Methods and apparatus to reduce memory requirements for process control system software applications

A method, comprising:

• receiving a request via a primary user interface associated with a primary application associated with a process control system to execute at least one component of a secondary application associated with a device in the process control system, wherein the secondary application includes a client application and a server application, and wherein the at least one component is implemented by the server application;
• instantiating a first instance of the client application to enable interaction with the primary application;
• instantiating the server application to serve the client application;
• generating a secondary user interface associated with the first instance of the client application based on the at least one component implemented by the server application;
• and
• communicating the secondary user interface to the primary application for rendering in the primary user interface.

A tangible article of manufacturing storing machine readable instructions which, when executed, cause a machine to at least:

• receive a request via a primary user interface associated with a primary application associated with a process control system to execute at least one component of a secondary application associated with a device in the process control system, wherein the secondary application includes a client application and a server application, and wherein the at least one component is implemented by the server application;
• instantiate a first instance of the client application to enable interaction with the primary application;
• instantiate the server application to serve the client application;
• generate a secondary user interface associated with the first instance of the client application based on the at least one component implemented by the server application;
• and
• communicate the secondary user interface to the primary application for rendering in the primary user interface.