Micro830 Programming

Hi folks, I just got my first Micro800 series PLC with the CCW software. I haven't done must programming in a while but programmed a good bit 12 to 14 years ago with 6200, RSLogix5 and RSLogix500.
I did the tutorial (Traffic Light). My question is do you always have to create a function block and then write a program to execute it or can you just write a normal program? I tried and couldn't get the variables to work correctly.
Thanks for any advice.

on the project tree, click the ladder logic icon ... a ladder logic rung will appear and you should be able to fill it with XIO s and XIC s pretty much as usual. the OTE s are called coils

It's the same but different