Doesn't that prove it absolutely failed? I mean, you have to abstract it so much that, like you said, it's a compiler target at this point! That's precisely my reasoning when I said about needing a second system in the article. And, mind you, not only a second system, most of the time also a third or more! Might as well write a game engine with the budget needed for an HTML WYSIWYG editor.

> I'm curious. Are you saying the boxes are helping you author/publish (in which case, please say more!), or am I wildly misunderstanding?

Not the boxes, per se. I'm refering to the general approach of having independent elements that can be composed with no rigour or planning. This UI came out this way cause I ported the code for the data structure editor, which, for accessibility reasons, had a full-blown cursor around each element, that's why it retained the borders. It's obious that there should be a read mode with less clutter. But honestly, It does not worry me too much, for a proof of concept it was not worth to sweat every detail.

> And just having a pre-defined structure doesn't give meaning in general. You'll need to conform to it

Beautifully said. It's for precisely this fact (if you accept Peirce semiotics) that it becomes a cultural factor. You are compelled to think the way the medium demands you to think. And this is completely dystopian but also absolutely real, and serious! That's why design decisions in authoring interfaces are undeniably political. The abysm indeed looks back. One of the main reasons I started this research was to find a way to express myself in a more forgiving way, that better reflected my thought structure: loose. I can't bear the typewriter model, it drains all my energy and creativity, it smells of formalism and grandeur. Now, when I chat with people, my mind is free, I type at the speed of thought. So that influenced the whole design. I trust you can see it.