Introduction to typicals

A typical is a special type of symbol, that is generated from a typical page. These typical pages use logic content for the generation of typicals within the symbol library, thus allowing quick copying, sharing and implementation of logic content within both your own project, as well as somebody else’s.

Typical pages are indicated by their red icon within the logic page overview tree. An example is given in the following image.

A typical page is created as any logic page, with a few added steps. Once the logic page is created, you add the symbols FX_IN and FX_OUT as respective inputs and outputs for the symbol creation. If you already have IN and OUT symbols you wish to use as inputs and outputs for the symbol generated from the typical page, you can replace them with FX_IN and FX_OUT symbols respectively. IN and OUT symbols will become internal variables in the symbol after generation.

After this, you can right click on the logic page within the logic page tree and select from the logic_pages menu the "Typical" option. This changes the current logic page to a typical page. To revert this change, simply select "Typical (delete)" from the same menu.

When wanting to create a typical from the typical page, go to the "Tools" menu at the top of the page and select "Generate typical blocks". This will give you a prompt allowing you to select the width of the symbol to be created. After accepting, the created symbol will be added to your symbol library, within the map "GENERATED TYPICALS".

Typicals in general are used to add multiples of the same complex logic into a simulation without taking up multiple pages. This is easily explained by taking equations as an example. If you only have to solve an equation once, you can write it out on a logic page. But if the equation needs to be solved multiple times and/or for multiple variables, then it’s more efficient to write the equation once on a typical page and generate a typical from it, than to write it out multiple times on logic pages. An example of this is given in the images below.

Examples of this in the field could be the logic behind a valve or motor, something that can logically be used multiple times within the same project, while being quite complex on their own. These logic pages are then transformed into typical pages, from which new typicals can be created. These typicals are then used instead of the pages to drive the logic behind the valve or motor and can be imported into future projects to skip the step of creating the same logic over and over again.