Acs_objects are anything represented in the application's data model that will need to be managed by any central service in OpenACS, or that may be reusable in the context of future applications. For more information see the OpenACS Object System documentation.

• All objects are referenced by an integer primary key, "object_id".

• New object types provide their own type-specific storage table. Rows in this table are related to the type's supertype data tables using "object_id".

• All OpenACS central services operate on acs_objects.

• Current development efforts include the creation of high-level, RDBMS-independent Tcl API for the creation of new acs_object types, metadata-driven instantiation and updating of acs_objects, and metadata-driven creation of add/edit forms and display templates.