Patent ID: 7711754

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for managing data in a list, the method comprising: creating, via a first computing process, a static list comprising a plurality of items, each item referencing one or more locations where a file associated with the item is stored, the one or more locations being independent of the static list, and the static list having an item type and a relationship type, wherein the relationship type corresponds to a relationship between items in the static list; generating, via a second computing process, a list entry template based on the relationship type, wherein the list entry template includes one or more item properties associated with the relationship type; generating, via a third computing process, a list entry, in accordance with the list template, representing the relationship between an item of the plurality of items and a root list item of the plurality of items, wherein the list entry comprises the one or more item properties specified by the list entry template; adding, via a fourth computing process, the generated list entry to the created static list; storing the static list in a memory of a data processing device; automatically managing, via a fifth computing process, the static list so that reference to the one or more locations at which the data file corresponding to each item is stored remains valid; and moving the item of the plurality of items from the static list to a new static list, wherein moving includes deleting the list entry from the static list and generating a new list entry in the new static list and copying the value for any property that the relationship type of the new static list has in common with the relationship type of the static list, wherein each of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth computing processes is performed by one or more computing devices.