A method for operating and controlling a machine installation by means of a graphical development environment (1), with which a controller on the machine side having programmable hardware modules (13, 14) situated there is graphically displayed, and via user-side inputs a programming sequence (24) is created in the development environment (1) and is supplied to the hardware modules (13, 14), characterized in that an embedded web server (2) and an embedded browser (4) that communicates with same are integrated into the development environment (1), and the programming sequence (24) created in the development environment (1) is supplied to a field bus master (8), which supplies the programming sequence (24) via a field bus (10) to the station head (12) of a hardware station (11) in which the hardware modules (13, 14) which are programmable with the programming sequence (24) are situated and communicate with the station head (12).