Patent ID: 8850345

Claim:
A method for interacting with a system that includes physical devices that are interfaced with computer software, comprising: generating a graphical representation of a physical device that is connected by a virtual wire to a graphical representation of a software module, the graphical representation of the physical device capable of being represented as either a graphical copy mode representation or a graphical ghost mode representation; enabling on-screen interaction with the graphical copy mode representation to change a setting of the physical device and provide the changed setting as an input to the software module, whereby the software module operates to test and debug the system based on the changed setting received as the input by way of the interaction with the graphical copy mode representation when the graphical representation of the physical device is in the graphical copy mode representation, the on-screen interaction causing a change in a visual appearance of the graphical representation of the physical device so as to visually indicate the changed setting provided as the input; and tracking a true physical state and a true setting of the physical device when the graphical representation of the physical device is in the graphical ghost mode representation, the true physical state and the true setting of the physical device being graphically displayed in the graphical ghost mode representation, wherein tracking of the true physical state and the true setting of the physical device disables on-screen interaction with functionality of the physical device as enabled with the graphical copy mode representation, thereby maintaining the true physical state and the true setting of the physical device during testing and debugging of the system using the software module.