When Will We Have Copy and Paste Again? - D-Tools Forum

David_Haddad · 09-18-2009, 04:21 PM

It takes all my self-control not to turn this into a rant :p

so I'll ask as nicely as possible. 10 years ago when I first bought D-Tools there was a command called "create functional copy" that allowed me to copy and paste D-Tools shapes on the drawing page *without duplicating them*. Then some genius removed it and I'd like to know who he was so I can send him a bill for the hundred of wasted hours I've incurred because of that since then. Oops, maybe I will rant after all.

I need to be able to copy and paste and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect such a basic function from a $5000 program. I constantly reuse elements of a drawing. This should be a simple copy and paste command that *retains* the attributes of the D-Tools shape on the page. i.e. does not require them to be duplicated and does not over write changes that have been made to the shapes on the drawing page such as color etc., i.e. should not default them back to the way they are if you drag them into the drawing.

I know all the workarounds. I don't want to do a screenshot and paste it to another page, that does not work for me. I don't want to group the shapes and then ungroup them (this is the current best jury rig). I just want a simple copy and paste.

Why do I need this? Here's one example of many. I might do 5 different conceptual layouts of the same theater. I want to reuse elements of the first drawing and just copy and paste them to another page, then make minor modifications to them. This should be brain dead simple but it's not because you can't copy and paste a D-Tools shape without duplicating it. I've been asking for this for years and as you can see it frustrates me to no end that no one seems to think this most basic of commands is needed.

grichards · 09-18-2009, 06:14 PM

i don't use visio a whole lot, but this resonates with me as i've been commenting about similar types of issues in the autoCad world.

My general view is: Visio and autoCad should work just like they normally do, and SI5 should fit in as a non-obtrusive addition to these software packages.

While I'm sure the design team is inundated with requests to add features features features, I really hope they focus less on adding and more on smoothing out, debugging, and optimizing the features that are implemented. My wish list for 5.6 (or whatever the versioning scheme leads to) is a more user friendly, reasonably bug free, less obtrusive 5.5. No new features, just smooth operation on the existing features. QA the snot out of 5.5 and clean house before adding on another level.

Maybe a current user survey would determine if this is a good direction or not.

my two cents...

**Kevin Mikelonis** · 09-18-2009, 06:31 PM

Good Point David,

I agree with you completely.

In thinking about it, this issue and others that seem to have value but do not has reduced the value of the drawing interface of the software.

The useless tracking of connections, the duplication of shapes in detail drawings, and poor implementation of product images in Line Drawings has caused me to move users away from using 'shapes related to data' in their drawings with the exception of Wire Shapes on Plan Views, and Schematics.

While the D-Tools team is making the software run well and integrating many user reqested features, I am confident that no one at D-Tools has actually used the software to design, engineer, invoice, schedule, install, revise, change order, re-engineer, install, invoice, as-built an actual project.

There was an attempt to do once this which would have been very valuable to D-Tools, project Alpo I recall, but it never was implemented.

Understanding the time required to implement and use a feature so it can be weighed against the value the feature actually provides would be well, priceless information.

Meanwhile, I help users leverage what D-Tolls does really well AND provides value in the documentation.

The result has been an increased use of 'shapes not related to data' and a decrease in the use of 'shapes realted to data'

Bringin back the copy functional shapes feature would change our stance on this practice in a big way and bring greater value back to the drawing interface of D-Tools SI.

David_Haddad · 09-18-2009, 06:53 PM

Thanks both grichards and Kevin, I could not agree with both of you more. I love d-Tools but my one biggest beef as I have stated before is that there are 101 improvements that could be made to D-Tools that would speed up drawing and proposal time without adding a single significant feature. It's exciting to see new things like the Google Sketch Up but I have ONE PRIORITY when it comes to D-Tools. I literally believe I could work 3x faster with some very basic improvements. A few off the top of my head:
1. Copy and paste.
2. Saved filters in the data matrix.
3. Things like "select all" and "clear all" in certain dialogs so I do not have to click my way through 20 settings.
If I sat here documenting them all as I work on a drawing I could easily come up with 50-100. Which brings home Kevin's point that D-Tools does not use the product on a daily basis, they may say we are wrong, but the inability to do things like copy and paste suggets to me a disconnect on the part of development from how many use the product.

