Why not using WYSIWYG editors?

WYSIWYG editors

[nirfun]

Hi,
I was wondering why this website and many more don't use a WYSIWYG editor.

What are the disadvantages in such editor?

It looks better and it's easier to use.

Why NOT using WYSIWYG editors?

Thanks.

[Samizdata]

What are the disadvantages in such editor?

What you see is not necessarily what you get.

And automated markup is always likely to be bloated.

It looks better and it's easier to use

"Looks better" is untrue, but if you find it easier to use then keep using it.

Control freaks might prefer a text editor.

...

[lavazza]

I wonder if the OP is wondering about posting on this forum?

If so, I concur... the absence of a WYSIWYG (as per vBulletin, phpBB, etc) seems rather bizarre

[nealrodriguez]

it would be great to have some buttons to automatically tag some words with italics and quotes;

[tedster]

buttons

They are available, just not on a "Quick Reply" box. Try the "reply to this topic" text link [bottom, right] or the graphic "Post Reply" link [top, right]. The buttons are just above the input box.

[lavazza]

The buttons are just above the input box

Yeah? Where? I must be blind and/or stoopid

[tedster]

Whoops, sorry. I forgot that I'm working on a beta interface. It's a feature that is under development, I guess. No promises, though, as with any beta feature. I should have thought longer before I posted.

[kaled]

I experimented a little with a WYSIWYG editor over Christmas. It's not too tricky to create one but there are differences between Mozilla and Internet Explorer.

The question is how far do you take it? The current system is simple (and therefore reliable) but it is also powerful. To include all the features that exist currently would take some effort to get right. However, I don't think code-bloat is an issue.

I seem to recall the biggest problem was integrating CSS into the output code. I decided that this was just too darn tricky to do in javascript but I would be very interested to know if this problem is solved.

Kaled.

[lavazza]

I seem to recall the biggest problem was integrating CSS into the output code.

For a few tags, no CSS is required; e.g. strong, em, sup

However, I think that it's stuff like (esp vBulletin's) multi-quote, ULs, OLs, automated-URLs, CODE, PRE, HTML, PHP, etc that would drag WebmasterWorld screaming into the 21st C