Quoting Phil Endecott <spam_from_inkscape_users@...1109...>:

Mental suggested:

...

This is basically what CSS classes are for; I think we do have sufficient CSS support to use them now, but not good UI for CSS yet.

Great, I can do CSS, and "instance of a class" is a more familiar mental model (HTML+CSS, C++) than "duplicate of a clone".

So, I can set a class attribute on things using the XML editor [is there an easier way?] and I can write a CSS stylesheet in a text editor. Can you help me to associate the stylesheet with the document?

Yes, you're stuck with the XML editor at the moment.

For now, you'll also need to embed the stylesheet in the document; use an svg:style element inside svg:defs, give it a type="text/css" attribute, and add a single text node inside it to hold the actual stylesheet. The XML editor includes a simple text editor for modifying text nodes.

[ You will find "unset" fills helpful here too, to allow the class properties to "take over". ]

Hopefully our CSS support is mature enough to handle this now; I haven't tried this yet, but I know peter has been working on it a lot.

-mental