Importance

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Abstract

The invention provides improved apparatus for configuring process, environmental, industrial and other control systems. Such apparatus employs 'appearance' objects (or other data and/or programming constructs) defining the appearance of configurable system components in graphical editors or other views in which the components may be depicted. 'Placeholder' objects (or other constructs) persist the location, size, color, or other aspects of appearance defined by an appearance object for a configurable component in views in which it is actually depicted. By way of example, a process control configuration apparatus according to this aspect of the invention uses 'configurable' objects to define blocks, loops and other components of a process control system. Appearance objects provide (or reference) icons or representations indicating how the configurable objects are to be depicted, e.g., in a configuration editor. Placeholder objects are created for each configurable object that is placed in a configuration using that editor. The placeholder objects identify the sizes, locations, colors, etc., of the icons used in the editor to represent the configurable objects.

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First Claim