Patent ID: 7631004

Claim:
A computer implemented method for generating a project template comprising: searching a memory location for a group of files designated as a project template, by detecting files named with a common identifying string, wherein separate search logic is applied to each of at least one subdirectory associated with the memory location, wherein the at least one memory location is reserved for template creation and is accessible to a user interface (“UI”) process; automatically generating a the project template by: if a preexisting metadata file is supplied with the group of files: indexing each file in the group of files using the preexisting metadata file; if a preexisting metadata file is not supplied: for each file in the group of files, identifying at least one element to be generalized using inference rules, wherein the inference rules are configurable to specify a user defined level of generalization and include a name inference rule, a description inference rule, an icon inference rule, a language inference rule, a template content inference rule, a project items inference rule and a replace parameters inference rule; for each identified element, determining all occurrences of the identified element in the group of files; using the inference rules to generate a metadata file corresponding to the identified elements, wherein the metadata file supplies an identification of each identified element; generating the template, wherein the template comprises the generated metadata file and each indexed file; storing the project template in a UI accessible location.