The One Condition for WYSIWYG

"WYSIWYG is only justified if the markup must never appear. For a Markdown native, it never has to."

What WYSIWYG Actually Costs

A WYSIWYG editor (Tiptap, ProseMirror, Lexical) is a genuinely powerful thing — but it comes with a specific cost: it replaces the source string with a rich-text document model. Now a heading is a schema node, bold is a schema mark on the text inside it, and the Markdown you started with has to be parsed into the tree on load and serialized out of it on save. You've traded one representation (source) for three: the tree, the rendered view, and the Markdown you import/export.

The One Condition That Justifies It

That trade is worth it under exactly one condition: the markup characters must never be visible. If you're building a word processor for people who should never see a # or a ** — who want to click a Bold button and see bold, full stop — then a rich-text model is correct and the three-representation cost is the price of that experience. That's a real, valid product. It just isn't this one.

Condition: "markup must NEVER appear"  ->  WYSIWYG is justified (rich-text model)
Condition: "markup is meaningful, keep it" ->  source model + Live Preview

# Rekindle's user is in the second row. So the heavier model buys nothing.

A Markdown Native Doesn't Meet That Condition

Dad is a Markdown native. The vault, the essays, the site content, years of Sublime and Obsidian and iA — all source-mode, all markup-visible, by preference. He wants to see the #. For that user, a WYSIWYG model would fight the workflow at every turn: hiding characters he relies on, forcing a parse/serialize round-trip on a file he'd rather edit directly, and complicating every soul feature that wants to read plain source.

So Rekindle takes the lighter road: source is the model, and Live Preview (decorations) gives the rendered look without the rendered model. You see bold as bold on inactive lines and the raw ** on the line you're editing — the readability of WYSIWYG with none of its representational tax. WYSIWYG wasn't rejected because it's bad; it was rejected because its one justifying condition isn't met.

Code

The decision reduces to one condition·text

Condition                              Correct model
-------------------------------------  ----------------------------
"markup must NEVER appear"              WYSIWYG (rich-text tree)
"markup is meaningful, keep it visible" source + Live Preview (decorations)

# Rekindle's user (a Markdown native) is in the second row.
# So the heavier WYSIWYG model would buy nothing and cost three representations.

Three representations (WYSIWYG) vs one (source)·typescript

// WYSIWYG: the source is parsed into a tree on load, edited as a tree,
// and serialized back to Markdown on save. Three forms to keep in sync.
const tree = parseMarkdownToTree(source); // load
edit(tree);                               // the model you actually edit
const markdown = serializeTreeToMarkdown(tree); // save

// Source model: the string you loaded IS the string you edit IS the string
// you save. One form. Live Preview paints the look without a second model.
let doc = source; // load == edit == save

Exercise

For a writing tool you'd build, answer the single question honestly: must the markup characters NEVER be visible to your user? If yes, WYSIWYG earns its cost. If the user is fine seeing (or prefers) the source, you've just saved yourself a rich-text model and two extra representations. Notice how much of the architecture that one answer decides.

Hint

Be honest about who the user is, not who you imagine. A developer, a Markdown blogger, or a vault-keeper usually wants the source. A non-technical memo writer usually wants the markup gone. The user, not the aesthetic, sets the condition.