.TRANSFORM.UsersGuide.Connectors

Information

For connectors which contain both flow and non-flow components, the TRANSFORM library adopts a default GUI structure to help guide the user on what, generally, should and should not be connected.

The table below presents examples of flow, non-flow, and stream variables. Typically, flow variables contain the suffix of "_flow" as an identifier.

Table 1. Examples of Connector Variables

Figure 1 shows the adopted GUI visual ques and recommended connection method. For components which define a non-flow variable at the connection to have a connector symbol filled solid white with the connector color as an outline and those which define a flow variable to be solid filled with the connector color. Discretized models place a oval filled white with a border the color of the connector behind the connection point to provide a visual que to the user. This method is required based on current limitations to Modelca/IDEs and may be simplified in the future if possible.

NOTE 1: Discritized models which have a connection along the discritized dimension do not generally have a visual que indicating that it is an array/matrix. However, attempting to connect the IDE should provide a dialog that is self-evident. The user can then define the connection there or in the text layer.

NOTE 2: Recommended connections are guidelines and not as strict requirements as. However, typically the restriction on connecting non-flow connectors together is fairly strict and will cause models to fail and introduce non-linearities into the solution. Connection of flow connectors is not as restrictive due to the equations auto-generated with the connect() statements.

Figure 1. GUI visual que to help guide the user on proper connections