1. At a computer system in a computerized design environment comprising a Computer-Aided Design (“CAD”) application program and corresponding record-based linear database, as well as an object-oriented design application program with corresponding object-oriented database, a method of providing object-oriented entity manipulations through a user interface of the CAD application program, comprising the acts of: providing one or more object status items in a CAD user interface, wherein selection thereof results in a change in object state for one or more design entities; receiving one or more selections to create or manipulate one or more design entities in the CAD user interface; identifying an object state for each of the one or more design entity selections; and manipulating one or more database entries in accordance with the identified object state for each of the one or more design entities.