Patent ID: 8869052

Claim:
A method to display indicia of an object type for a service within a user interface of a software development system that runs on a computer comprising: obtaining runtime context information that includes an identification of a respective service and an indication of a user role; providing in a non-transitory computer readable storage device an object type information structure that includes, a plurality of respective first object types that correspond to respective visual indicia in the user interface and that indicate respective context information dependent rules for determining whether to include display of the respective visual indicia in a user interface, a plurality of respective second object types that correspond to respective user menu operations associated with respective visual indicia in the user interface and that indicate respective context information dependent rules for determining whether to include display of the respective user menu operations in a user interface, and a plurality of respective third object types that indicate respective context information dependent rules for display position of the respective visual indicia and/or for display position of the respective menu operations in a user interface; using a computer to apply the runtime context information to the respective context dependent rules indicated within the object type information structure to determine which respective visual indicia to display, to determine which menu operations to display and to determine positions of one or more of the visual indicia and menu operations in a user interface; and generating a user interface that displays the visual indicia and the menu operations and their positions according to the determinations made using the runtime context information and the respective context dependent rules; wherein generating the user interface includes generating a display that includes one or more user menu operations in response to receiving user input indicating user selection of a respective displayed visual indicia.