# Generic directives/plugins syntax

**URL:** <https://talk.commonmark.org/t/generic-directives-plugins-syntax/444>\
**Category:** Extensions\
**Created:** [September 6, 2014, 9:50am UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/generic-directives-plugins-syntax/444 "2014-09-06T09:50:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![EnCey](https://talk.commonmark.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v2/letter/e/53a042/32.png) [@EnCey](https://talk.commonmark.org/u/EnCey)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/generic-directives-plugins-syntax/444/2 "2014-09-06T12:25:31Z")

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I do like this suggestion, however I’m not a fan of the curly braces.

They seem to be redundant and unnecessarily complicate the directive: which options go into parenthesis `()` and which into braces `{}` ?  
Would it not be sufficient to only permit options in parenthesis, then we have the common link syntax with the additional `@` directive in front of it.

I’d like to add an example for CSS syles:

- `@style[content](classNames)` as in `@style[TODO](important)` where _important_ is a CSS class name

I realize that the curly braces would allow you to do more advanced CSS styling, however I don’t believe that would be such a great idea. First off it’s not very Markdown-y, wheres only using class names (as in the example) remains readable. From a maintenance point of view, inline CSS sounds like a recipe for unmaintainable, unreadable documents.

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