Patent ID: 7600234

Claim:
A method in a process plant for configuring a process plant software system to cause a desired application to launch, the method comprising: prompting a user to indicate the desired application; prompting the user to indicate at least one component, in the process plant, with which the desired application is to be associated; prompting the user to indicate at least one startup parameter to be provided to the desired application via an application program interface (API) of the desired application; associating the at least one startup parameter and the desired application with the at least one component; and configuring the process plant software system wherein an originating application is configured to launch the desired application in connection with the at least one component via an API of an application launcher, the originating application executable on an operating system of a computing device of the process plant system, and wherein: the application launcher is configured to launch the desired application with the at least one startup parameter via the API of the desired application, and the application launcher is configured to launch a plurality of applications via a plurality of respective APIs, the plurality of applications including the desired application, and the plurality of respective APIs including the API of the desired application.