Patent ID: 7877153

Claim:
A configuration device for configuring a control system, comprising: at least one electronic processing unit and at least one I/O device configured to generate at least a portion of a control program that corresponds to a configuration and controls the control system; at least one display device configured to allow at least one of I/O access points to be displayed in a model configuration field, hardware functionalities to be displayed in a function configuration field and hardware interfaces to be displayed in an interface configuration field; wherein the I/O access points in the model configuration field, the hardware functionalities in the function configuration field, and the hardware interfaces in the interface configuration field are configured to be displayed by blocks having at least one of input and output ports, at least one of the I/O access points, the hardware functionalities and the hardware interfaces being configured to be associated with one another by a graphical association arrangement that is configured to elastically follow a relative movement of configuration field contents in response to user input.