jenny@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Kathryn Hargreaves) (12/25/85)
First, a minor quibble: WYSIWYG systems are not good for professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as Brian Reid mentions in his list. At least, no type shop I know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like to start producing their ads. Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting shop. The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et. al. systems have input files that look similar to the compiler formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the 2400 dpi typesetter to print it. Not that any computer systems folks (including me) are likely to have such things on their desks soon (the cheapest one I saw was about $8,000, I think.) but I thought I'd point out that TeX, troff, Scribe, and laser printers are not the be-all and end-all of typesetting. ucbvax!jenny jenny@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (12/26/85)
In article <11294@ucbvax> jenny@ucbvax (Kathryn Hargreaves) writes: >First, a minor quibble: WYSIWYG systems are not good for >professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as >Brian Reid mentions in his list. At least, no type shop I >know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like >to start producing their ads. I guess you and I hang out in different advertising shops. All of the with-it, cutting-edge graphics shops that I know of use Macs and Suns and stuff like that right now. I know of 3 professional graphics shops that have *no other equipment* than a few Macs, a LaserWriter, and a stat camera. Admittedly these shops aren't doing corporate annual reports, but they are making truckloads of money doing newspaper ads, political flyers, direct mail, and other bread-and-butter applications. I predict that any type shop that DOESN'T use WYSIWYG systems to some extent is going to be out of business in 3 to 5 years. Even today it is difficult to remain competitive against the Macs and the Suns when all you are using is knives and wax. Admittedly top-quality color still cannot be done online except with ultra-expensive Sci-Tek equipment. >Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and >the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting >shop. The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et. al. systems >have input files that look similar to the compiler >formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much >higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so >the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the >2400 dpi typesetter to print it. Minor quibble: I don't believe you about the "much higher resolution than Suns". Most of the pros use the same CRT that Sun uses, or at least a green-phosphor variation of it. To get a CRT that is physically capable of "much higher resolution" requires an order of magnitude more dollars. There exist CRTs that can show 4000 x 4000 pixels on the screen (4 times the resolution of a Sun) but the CRT's alone (never mind the electronics and computer to connect to them) cost upwards of $10,000. Major quibble: I don't give a hoot what commands you type to change the screen. The pro systems are all shackled by people who have spent years typing "quad left" "leading 14 points" "hanging indent" "go", and they want to keep typing that. If what you see on the screen is a mockup of what the page is going to look like, then you have a pure WYSIWYG system regardless of what you type to it. Almost by definition. But the commercial systems absolutely cannot meet my criteria for a good compiler-model system that I posted earlier (automatic renumbering and cross-referencing, automatic reformatting into different styles, etc.). If you think you have seen one that can, please tell me exactly what it is and I will get on the next jet plane to go look at it. Closing observation: Kodak has recently started going for the throat of the professional type shops. They are aggressively marketing an in-plant publishing system that uses a repackaged Imagen laser printer and Sun workstation, both sporting new Kodak nameplates, that will let companies work without the benefit of pro type shops. I think this is wonderful, because it might finally kick the moribund, low-tech graphic arts industry in the behind hard enough to get them to move into the 1980's. I don't think the Kodak system by itself is good enough to do this kick, but it's great to see those salesmen out there pounding the pavement trying. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
wcs@ho95e.UUCP (Bill.Stewart.4K435.x0705) (12/29/85)
In article <2644@glacier.ARPA> reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes: >In article <11294@ucbvax> jenny@ucbvax (Kathryn Hargreaves) writes: >>First, a minor quibble: WYSIWYG systems are not good for >>professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as >>Brian Reid mentions in his list. At least, no type shop I >>know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like >>to start producing their ads. (I've seen ads in the Wall Street Journal that looked like Macintosh work.) > >I guess you and I hang out in different advertising shops. All of the >with-it, cutting-edge graphics shops that I know of use Macs and Suns and >stuff like that right now. I know of 3 professional graphics shops that have >*no other equipment* than a few Macs, a LaserWriter, and a stat camera. >Admittedly these shops aren't doing corporate annual reports, but they are (Other than Apple's.) >making truckloads of money doing newspaper ads, political flyers, direct >mail, and other bread-and-butter applications. > > > >Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and > >the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting > >shop. The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et. al. systems > >have input files that look similar to the compiler > >formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much > >higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so > >the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the > >2400 dpi typesetter to print it. > >Minor quibble: I don't believe you about the "much higher resolution than.... >Major quibble: I don't give a hoot what commands you type to change the >screen. The pro systems are all shackled by people who have spent years >typing "quad left" "leading 14 points" "hanging indent" "go", and they want >to keep typing that. Agreed - a decent system ought to be easily customizable. >If what you see on the screen is a mockup of what the page is going >to look like, then you have a pure WYSIWYG system regardless of what >you type to it. Almost by definition. Why?? Remember that there are three variables here: What you see, what you get, and what you store internally. In a compiler-based system, such as troff or Scribe, the important parts are what you store and what you get, and what you see is what you store; what you store contains a lot more information about the structure of the document than what you finally print out. In a simple WYSIWYG system, the real problem is that what you store (i.e. what you know about the document) isn't much more than what you'll print out; hence what you see is all you get. Even in a good WYSIWYG system, it takes a lot more computation to keep numbered lists up to date and references correct. But even Scribe sometimes needs two runs to get the forward references correct - compiler-based systems aren't perfect either. If you have a screen with the same resolution as your output device (depending on how closely you want the screen image to resemble the printed image), and if you have enough CPU to do the work, you should be able to make a WYSIWYG system that stores all the information in your compiler language. When you want to italicize text, you type (for example) "@i(", followed by something reasonable for the closing ")". The appropriate section of text becomes italic; the @i() remains in the file but doesn't show on your screen, and won't show on the final printout. If you're inputting new text at the time, it displays in italics as long as you want it to (depending on your feelings about modelessness). >But the commercial systems >absolutely cannot meet my criteria for a good compiler-model system that I >posted earlier (automatic renumbering and cross-referencing, automatic >reformatting into different styles, etc.). If you think you have seen one >that can, please tell me exactly what it is and I will get on the next jet >plane to go look at it. Xyvision does pretty well, with a WYS running on top of a compiler model. (Use the Boston Airport; they're in Woburn, Mass.:-) ======= From another thread of this discussion: (Chuq replying to Brian replying to Peter Korn): >>> [Peter Korn] >>> Because I can interactively >>>get a feel for what my essay (paper, thesis, whatever) is going to look >>>like as I type it, I find I tend to write better. >> [Brian Reed] >>This, to me, is one of the strongest reasons why I don't use or like WYSIWYG. >>I prefer to concentrate on what my words say, and not on what they look like, >>and I want a display that will not distract me with glittery appearance >>while I am working on content. >[Chuq] >.......I could say the same for something like >troff where I have to worry about typing in arcane runes to build up my >glittery appearance (I've been spending the last week typing "\fB" and "\fR" >and "\s+6" and "\s0" to do just that....) Chuq seems to be saying two things here; one about "thinking about formatting issues interferes with thinking about words" (which Brian would probably agree with, since it's one of Scribe's main features) and "It's hard to think about my writing when 50% of the characters on my screen are troff or Scribe requests instead of content words" (which is one of the main good features of WYSIWYG.) I would much prefer to have a system which gave me the option of "hide the macros" to do most of the work (with some approximation to the final output displayed) and the option to "display the macros" when I need to see all that ugliness to fix mistakes or tweak the output. -- # Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G-202, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs