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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au!news.apana.org.au!cantor.edge.net.au!news.teragen.com.au!news.access.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!news.sgi.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-xfer.netaxs.com!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!ddsw1!not-for-mail From: les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy Subject: Re: Betting on Unix Date: 11 Mar 1997 23:02:46 -0600 Organization: /usr/lib/news/organi[sz]ation Lines: 79 Message-ID: <5g5ddm$qcf$1@Venus.mcs.net> References: <5d3sr2$44n@nntp1.best.com> <5fsull$gqd@web.nmti.com> <5g02nk$q63$1@venus.mcs.net> <5g1grm$glu@web.nmti.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: venus.mcs.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:164068 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:6299 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2790 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:56720 In article <5g1grm$glu@web.nmti.com>, Peter da Silva <peter@nmti.com> wrote: > >> >If I defer making it pretty until the last step why am I bothering with a >> >WYSIWYG environment? > >> Because you can see what you're doing, > >More or less, except it's not what it's really going to look like, and you >don't get to really see what the functional markup is. In what way does it look different, other than possible font mismatches if you display Truetype, print postscript or embed EPS with no preview bitmap? > <P> > New paragraph goes here. <tt/This/ is in typewriter text. This > here is a <url url="blah blah">hypertext reference</url>. > <sect1> > <heading>New section goes here.</heading> > >I have found Word Perfect "show codes" to be pretty good, if only WP wasn't >so broken in other ways... There is a tradeoff between the way WP and Word do things. WP lets you see the codes, but in Word for the types of attributes that apply to paragraphs and other document parts only one attribute can be active. That means you can apply styles/codes without having to find the old codes and delete or change them. >> because you can let someone else do it for you, > >No I can't, not if I want the functional markup. You could compromise and do everything with styles. At least in Wordperfect your styles can expand to anything (even plain text) and can be defined as paired or single items. If you built style sheets with WP native formatting commands you could view/print normally. If you then replace the style sheet with one that expanded to text tags you could generate whatever ascii-based codes you want. I don't think Word can do the same, but I have some experience doing this with WP using a master/subdocument setup to pull in several hundred subdocuments where different versions of the master document contained the style definitions for different uses, including sending out with codes for a non-postscript typesetter. >> because your file will be usable by 80% of the computers >> in the world, > >If I write in SGML it'll be usable by 100%, since I can convert the SGML >into HTML, which everyone can read. Word will even import it and let me >do WYSIWYG... I wonder how hard it'd be to wrap the Postscript output >into PDF? WP 7 will generate HTML (and claims to do something with SGML but I don't think it does any conversions). Word does HTML with the internet add-in. So the same applies there. But HTML is a pretty bad way to get things ready for a typesetter and you certainly don't want to look at the raw codes. >And of course I won't be forcing people to buy Microsoft Orifice just to >mark up my document, since Microsoft REFUSES to publish their formats. I guess that would make sense if there were a free WYSIWYG SGML editor. Is there? >> I prefer that myself, but only programmers think in terms where >> you can solve any problem by adding one more layer of indirection. > >But that's what Word forces you to do, for any significant sized document. Somehow I don't see selecting 'list bullet' from a style menu and having it happen on-screen as being all that indirect. In WP's case it is, though, since you can edit the style and make it generate text tags if you prefer. But, then you have to deal with finding/changing any existing tags when you want to change them. With Word you just apply the new one. Maybe someday they'll get it right and you won't have to trade handiness for versatility. Les Mikesell les@mcs.com