WYSIWYM

WYSIWYM is the acronym for the principle " What You See Is What You Mean" (English for " What you see is what you mean "). Rare is the name WYGIWYM " What You Get Is What You Mean" ("What you get is [ that ] what you mean ").

Generally

WYSIWYM shows the text on the screen is so that it is clear what the purpose is to fulfill a formatting such as chapter heading, bulleted, list. In contrast, WYSIWYG ( " What You See Is What You Get" ) illustrates the final output of the document, eg in the form of a PDF or DVI.

This type of formatting is used when you want to leave the details of formatting a prefabricated style sheet. This makes the formatting of the document as a whole much more consistent and appealing. Furthermore, the user of formatting tasks and other classical problems of most WYSIWYG environments, such as jumping paragraphs, incorrect or jumping formatting, etc. instability is relieved. He can thus completely focus on creating the content.

Benefits

WYSIWYM processing is preferred when many or complex documents to be processed in their individual constituents. This separation data, logic and layout can be taken of labor in the fields. For example, the content data by the author in XML can be structured, while another person in XSL / XSL -FO and CSS is concerned with the layout and formatting of the document. Because source documents are often written in plain text formats, they are better version control (eg SVN) accessible. By splitting the individual components are even more reusable. An XSL stylesheet can be applied approximately to various XML documents, while an XML document can be formatted without substantive change with different style sheets for different output media. This is a clear advantage over WYSIWYG editors in which data, logic and layout are inextricably linked.

Disadvantages

A disadvantage of this principle, that the user is usually forced to work ahead, and must therefore master the program better. A procedure following the trial-and- error method is as good as impossible. Systems after the WYSIWYM method are also often inappropriate when very many unusual, defined by the user formatting to be used. As a rule, the time required for the necessary settings when alternative WYSIWYG system is lower.

Applications

While were never found in the past WYSIWYG and WYSIWYM in an editor that is recently tried to combine the advantages of both systems and offer both perspectives. This development takes place mainly in the area of ​​XML and XSL editors, where in addition to the classical source - editing and editing in a formatted view is possible. (eg Altova XMLspy, oXygen or the VEX plugin for Eclipse)

• Graphical User Interface
• Abbreviation