Patent ID: 7904417

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of retrieving an aggregated metadata instance defining at least part of an application, the method comprising: (a) loading a changed metadata instance of a first level template, the metadata instance of the first level template specifying next level templates that are to be combined together with the first level template to obtain the metadata instance to be retrieved; (b) identifying the next level templates specified in the metadata instance, the next level templates containing fields or data common to a plurality of user interface pages in the application; (c) recursively loading the next level templates specified in the metadata instance of the first level template by returning template metadata instances for each of the next level templates; (d) combining the returned template metadata instances for each of the recursively loaded next level templates to form an aggregate metadata instance using a processor of the computer; (e) applying metadata from the metadata instance of the first level template to the aggregate metadata instance; (f) returning the aggregate metadata instance with the metadata from the metadata instance for the first level template such that the changes of metadata in any one of the metadata instances will be populated into each of the further loaded M-data instances such that a change made to the metadata instance is automatically loaded into each one of the loaded metadata templates; wherein step (c) of recursively loading the next level templates specified in the metadata instance further comprises for each next level template loading the next level template as a new metadata instance and repeating steps (b) through (e) for the new metadata instance; and wherein, for each iteration of steps (c)-(e), applying metadata from the metadata instance of the first level template to the aggregate metadata instance further comprises adding additional changed metadata from the metadata instance of the first level template to metadata in the aggregate metadata instance to obtain the metadata instance to be retrieved, wherein the recursive loading ends when the template identification step fails.