Patent ID: 8001145

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of managing state information for an application utilizing a graphical user interface, comprising: under the control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions, receiving a request to save state information for a user interface of an application for managing metadata, the user interface including a plurality of components, each component having a state able to be altered by a user; registering at least one of the plurality of components with a component state manager; in response to receiving a request to save state information from the user: determining state information corresponding to a current state for each registered component; creating a data object including the state information for each registered component; causing the data object to be stored to a data store; and generating, independent of a textual user input, an identifier corresponding to the data object in the data store; in response to receiving user input comprising at least a portion of the generated identifier, retrieving and displaying a plurality of identifiers associated with the at least a portion of the generated identifier, the plurality of identifiers including the generated identifier corresponding to the data object in the data store; and in response to receiving the generated identifier selected by the user from the plurality of displayed identifiers: retrieving the data object from the data store; and setting the state of each registered component using the state information from the retrieved data object.