Christoph Sauer questions if WYSIWYG is a good thing, based on his experience with a wiki within his technical university in Germany and creating WikiWizard. Leslie Lamport (helped create LaTeX) in 1987 wrote a paper called Document Production: Visual or Logical (pdf). Visual is what you see is what you get, Logical is what you see is what you mean. A Canadian study, “Are Wikis Usable?” (pdf) with 4th grade students showed the biggest issue (49%) was link creation and management (understanding hypertext).

Wiki Markup cons:

* “This is not for me,” or people have to learn how to use it. They just know Word. There is no explorative usage.

* “Text processing of the old days.” A “sea of monospaced letters,” losing overview in simple text editors

* “Wiki markup mess” or no standard for markup

WYSIWYG was developed for printing a document or using the same word processor. But what about sending an email? Will people see it the same way you sent it? What if you copy and paste content between wikis, CMS, documents…what if the CSS layout changes over time and what if your article is published and is effected by a medium changes, or your audience changes (disabilities).

Frederik Brooks Prediction in 1986: We will not see advances of scale in programming until we seperate accidental tasks from essential tasks. Transferring this to web authoring: the accidental task is formatting layout, the essential task is information + basic structure (emphasis and linking). Wiki markup is part of the essence of a document — teach the public!

Wiki Markup Pros:

* Concentrating onthe content. For the author a clean seperaation of layout and content, no typographical errors.

* Context sensitive display: reader and designer have homogeneous design.

* Speed. The tool for knowledge workers, e.g. bloggers don’t lose the “flow” No time for formatting.

* Simplicity. Allows easy evolving of wikis, e.g. scripting.

He gives a demo of an editor that is like the Wikitext mode of Wikiwyg. You can use familiar tool bars to add formatting, and you see the commands to do so, so people learn Wikitext as they use. But it also formats on the fly like WYSIWYG mode. It also has a table editor and a outline view. Suggests standardizing on three image sizes for image uploads. (Someone asked about adding license info for images, I suggested looking at Greg Elin’s Fotonotes) It does a basic paste from Word function.

His core argument: we should have an alternative to both extremes (I agree). A forward looking vision would be computer literacy that involves undersanding the difference between the model and the view, and keep extending punctuation. He also wants people to work towards a WikiMarkupStandard.

I can’t really disagree with Chris’ findings. Ingy once called WYSIWYG within Wikiwyg “training wheels.” I like WikiWizard’s dynamic display, but wonder how big of a payload it is and think it needs more editing modes to be usable. Our usability interviews showed a tremendous uptake in adoption from introducing Wikiwyg and believe multiple edit modes and simplicity of the editor make a big difference.

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Ross Mayfield is CEO and co-founder of Socialtext, an emerging provider of Enterprise Social Software that dramatically increases group productivity and develops a group memory.

He also writes Ross Mayfield’s Weblog which focuses on markets, technology and musings.

Yes, it’s a beta and so you expect to encounter bugs and other quirks. On first run, though, I’m impressed especially with the changes I see in the post editor.

Now, there is true WYSIWYG editing instead of the semi-code view of past versions. You can also access full HTML code view to directly edit the code of your post. While I like the semi-code view, there’s no question I prefer the combination of a rich-text editing environment and the option to dive into the complete code if I want.

In such respects, ecto for Windows is now in line with the type of editing interaction offered by competing products like BlogJet.

Other immediate things I noticed and which I like a lot include correct post formatting. With the current version 1.8.8 and previous versions I’ve used, I had a constant problem with creating posts for this WordPress blog where the only formatting option was no line breaks’ meaning that, no matter which blog platform API ecto was configured for, I still had to manually insert start and ending paragraph tags otherwise everything would be posted as one continuous paragraph.

Now I see that the formatting drop-down list doesn’t offer me any options, but a look at the code view for this post shows those paragraph tags automatically inserted. I’m fine with that as long as it works.

Another good thing – I see the menu bar and the formatting menu now include options to format text as bulleted or numbered lists. At last!

The only bug I’ve encountered so far in writing this post is that the undo feature doesn’t seem to work.

