Procedure to copy a Catalog Item

[aurumdigitus]

What is the procedure to make a copy of an item in the Catalog? Trying the obvious by right clicking to bring up Context Menu gives a Copy, Paste and Paste here to new Subfolder all grayed out.

The answer may be obvious to the program's cognoscente but it is not obvious to me.

[j_c_hallgren]

The "Copy" is a valid option on my context menu for Catalog entries.

Then I do "Insert as new item/category here">"Clipboard item" to complete the function.

[aurumdigitus]

Hummmmmmm, the plot thickens.

Restarted program, same result - grayed out. Being innovative selected catalog item and tried Control-C. That yielded a dialog box stating, "Copying of selected item(s) not allowed".

Now am ineffably annoyed.

[serendipity]

What is the procedure to make a copy of an item in the Catalog? Trying the obvious by right clicking to bring up Context Menu gives a Copy, Paste and Paste here to new Subfolder all grayed out.

The answer may be obvious to the program's cognoscente but it is not obvious to me.

I agree its not obvious. Well, the only way to make a duplicate of any items is to hold control button and drag the required item and drop it elsewhere.
The context-menu copy, paste etc are not for making copies of items in catalog, they are for copying files/folders to other folders, as in for real copying.

A similar logic is used to duplicate items/command in UDC window, that is to hold control button while clicking on new button.

[j_c_hallgren]

Restarted program, same result - grayed out. Being innovative selected catalog item and tried Control-C. That yielded a dialog box stating, "Copying of selected item(s) not allowed".

Now I'm confused...i'm on 7.90.124 and I have the Copy option showing as enabled...so why don't you?

Update: just tried it on a Script entry...yes, it's disabled on that...was that what you tried to copy?

[TheQwerty]

Update: just tried it on a Script entry...yes, it's disabled on that...was that what you tried to copy?

Looks like it's disabled on all of the Quick location features, so scripts, filters, and searches.

[serendipity]

Update: just tried it on a Script entry...yes, it's disabled on that...was that what you tried to copy?

Looks like it's disabled on all of the Quick location features, so scripts, filters, and searches.

Makes sense to me, anything that cannot be copied into a folder has menus disabled. You will see that if you right-click on My computer catalog item as one cannot copy it.
Like I said before the context-menus copy, paste etc are the regular copy, paste commands what one would see in the list or tree therefore its obvious that search, filters, scripts etc cannot be copied.

[aurumdigitus]

I agree its not obvious. Well, the only way to make a duplicate of any items is to hold control button and drag the required item and drop it elsewhere.

Thank you for the insight. It is now functional. It is this type of nonintuitive operation that has induced a love-hate relationship with the software since first registering. Am waiting to see how well Dual Pane(pain) functions. As the registration expires in a couple more increments it remains to be seen if license gets extended.

Update: just tried it on a Script entry...yes, it's disabled on that...was that what you tried to copy?

As it happens yes it was a Script.

Like I said before the context-menus copy, paste etc are the regular copy, paste commands what one would see in the list or tree therefore its obvious that search, filters, scripts etc cannot be copied.

"When answering a student's question never use the word obviously. Remember, what may well be obvious to you to that student could be indistinguishable from magic".

[serendipity]

Thank you for the insight. It is now functional. It is this type of nonintuitive operation that has induced a love-hate relationship with the software since first registering. Am waiting to see how well Dual Pane(pain) functions. As the registration expires in a couple more increments it remains to be seen if license gets extended.

It was not insight, it is documented in wiki and tip of the day. Read mouse tricks on wiki and its 56th entry in tip of the day (Shift+F1).
While I agree that for newbies its not obvious, but want to make it clear that its not undocumented.

Like I said before the context-menus copy, paste etc are the regular copy, paste commands what one would see in the list or tree therefore its obvious that search, filters, scripts etc cannot be copied.

When answering a student's question never use the word obviously. Remember, what may well be obvious to you to that student could be indistinguishable from magic".

, no it was not directed at you at all. I was making a point to JC and TheQwerty that copy-paste in catalog works similar to list and tree.

[TheQwerty]

Makes sense to me, anything that cannot be copied into a folder has menus disabled. You will see that if you right-click on My computer catalog item as one cannot copy it.
Like I said before the context-menus copy, paste etc are the regular copy, paste commands what one would see in the list or tree therefore its obvious that search, filters, scripts etc cannot be copied.

I understand it but I'm not sure it makes sense or is obvious. As it stands, there is no way to make a copy of the Quick * or Open items via just keyboard, and it certainly isn't trackpad friendly. In my opinion there should be a way to accomplish this. I think a user would expect the ability to copy and paste them, in the very least there could be a menu item "Duplicate Item."


There doesn't appear to be much demand for being able to copy those items (sorry aurumdigitus!), so I'm also of the opinion that this can be left as is for the time being. I believe the catalog is going to see some pretty big changes (at least back end) with the introduction of on the fly switching and snippets, so it might make better sense to implement this then. It would probably be easier for Don and result in a cleaner interface overall.

[serendipity]

I think a user would expect the ability to copy and paste them, in the very least there could be a menu item "Duplicate Item."

I agree that there should be more ways to duplicate items. The mouse trick is definitely not very obvious. "duplicate item" on right-click context menu would be a good choice for mousers especially laptop users. And a keyboard shortcut would be good too.

[aurumdigitus]

Opps... Left off the attribution. May not know that much about xyplorer but I don't plagiarize. Arthur C. Clarke said, "When answering a student's question never use the word obviously. Remember, what may well be obvious to you to that student could be indistinguishable from magic".

[admin]

I'll add "Duplicate Item" to the menu.

[admin]

It is this type of nonintuitive operation that has induced a love-hate relationship with the software since first registering.

Got any other examples for nonintuitive operations? It's one of my top design goals to NOT have this kind of stuff.

[aurumdigitus]

Used Duplicate Item for the first time today - twice. IMO a very handy and useful command to have available!