17. The method of claim 11 , wherein the special effect is a first color indicating the change detected, the method further comprising: wherein the user interface is configured to display an object label with an indication of availability of the object information; displaying the object label in a second color as an indication of the availability of the object information.
11. A method for editing a document to display status and metadata for an object embedded in the document, the method comprising: opening the document in a user interface of an editor; identifying the object embedded in the document, an identifier of the object, and an address of a remote service corresponding to the object according to an object definition; communicating with the remote service using the identifier and the address to exchange object information with the remote service, wherein the object information includes the status and the metadata; providing the object information to the user interface; and displaying the status and the metadata of the object together with the object in the user interface, at least one of the status and the metadata being displayed with a special effect indicating a change detected in the status or the metadata of the object; determining whether the remote service is available or unavailable; wherein the user interface is configured to display the object as plain text if said document editor determines the remote service to be unavailable; wherein the object information is exchanged by periodically communicating with the remote service, the special effect indicating the change detected since a previous periodic communication with the remote service.