I installed this beta on a PC which already has ecto for Windows 1.8.8 installed, so it was not a fresh install – it picked up all my blog and other settings from that install. I haven’t gone through setting up a blog from scratch with this beta so can’t comment on how well or not that works.

So a quick post with initial thoughts. I’ve not tried anything else yet (eg, insert an image or photo) which I’ll get to soon.

Initial impression – this beta version looks very good indeed. Nice work, ecto.

Related posts:

• The trouble with RocketPost
• More choices with offline blog editors
• Filling the market gap for offline blog editors
• QumanaXP public beta launched

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

It makes working with all common online formats and help systems quicker and easier with simple WYSIWYG controls and push-button processing.

“Quadralay has taken the program to a whole new level, making the product more accessible without trading in its trademark power,” said an EContent Magazine Decision-maker review.

Obviously many, many people use Microsoft Word to create documents for print and for the web, and WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word makes these documents easier to control and customize.

RoboHelp users will find the program particularly useful, because RoboHelp projects can be directly opened in it, and can be controlled more easily.

Check out Quadralay’s site for more details on WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word.

Chris is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

It makes working with all common online formats and help systems quicker and easier with simple WYSIWYG controls and push-button processing.

“Quadralay has taken the program to a whole new level, making the product more accessible without trading in its trademark power,” said an EContent Magazine Decision-maker review.

Obviously many, many people use Microsoft Word to create documents for print and for the web, and WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word makes these documents easier to control and customize.

RoboHelp users will find the program particularly useful, because RoboHelp projects can be directly opened in it, and can be controlled more easily.

Check out Quadralay’s site for more details on WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word.

Chris is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

Wigging Out

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get, pronounced “whizzy wig”) web site editing programs can allow anyone to develop rich, full-feature web sites without a working knowledge of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Many of these programs feature a “drag and drop” user interface, accomplishing eye-catching web site development in much the same way one might perform desktop publishing.

However, many, if not most of these programs generate HTML files that oftentimes results in compatibility issues. A few key concerns in developing web sites using WYSIWYG editors include:

* Text content may not be positioned at the top of the HTML file, which search engines like Google use to determine search engine ranking;

* Font sizes may not be fixed, displaying garbled or overlapping text;

* Content placement may not appear uniformly in less popular, yet fully functional browsers;

* Future expandability of your web site may be limited to the program’s design interface.

Although many WYSIWYG programs are capable of developing visually appealing web design, HTML automatically generated by the program for upload to the World Wide Web may limit your web site’s compatibility and expandability, long-term.

Coding by Hand

Coding HTML by hand can be a challenging, yet worthwhile endeavor, as the flexibility of hand-coded HTML measurably outweighs the time required to become familiar with the language.

Although a relatively simple programming language, HTML is a diverse subject with many facets that can be used to create a dynamic, rich web presence. There are a number of on-line tutorials offering basic and advanced HTML guidance, as well as HTML’s secondary offshoot languages, such as DHTML and XML. A search on Google (http://www.google.com) using terms such as “HTML how to” or “HTML tutorial” will produce a myriad of results for new and advanced programmers.

Coding your web site by hand not only allows for broadened aesthetic possibilities, but also provides greater flexibility for ensuring your site is optimized for search engine results and display compatibility.

Additional benefits of hand-coded HTML include:

* Wider range of design options such as of tables and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

* Faster page load, by reducing excess code generated by many WYSIWYG editors

* Increased compatibility with future expansion needs of your site, including forms, mini-applications (often referred to as scripts), and e-commerce features

On Second Thought

If the thought of developing your own web site sounds overwhelming, delegating the project to a third-party design firm may be the best choice. It’s okay to stay focused on what makes you money – supplying your products or services – and allow others to compliment your business with their expertise.

There are many local and national design firms that specialize in web design for particular needs, such as small business or organizational web sites. Hiring the right web design firm can bring your business to a whole new level; be sure to perform thorough research, and compare service providers before choosing the right design partner for your business or organization.

Jim D. Ray is a seasoned entrepreneur and president of Web Presence, a national web design firm exclusively serving the small business market sector. To learn more, or for a free quote for your own web site, visit the Web Presence web site at: http://www.web-presence.net.