Introduction

Templates are a simple but very powerful feature that you can use with your Vision windows. HMI and SCADA systems typically have quite a bit of repetition in their screens. For example, you might use a group of the same components over and over within your project to represent different motors. The data driving each set of graphics is different, but the graphics themselves are copies of each other.

Without templates, the only way to do this is to copy-and-paste the components each time you want to represent a motor. This is simple, and it works, but it can cause major headaches and time consuming corrections later on. If you ever want to make a change to how motors are represented, you're stuck making the change to each copy of the group.

Using templates, you define the graphics to display a motor in one place, called the master template. You can then use this template many times in your project on multiple windows. These are called template instances. Any changes made to the master template are then instantly reflected in all of the template instances. Using templates early in your project development for any repeating displays can save a significant amount of time later on.