Duplicating container with prototyped notes

I was wondering: is there a way to duplicate / copy-paste a container with notes inside, and having those notes keep their prototypes? Thanks.

If you only select the container, only the container is duped, but does keep its prototype assignment.

If you (in Outline or Chart) expand the container and select all (desired) items and dupe they retain their prototype assignments. The child notes dupe in situ - i.e. in the original container - so you ned to drag them to the dupe container.

Doing the latter at just container level and getting the container & all descendants isnā€™t possible. You might want to make a feature request.

Iā€™ve updated the HTML export for v7 - to include one with images: Tutorials and Examples - Tinderbox Forum.

Thanks. It would be a nice feature: one could have a container as a template with specific notes inside. Will make that request. Not vital, but handy!

Copy the container. Paste: the pasted container will hold copies of the descendants of your container, and those descendants do indeed use the prototype used by the note from which they are copied.

Well, I learned something! Copying and pasting the container in map view will indeed keep the notes prototypes ā€¦ BUT ā€¦ doing it in outline view will not keep the notes prototypes. Strange!

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And thatā€™s not right. New issue #1995.

This will be fixed in the next release.

I had noticed this for quite a while too: Iā€™d copy-and-paste a container and its contents to an ā€œArchiveā€ section, and for some reason I would find the prototype of the child-notes all changed. But because Iā€™d never thought to try it in map view, where the child prototypes are preserved, I had thought this was intrinsic to the copying-and-pasting process.

I would work around it in other ways, mainly by using a stamp that said $Container(original)=ā€œARCHIVEā€. If I applied that stamp to a container-note, in an outline view, then everything would move where I wanted, with prototypes preserved.

But good to know that this is considered a bug and that a more direct copy-(or cut-)and-paste option will emerge.

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Nice stamp strategy. Great that this will be sorted out. Meanwhile, Iā€™ll be paying some extra visits to the map view.

Is this a feature or a regression? In TBX 5 if you ā€œduplicateā€ a container all of the note are duplicated regardless of the expansion. Iā€™ve struggled with this is versions 6 and 7.

When I have copied and expanded outline and pasted it, I get an ā€œimported outline.ā€

For me, duplicating a container in the map view only duplicates the top note. (7.03).

Iā€™ll try to create a stamp, but I sure miss Command+D to dupe everything in a container.

p.s. I get the spinning ball trying to duplicate a large container and all of the notes have ā€œcopyā€ added to the title.

I re-tested in v7.1.0b263 (just out - although not changed in this context from v7.0.3) and canā€™t replicate you error. I:

  • made a new document and added the built-in ā€˜Personā€™ prototype. Switched to Outline view.
  • I then added a container with 4 children all using the above prototype.
  • I selected the expanded container + children, de-selected, and pasted back into the same view.
  • I got a new container with all the children, with the correct prototype set.

Is this the scenario where you are getting an ā€˜imported outlineā€™?

It appears the v6+ behaviour is only to copy/duplicate the container and not contents (unless the latter are also selected). Iā€™d suggest following up directly with Eastgate if you want the app behaviour altered (I donā€™t think thereā€™s a switch weā€™re overlooking).

I canā€™t replicate this. If I dupe only the dupes have a ā€˜copyā€™ suffix (or auto-incremented number). If this is in a Map [sic] it maybe that somehow the dupes have got placed exactly atop their source copy - though this isnā€™t the normal behaviour. the latter can be checked by viewing the map container in Outline view. Otherwise this too sounds like an issue for support.

Mark, sorry-- user error. I had created a keyboard maestro macro that was pasting without styles. This was causing the ā€œimported outlineā€ and probably the spinning ball.

I miss the ability to duplicate the container with the one click Command+D in version 5ā€¦ However, I realize how far tinderbox has come since version 5 (wow!) so I can live with the extra steps involved in duplicating the contents of a container.

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Instead of Duplicate, Copy/Paste will do what you want. āŒ˜-C āŒ˜-V.

The problem in outline view was fixed in backstage release 244 and Tinderbox 7.0.2

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