[analogpixel]

at this point, a WYSIWYG just seems like a huge step backwards from just using markdown. I love having access to my files in a standard text format this is super easy to parse, and not being locked into whatever weird format that WYSIWYG decides to store it in.

I still don't understand why people still use ~~Microsoft Word~~Copilot document writer , I think they have gotten into some weird mindset that their documents require all this weird unnecessary formatting to look "official"

[httpsterio]

Markdown without formatting isn't usually the nicest to read imo. I actually appreciate a well laid out and formatted document myself.

Also wysiwyg doesn't mean it can't be back and forwards compatible with markdown, it might just mean that it's a markdown editor gui with a preview.

[layer8]

It’s also not nice to write longer text in monospace. Or to have long URLs interrupt the text just because you want a hyperlink on some word. Or having to lay out tables by hand like ASCII art. Seeing *this* isn’t the same as seeing this. And you need custom editor software anyway to have affordances like TOC navigation.

[shakna]

Tables by hand, I hate. But I don't quite agree with the first sentiment. For longform prose, it isn't that unusual for people to work with all editing marks visible. Writing novels, I absolutely write using monospace, because it allows you to more concisely control large amounts of formatting easily.

[yummybrainz]

> long URLs interrupt the text just because you want a hyperlink

This annoyed me until I realized pandoc supports separating [the link text] from the link location.

  [the link text]: </url/to/resource>
      "`title` parameter of the <a> tag, if converted to HTML"

[layer8]

Yep, but (a) that isn’t portable Markdown, (b) your editor probably doesn’t support opening the link from the link text in that case, and (c) whenever you want to modify the link text you have to modify all occurrences. A word processor can handle that automatically for you. It can also offer completion (like tab completion) for references that you use repeatedly. It can show as a tooltip what a given link text links to. Conveniences like that is what computers are for, let’s not relapse to the stone age here.

[antisol]

  > Markdown without formatting isn't usually the nicest to read imo

Or to write! I use a bunch of features of markdown rarely enough that I can't remember the format for them half the time, and so I'm always looking at markdown references/cheatsheets. Add to that all the variations and incompatibilities between markdown versions and I'd much rather just use a wysiwyg word processor with nice keyboard shortcuts and a toolbar, and save in markdown format if I need to.

[loloquwowndueo]

> at this point, a WYSIWYG just seems like a huge step backwards from just using markdown.

Not for a layperson. There’s a reason WYSIWYG word processors completely obliterated the previous “needs an explicit preview mode” generation ones.

[ninalanyon]

Most of the reason was corporate decisions. My wife was perfectly happy writing a novel in WordStar under CP/M on our Osborne. But in offices you have to use what you are given so when our company switched from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word that's what everyone had to learn to use.

[netbioserror]

My prolific Typst use, along with quickly improving side-by-side editors like Typesetter, are rapidly diminishing (in my eyes) the reasons for WYSIWYG to be. Sure, normies need it, yadda yadda. Is it worth the staggering cost? The file format and GUI complexity?

[analogpixel]

> Is it worth the staggering cost? The file format and GUI complexity?

I was kind of also wondering something like this as I read about different countries switching to linux, and them needing overly complex office software because they are entrenched in the thinking that that need Microsoft office.

Why do you NEED an office clone, what is it in your job that requires anything more than simple text and formatting that something like markdown provides.

I always envy people that can use computers as tools (like scientists/math people) and not fancy distraction devices. Those people, from what I see, don't care about the os, what it looks like, etc... they just want to use the computer as a tool to help them solve problems.

on a third tangent from the point, once I was given a PDF of data to process (instead of just the csv) , because people don't understand computer formats, and try to use things that they think make them look "professional"

[sakesun]

Yes. These days, with plain text, pasrsers, Internet, mobile devices and LLM, we really get more than what we see. Only few case where paper print out is still more useful.

[pjmlp]

That is only for techies. WYSIWYG has won for a reason.