1. A method for managing display of electronic documents in a client-server architecture, comprising: on the client: receiving, from the server, data that comprises i) document content for an electronic document, and ii) a visual style set of visual styles that affects display of the document content, wherein a visual style of the visual style set comprises a style element set of style elements, and a lock status that corresponds individually to a style element of the style element set indicates whether the corresponding style element is editable or non-editable by a user of the electronic document; and displaying a document user interface having i) a document display portion that displays the document content based on a selected visual style of the visual style set, and ii) a style editing portion for editing the visual characteristics of the document content based on the selected visual style and the lock status; wherein displaying the document user interface comprises generating the style editing portion to allow the user to view and modify an editable style element of the style element set and to view but not modify a non-editable style element of the style element set.
1. A method for managing display of electronic documents in a client-server architecture, comprising: on the client: receiving, from the server, data that comprises i) document content for an electronic document, and ii) a visual style set of visual styles that affects display of the document content, wherein a visual style of the visual style set comprises a style element set of style elements, and a lock status that corresponds individually to a style element of the style element set indicates whether the corresponding style element is editable or non-editable by a user of the electronic document; and displaying a document user interface having i) a document display portion that displays the document content based on a selected visual style of the visual style set, and ii) a style editing portion for editing the visual characteristics of the document content based on the selected visual style and the lock status; wherein displaying the document user interface comprises generating the style editing portion to allow the user to view and modify an editable style element of the style element set and to view but not modify a non-editable style element of the style element set. 15. The method of claim 1 , wherein: a document content element of the document content has an existing visual style that comprises an existing style element set of existing style elements; the selected visual style set comprises a selected style element set of selected style elements that overlaps the existing style element set, each selected style element of the selected style element set corresponding individually to a respective lock status that indicates whether the corresponding selected style element is editable or non-editable by the user of the electronic document; displaying the document user interface comprises, for each selected style element of the selected style element set that overlaps an existing style element of the existing style element set: displaying the document content element with the selected style element if the selected style element is a non-editable style element; displaying the document content element with the selected style element if the selected style element is an editable style element and the existing style element is implicit; and displaying the document content element with the existing style element if the selected style element is an editable style element and the existing style element is explicit.