Bravo (software)

Bravo was the first WYSIWYG word processor. It already supported multiple fonts and ran on the Xerox Alto, the first computer with a graphical interface. It was developed at the research center Xerox PARC by Butler Lampson, Charles Simonyi and other employees in 1974.

Bravo was a so-called " modal " editor. The characters that have been written on the keyboard commands have been processed Bravo. Due to the graphical user interface ( GUI) Bravo already offered support of the computer mouse, with the true position the cursor and text could be marked, but no instructions were given.

In addition to a long list of commands for controlling the formatting of the text ( for example, to adjust the left and right side edges of the sections of text or font ) supported Bravo the use of multiple buffering and multiple window.

Although Bravo usually (for example, with justification, font, proportional fonts ) indicated the text with formatting, it usually did not try to reach a pressure identical representation. However, the screen also reached a resolution of only 72 dpi, while the laser printer used at Xerox PARC 300 dpi reached. Therefore, the former screen could offer only an approximate print preview in contrast to today, which was targeted in a special display mode. But even in this mode, there was the problem that individual letters or words differed slightly from the actual printed image (which persists even in today's word processing programs).

Successor of Bravo was BravoX, which was also developed on under the leadership Charles Simonyi at Xerox ' " Advanced Systems Development " group and was intended for a commercial use. Unlike Bravo BravoX was a " modeless " editor.

Bravo was the predecessor for Gypsy, a newer word processing system at Xerox PARC; the first with a modern graphic user interface.