US Patent 7337409 Customizable drag and drop for industrial software applications

Customizable Drag & Drop enables easy activation of user defined or project specific functions concerning two related objects: A user interface graphically displays objects of a particular module. An extending function extends the drag and drop operation to allow the user to define a new set of semantics that is applied when a drag and drop operation is executed. In this way communication can be established using Customizable Drag & Drop extended by a user defined function. Also definition and modification of the deployment of an industrial automation system and hyperlinking of objects in manufacturing execution systems is achieved by Customizable Drag & Drop.