Patent ID: 7793300

Claim:
A method for data object management comprising: sending a request to a first computer from a second computer for a data object in a set of data objects, said first computer comprising for said object a set of object states in which said object may be maintained on the first computer, a set of transitions between object states, and a current object state in which said data object is maintained; receiving from said first computer an indication of at least a subset of transitions between object states where said indication of said at least a subset of transitions between object states is based upon transitions out of the current object state and valid transitions from the current object state to another state; presenting, to a user on a display of the second computer, operations capable of being performed on said data object where the operations are based on the subset of transitions between object states, and sending an indicator to the first computer to change the current state of the data object on the first computer to a selected state of the object states in the set of states based on the user of the second computer selecting an operation from the presented operations; wherein the operations not capable of being performed on said data object are not available to the user.