Patent ID: 8091016

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for visually editing a portion of a data collection, the method comprising: an act of presenting a root user interface to visualize data from a data collection including a plurality of data elements; an act of presenting an items presenter within the root user interface, the items presenter configured as a child element underneath the root user interface, the items presenter isolated from the root user interface, the item presenter configured to: link to each element in the plurality of data elements; visually present each element in the plurality of data elements; manage the arrangement of the presented data elements, including the position of presented data elements relative to one another within the root user interface; process changes to the presented data elements within the items presenter in isolation from the root user interface such that changes to presented data elements can be implemented without interfering with the functionality of the root user interface; and an act of detecting user input representing a visual gesture with respect to the plurality of data elements, the visual gesture indicative of a desired user change to the arrangement of the presented data elements; an act of accessing a metadata store to determine, based on the user input, an appropriate editor for those data types that correspond to the data elements in the data collection, wherein each editor is typed to match the data types of the data elements; an act of the items presenter processing the visual gesture within the items presenter to implement the desired user change to the arrangement of the presented data elements without interfering with the functionality of the root user interface; and an act of presenting the data elements after processing the visual gesture to reflect the desired user change to the arrangement of the presented data elements.