Templates
Templates are a simple but a very powerful feature in Ignition that you can use with the Vision windows. The power comes from the ability to modify only the template in one location while affecting all of the instances used throughout the project. HMI and SCADA systems typically have a lot of repetitions in their screens. You might use a group of the same components over and over within your project. The data driving each set of graphics is different, but the graphics themselves are copies of each other. You can make a single template and use instances of the template over and over again.
When using templates, you define the graphical display in one place, called the master template. You then use this master template many times in your project on multiple windows, thus making a number of template instances. Any changes made to the master template are then 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.
Without templates, the only way to do this is to copy-and-paste the components then re-bind them each time you want another. This is simple, and it works, but it can cause major headaches and time consuming corrections later on because if you ever want to make a change to how they are represented, you're stuck making the change to each copy of the group.
