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@58008@lemmy.world

Not once in my 40-odd years of life have I used a WYSIWYG editor that, once committed/submitted/saved, actually *gave me what I saw*

2026-04-25 02:33 UTC

If I see a gap between two lines of text, and that gap vanishes when I commit the document to the web or save it to a file, then it’s not ‘WYSIWYG’. But this has been my experience with 100% of such editors. I propose a new acronym to replace ‘wizzy-wig’: WYSMBWYGIYLBIACWBFRTWNBMCTYSSIYUC What You See Might Be What You Get if You’re Lucky but it Almost Certainly Won’t Be For Reasons That Will Never Be Made Clear to You So Suck it Ya Ugly Cunt Not as pithy, but at least it’s accurate.

Replies (20)

  • Pre-Adobe Dreamweaver.

    Open ##1680741

  • @SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 2026-04-25 13:50

    That's why I refuse to use them. Just use markdown or latex if you want to get fancy with it.

    Open ##1680744

  • @Kolanaki@pawb.social 2026-04-25 15:37

    I've used WYSIWYG editors for web pages in the late 90s, early 2000s and they did exactly what they claimed to do. 🤷‍♂️ Also: Klik n Play and The Games Factory were great WYSIWYG game engines that basically were doing what UE5 does with the logic side of things (the flow editor thing where you don't need to actually write code) way the hell back in 1994.

    Open ##1680745

  • @JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 2026-04-25 05:38

    Personally I feel like they're generally pretty good at WYSIWYG. What they're bad at is WYSIWYW (What You See Is What You _Want_). After I do a bunch of work in Word and I have a bunch of garbage, when I load that file back I still have the same garbage. If I print it, I get the same garbage. So yeah, I _get_ what I _see_. Is that what I want? No, I want not-garbage. Anyone remember WordPerfect coming out with "reveal codes" and allowing you to basically edit the markup and fix the issues?

    Open ##1680746

  • @DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 2026-04-25 03:23

    PDF is the only format I know of that is truly WYSIWYG, as it's intended for print output. But, even with that, you need to know what you're doing, it's possible to fuck it up.

    Open ##1680748

  • @DougPiranha42@lemmy.world 2026-04-25 04:58

    After a while I realized that Word (the web app) does not render lines of text in the same position as Word (the desktop app), in the very same file. The former seems to use a pseudo random line spacing.

    Open ##1680749

  • @realitista@lemmus.org 2026-04-25 09:11

    Do they even make them anymore? Last one I used which claimed to be WYSIWYG was Wordsworth on Amiga in the '90s.

    Open ##1680750

  • @allywilson@lemmy.ml 2026-04-25 05:52

    I've just realised I haven't used anything like that in 20 years. Macromedia Dreamweaver, those were the days!

    Open ##1680751

  • @Hawke@lemmy.world 2026-04-25 04:00

    Gimme that WYSIWYM, LyX.

    Open ##1680752

  • @OwOarchist@pawb.social 2026-04-25 04:21

    As shitty as Google is, I've been messing about with Google Sites for one project, and I've been quite impressed with its WYSIWYG accuracy. Your options there are limited (which probably plays into how it's so good), but what it shows you as you build it is pretty much exactly how the website will look when you publish it.

    Open ##1680753

  • @Hayduke@lemmy.world 2026-04-25 04:50

    Shame you never had the misfortune of having to use NetObjects Fusion. Tables nested like an oversized fractal matryoshka doll.

    Open ##1680754

  • @TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 2026-04-25 03:29

    Try VisualEditor on e.g. Wikipedia. You notice idiosynchrasies if you're doing something specific or are pretty experienced, but overall, the difference between the editor and the preview (fully rendered page) is trivial unless you're messing around with a few specific elements (even then, a quick 'Preview' fills in this gap).

    Open ##1680755

  • @blackbeans@lemmy.zip 2026-04-25 05:47

    It sounds like you are only talking about html. Delphi VB6 C# Winforms Qt These wysiwyg editors usually worked/work without issues.

    Open ##1680756

  • I'm fond of WYSISWYG (what you see is sorta what you get).

    Open ##1680757

  • @thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 2026-04-25 04:43

    there was a good HTML editor back in the day called homesite, I made a very popular counterstrike site with it

    Open ##1680758

  • @Maiq@piefed.social 2026-04-25 02:46

    I've made a few apps with wxFormbuilder and they were wysiwyg.

    Open ##1680759

  • @AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 2026-04-25 09:21

    WYSIMOLWIG was coined decades ago.

    Open ##1680760

  • @Lehmuusa@nord.pub 2026-04-25 03:25

    WYSIAWYG

    Open ##1680761

  • @teft@piefed.social 2026-04-25 03:14

    Open ##1680762

  • @Hisse@programming.dev 2026-04-25 14:16

    WDTANMB

    Open ##1840289