Patent ID: 8375402

Claim:
An interface mechanism comprising: a PC-based configuration tool for providing a display configuration for display devices operating using a first operating system; a previewer coupled to the PC based configuration tool, the previewer for previewing the provided display configuration as the display configuration would appear on a display device operating using a second operating system different than the first operating system, wherein the previewer operates using at least a subset of instructions for the second operating system; an application control engine platform using the first operating system, the application control engine platform including an encoder for translating configuration information received from the PC-based configuration tool into an extensible markup language (XML) document; a communications link connected to the application control engine platform; a heterogeneous display device connected to the communications link, the heterogeneous display device having the second operating system and a parser for translating an XML document into a relational database, wherein the relational database is used to generate at least one display screen; and wherein the interface mechanism is for a building control system.