0003 — Keep the fluent shape; add named style sheets

Status: Accepted

Context

The fluent construction style — decorators chained onto a slot, ending in content, with lambdas describing compound blocks — is ergonomic and proven. Replacing it with a declarative object tree would be a large redesign with uncertain benefit to users.

What documents do lack is a way to say "this is a heading" once and apply it everywhere. Print tools solved this long ago with paragraph, character and object styles.

Decision

Keep the fluent shape. Add style sheets: named paragraph, character and frame styles, defined once, able to inherit from one another (BasedOn), and applied by name.

Consequences

• Consistent documents need far less repetition, and a house style can be shared as a single object.
• Style resolution — inheritance, and precedence between named styles and inline overrides — must be specified and tested as carefully as layout.