Industrial automation controller project online/offline state separation

A method for developing industrial applications, comprising:

• rendering, by an industrial integrated development environment (IDE) system comprising a processor, a development interface on a client device, wherein the development interface comprises an explorer panel that facilitates browsing of aspects of an industrial automation project and a tabbed workspace canvas comprising tabs that respectively correspond to routines of one or more control programs, and the rendering comprises:
• displaying, on the explorer panel, nodes representing the routines of the one or more control programs,
• in response to determining that a routine of an offline version of a control program being viewed on the development interface does not match a corresponding routine of an online version of the control program executing on an industrial controller, rendering a symbol beside a node, of the nodes, corresponding to the routine,
• in response to determining that the routine exists in both the offline version of the control program and the online version of the control program, setting a color-coded tab indicator on a tab, of the tabs, corresponding to the routine to a first color, and
• in response to determining that the routine exists in the offline version of the control program and does not exist the online version of the control program, setting the color-coded tab indicator to a second color.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, in response to execution, cause an industrial integrated development environment (IDE) system comprising a processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:

• rendering, a development interface on a client device, wherein the development interface comprises an explorer panel that facilitates browsing of aspects of an industrial automation project and a tabbed workspace canvas comprising tabs that respectively correspond to routines of one or more control programs, and the rendering comprises:
• displaying, on the explorer panel, nodes representing the routines of the one or more control programs,
• in response to determining that a routine of an offline version of a control program being viewed on the development interface is different than a corresponding routine of an online version of the control program executing on an industrial controller, rendering a symbol beside a node, of the nodes, corresponding to the routine,
• in response to determining that the routine exists in both the offline version of the control program and the online version of the control program, rendering a color-coded tab indicator on a tab, of the tabs, corresponding to the routine in a first color, and
• in response to determining that the routine exists in the offline version of the control program and does not exist the online version of the control program, rendering the color-coded tab indicator in a second color.