What You See Is All You Get

jargon (WYSIAYG) /wiz'ee-ayg/ Describes a user interface

under which "What You See Is *All* You Get"; an unhappy

variant of WYSIWYG. Visual, "point-and-drool interfaces"

are easy to learn but often lack depth; they often frustrate

advanced users who would be better served by a command-style

interface. When this happens, the frustrated user has a

WYSIAYG problem.

This term is most often used of editors, word processors,

and document formatting programs. WYSIWYG "desktoppublishing" programs, for example, are a clear win for

creating small documents with lots of fonts and graphics in

them, especially things like newsletters and presentation

slides. When typesetting book-length manuscripts, on the

other hand, scale changes the nature of the task; one quickly

runs into WYSIAYG limitations, and the increased power and

flexibility of a command-driven formatter like TeX or

Unix's troff becomes not just desirable but a necessity.

Compare YAFIYGI.

(1999-03-03)