Patent ID: 8825183

Claim:
A method for navigation in an operator display in a process control system for use in a process plant, the method comprising: receiving a list of relationship value references and process control graphical element identifications associated with each relationship value reference, wherein each process control graphical element identification uniquely identifies a process control graphical element of the operator display, wherein each process control graphical element graphically illustrates an entity within the process plant, and wherein each relationship value reference uniquely identifies a logical and/or physical relationship between two or more entities within the process plant, wherein each relationship value reference comprises a process control tag that uniquely identifies a first process control entity, a process control tag type that references a description of the first process control entity, a related process control tag type that references a description of a second process control entity related to the first process control entity, and a related process control tag that uniquely identifies the second process control entity; binding each relationship value reference to two or more process control graphical elements of the operator display based on the associated process control graphical element identifications, wherein a relationship value reference bound to two or more process control graphical elements uniquely identifies the logical and/or physical relationship between the two or more entities graphically illustrated by the two or more process control graphical elements; displaying a first process control graphical element in the operator display; reading, in response to a user selection of the first process control graphical element, a relationship value reference bound to the first process control graphical element; and displaying a second process control graphical element linked to the first process control graphical element by the relationship value reference binding the first and second process control graphical elements.