing
+ looks entirely different than what you will see later in your browser when the HTML file is rendered.</p>
+
+ <p>While many people might have written their first HTML pages in a text editor, today it's hard
+ to imagine that early word processors worked the same way. You could not just select a word and hit
+ a button to make the world bold and immediately see the result, but you had to put control
+ characters into your text and could only see the result on paper after you printed the text to paper.
+ In the early days of word processing, the software did not even understand the control characters
+ but just sent them to the printer. Introducing printer independent control characters, which
+ were than mapped to the specific escape codes for a specific make and model of a printer
+ was already the first step of abstraction, which was considered an innovation when it was introduced.</p>
+
+ <p>Early word processors operated in text only mode which means that you cannot display different fonts,
+ font sizes of even bold or italic script on the screen at all. Later there have been graphic cards that
+ were able to display attributes such as bold or italic type, but it was never possible to display different
+ font sizes in text mode. Some word processors tried to compensate this by using colors.</p>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+
+ <title>WYSIWYG hides complexity from the user</title>
+
+ <p>The introduction of graphical user interfaces probably was the single most important enabler
+ to WYSIWYG word processors as well as any other kind of WYSIWYG editors, for example for spreadsheets,
+ presentation slides or illustrations.</p>
+
+ <p>With WYSIWYG (together with some other technologies such as Postscript or TrueType fonts) it was
+ possible to display a text exactly the way it will be printed later. You don't see any control
+ characters any more on your screen (though they are still in the character stream) but you can
+ select a part of the text and assign a font, font size or attributed such as bold or italics. And
+ afterwards, you get an immediate visual feedback of what you have done and you can decide if this
+ is really what you intended to do.</p>
+
+ <p>WYSIWYG has two obvious advantages:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>The user does not have to learn any control characters or tags, but he or she can manipulate
+ the document through clicking on intuitive buttons and other GUI widgets, for example a drop down
+ list of available fonts.</li>
+ <li>You don't have to imagine how your document will look like later but you can see it building up
+ in front of your eyes. For example, you can type a text first and then mark and format the headlines.
+ Editing a large text document or even a graphical document without WYSIWYG requires a lot of imagination
+ or a lot of experience with similar document types to avoid having too many interations of putting something
+ in, than having to render it for preview and then going back to the source code.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>The introduction of WYSIWYG word processors lead to a whole wave of WYSIWYG tools. It became next to
+ impossible to sell any new application that could not claim it was WYSIWYG. Besides word processors, it
+ was HTML editors and page layout systems (DTP) which became increasingly popular.</p>
+
+ </section>
+
+ </section>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>... and why WYSIWYG can be bad as well</title>
+
+ <p>If you are looking for an example of the limits of WYSIWYG, take a look at the idea of "visual programming".</p>
+
+ <p>Some of the most powerful software companies as well as some smaller innovative companies have tried to
+ deliver on the promise that it will be possible to replace writing of source code with clicking together
+ components visually using the mouse. Aside from very specific aspects such as GUI design and linking data to a
+ GUI nobody ever really made it.</p>
+
+ <p>Depending on who you ask and depending on your personal point of view, you may pick from one of these two
+ explainations:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>It cannot be done.</li>
+ <li>It does not make sense.</li>
+ </ul>
+
+ <p>The idea of visual programming is a bit like trying not to write a letter or a novel character by
+ character but by choosing text blocks from a library. It can certainly be done but you are very limited
+ in the thoughts that you can express. If you try to express a thought that is new and has never been
+ expressed with this system before, you cannot.</p>
+
+ <p>Taking it back on a technical level, there is a danger that indifferent application of the WYSIWYG
+ idea leads to either oversimplifying things or having to build a GUI that is overly complex and not intuitive
+ at all.</p>
+
+ </section>
+
+ </body>
+</document>
Modified: lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/site.xml
URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs/lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/site.xml?view=diff&r1=161110&r2=161111
==============================================================================
--- lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/site.xml (original)
+++ lenya/docu/src/documentation/content/xdocs/site.xml Tue Apr 12 13:22:42 2005
@@ -51,11 +51,15 @@
<install href="source_version.html" label="Installation Instructions"/>
</installation>
- <concepts href="reference/" label="Technical Reference">
+ <concepts href="concepts/" label="Concepts">
+ <wysiwyg href="wysiwyg.html" label="WYSIWYG" />
+ </concepts>
+
+ <reference href="reference/" label="Technical Reference">
<sitemaps14 href="lenya-sitemaps.html" label="Overview of Lenya Sitemaps" />
<usecase-framework-index href="usecase-framework/index.html" label="Usecase Framework"/>
<publication-templating href="publication-templating/index.html" label="Publication Templating"/>
- </concepts>
+ </reference>
<javadoc1.4 href="../../../../apidocs/1.4/index.html" label="1.4 API (Javadoc)"/>
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