Abstract: Computer-based systems and methods for managing data. These systems and methods take advantage of a unique model which: increases speed and flexibility; eliminates the need for a complex data manipulation language, data or application dependent software, and separate structuring tools such as pointers, lists, and indexes; and automatically creates among the data relationships which may or may not have been apparent to a user or the designer. Salient, unique features of the systems and methods are their capabilities for: efficiently creating a composite view of the data; importing data from and exporting data to external databases; and otherwise providing significant and advantageous, additional control over the creation, maintenance, and display of the data making up a database constructed in according with the principles described in parent application Ser. No. 07/621,834 filed 4 Dec. 1990.