Abstract: Disclosed is a data storage, display, and editing system whereby a large database may be accessed through a series of views, each view being defined by metadata. The metadata includes relationships to other views that may be used for any purpose including navigation from one view to another. The relationships establish a tree of related views that may be traversed in order to capture data that may be taken off line. The relationships may be used to reconstruct records to be committed to a database. The views and relationships allow useful data to be stored for use off line with a minimum of unnecessary data. The relationships are particularly applicable to database applications that are implemented on handheld or other small, remote computing devices.