problem duplicating groups of objects with clones and linked offsets

[jimmac]

This is more of a workflow issue. Could be taken as a feature request too.

When duplicating clones or linked offset objects, they remain being clones, pointing to the original parent. But if you look at a typical use of this functionality from an artist perspective, there is an issue regarding clones and duplication.

Most of the time, clones and linked offsets are set up to allow editability of a complex object. It can be a web button, with a text label that has a glow and a dropshadow, along with the button itself having a dropshadow. Having taken the effort to create the glow and the dropshadows, the artist has the benefit of being able to edit the text and all the rest gets updated automatically. To position such set up on the page/canvas, the whole thing is grouped.

The problems comes when you need this setup duplicated. You need another button on your page. You duplicate the button, position and start editing the label and oops! All the clones point to the original text and button parents. This is more clear on this video -- http://youtube.com/watch?v=-F2Ax0v0U_o

This doesn't have to be web buttons, We're talking about slides, graphs, everything that has such a 'setup' duplicated many times. I've bumped into this so many times. I'm guessing the solution isn't trivial, but it would solve quite a common task if this was somehow achieveable easily, not requiring to relink/setup the button/object every time one needs to duplicate it.

[Andy Fitzsimon (andyfitz)]

so when you duplicate a group containing clones you want the clones within that group to reference the non clones in your duplicated group.

inkscape would need to check if a group being duplicated contained the parent for any clones within that same group and edit the xref to the new id.

[jimmac (jimmac)]

>inkscape would need to check if a group being duplicated contained the parent for any clones within that same group and edit the xref to the new id.

Yes, that would have the desired effect.

[Robert Loos (r-loos)]

I just wanted to submit this as well.
I personally would consider this as a strong wish.
If you have to create lots of buttons for web menus you could save a lot of time you have to spend now editing the xml-code.
Propably there are other situations where you would not want the link to change. Maybe, an option in the document settings would be useful.

[Andy Fitzsimon (andyfitz)]

its quite easy to break the clone link and keep editing..
this need not be a preference and should be default behaviour.

[Andy Fitzsimon (andyfitz)]

its quite easy to break the clone link and keep editing..
this need not be a preference and should be default behaviour.

[Robert Loos (r-loos)]

But we do not want to break the link. Instead the link should change from the original to the copy of the original. Only then you can easily edit the copy. Watch jimmacs video and you'll understand.
Btw.: how do you break the link easily? Suppose that's missing in the manual ;-)

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

A new command, Relink Clone to Copied in Edit > Clone, allows you to relink any clone to a different original object without changing its other properties. Just copy (Ctrl+C) the object you want to be the new original, select any number of clones, and choose the Relink command. Now all selected clones are linked to the copied object.

As for doing this automatically on duplicate, it can be done as well, but I'm concerned that this may be an unexpected behavior for some people. In any case, now that you can explicitly relink clones to whatever you want, I think this should take care of your situation.

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

OK, after some thinking I came to a conclusion that this might indeed be a useful option so I added it:

If you turn on the When duplicating original+clones: Relink duplicated clones option on Clones tab of Inkscape Preferences (default is off), duplicating a selection containing both a clone and its original (possibly in groups) will relink the duplicated clone to the duplicated original instead of the old original.

please test

[prkos (prkos)]

Works great, I wish I had this 2 weeks ago, definitely a time saver and a usability improvement.

[Frank Samuelson (inkscape0802n-12-cudgel)]

Your option works well for clones. Thanks.
However, I need linked offset objects to behave the same way too. Can these be done too? As others have said, this will save me much time and effort. Thanks.

[bbyak (buliabyak)]

I'm unwilling to spend time on linked offset code - it is very buggy
and will be replaced by LPEs anyway, hopefully before 0.47. However,
similar relinking of linking LPEs (boolops, pattern on path, etc) is
indeed necessary - please open a new bug on that.

[Brynn (brynn4inks-deactivatedaccount)]

Flash forward from 2008 to 2017.

I'm unable to comment about the stability of linked offsets, not being a programmer. But even though LPEs are available now, I don't know of any which either replaces linked offsets, or creates the requested behavior.

With 0.92.2, we do now have Inkscape Preferences > Behavior > Clones > Duplicating original + clones/linked offset > Relink Duplicated Clones

I would like to suggest that there needs to be an option for re-linking duplicated linked offsets (not just for clones, but also for duplicates).

Thanks.