A machining program editing assist apparatus includes a display controller. While the display objects are being displayed in either one of the program data display area and the process list display area, the display controller decides that a designated display object of the one of the display areas is the display object designated by the display objects of the one of the display areas and a specific point, differentiates the designated display object from the other display objects in the one of the display areas, decides that a designated display object of the other of the display areas is the display candidate of the other of the display areas, includes the designated display object in the display objects of the other of the display areas, and differentiates the designated display object from the other display objects in the other of the display areas.

A method for diagnosing a user program for controlling movement and positioning tasks of drives operated to execute a movement path of an apparatus, wherein the apparatus and movement path are depicted as a three-dimensional view in a first output element, to depict the movement path, a graphic element formed as a polygonal chain is generated for movement sections, which is operated in a force sensitive manner so that a user can select a location on the polygonal chain with a pointer device and obtain a display of an output field with a line of code that has the program instruction that is responsible through the execution for reaching the location within the movement section of the apparatus or position vector, and a recording method was performed in which the current position vector and the associated line of code or a code line index are recorded at sampling time points.