Quote:

grichards said: My general view is: Visio and autoCad should work just like they normally do...

YES YES YES!

Quote:

Kevin said: The result has been an increased use of 'shapes not related to data' and a decrease in the use of 'shapes realted to data'

YES again

. I do exactly the same thing, again not necessarily because I want to but because of the issues being discussed here.

I really don't mean to sound so negative, as 5.5 is the best ever and the forum support here has also gotten really good. But every once in a while as I am sitting here spending hours on things that should be so easy to do I get frustrated.

David_Haddad · 09-18-2009, 07:03 PM

BTW, here's another example in case D-Tools is reading and I am willing to bet grichards and Kevin will echo this. It's exceptionally common to want to copy and paste a section of a schematic onto another page. For instance, maybe I want to drag the last "level" of a schematic to the next page and continue with another level there. Or perhaps I want to do some schematics for the local devices in a room and show them connecting to the head end, which has already been detailed on another schematic page, and I want to drag some of those shapes with their connections from the main schematic page to another page showing individual room schematics. This is so common to want to do and I spend hours and hours messing with this stuff. And it could all be eliminated with one command! It's called copy and paste and it's in every program I know of

!

**Kevin Mikelonis** · 09-18-2009, 09:33 PM

Hi David,

Echo is ON!

And here is my solution to your request - It's called 'screen shot' *LAME* but effective, and not the wasy it should be.

And speaking of lost functionality, what happened to the abilty to create a side view of an entire rack at once?

Now side views must be generated one item at a time.

Select shape, right-click, D-Tools, Shpae, Change Shape, Select Side, Repeat for every item in the rack.

Side views are so useful for showing locations of equipment mounted to the back of a rack behind other equipment.

NareshN · 09-19-2009, 07:29 AM

Hi,

Thanks for all this great feedback.

My understanding is this is what is requested -
<Request>
When you copy and paste shapes in Visio/AutoCAD we should not assume that this is a new product and not display the "Add Product" dialog. Instead we should assume that this pasted shape is another visualization of the same product in the PDM.
</Request>

Some thoughts on how this works now --

Each shape in Visio (and AutoCAD has somethig similar) has a property called the prop.ShadowID which links the shape to a product in the DTL. If we find this prop.ShadowID in a shape it means that the shape is part of a project and not coming from a stencil. A shape added from a stencil would not have a prop.ShadowID and hence represent a new product.

When you copy and paste shape(s) you could do this within the same drawing or across Visio drawings as well. There is no way for the D-Tools code to know where the shape is coming from (is it coming from the same drawing or different drawing). Visio triggers a "shape added" event and we look at the shapes added and currently assume that they are for "new" products.

I am wondering if we can change this to work as follows -

1. In D-Tools Options we add a new checkbox "Shapes added from clipboard to be matched to current project first". This wording can be improved but I cannot think of anything better now.

2. If this checkbox was checked (you have to check only once) - then our code would check each added shape for a prop.ShadowID. If shape has a valid prop.ShadowID (that ID exists in the current project) the code would match shape to the appropriate product with NO PROMPT to user.

3. The only problem in this approach could be if user copied and pastes accross drawings from different projects - the code has no way to know that. It would have to assume it is the same project - I guess this would be an acceptable problem. So user may copy a speaker which has ID 21 in one project and paste to a different project. The code which runs on shape added would look for ID 21 in the current project and match to the product which is ID 21 in the current project.

NoTe: This change cannot be done in the upcoming service pack which is already done - however can be considered for the next one.

grichards · 09-21-2009, 05:42 PM

Originally Posted by NareshN

...Instead we should assume that this pasted shape is another visualization of the same product in the PDM.

Yes, i think this would be a better way to go. It makes Visio/autoCad act like a Visio/autoCad copy paste rather than a dTools copy paste. The duplicate product feature works fine as a dTools copy paste.

Originally Posted by NareshN

...
There is no way for the D-Tools code to know where the shape is coming from (is it coming from the same drawing or different drawing)...

Seems like you would be able to query the current project and/or drawing when you override the "shape added" event handler in dTools code and determine where the shape/block is coming from. If its from the same project, search for the shadowID. If its from a different project or there's no shadowID match, prompt to add a product... assuming the dTools software design allows for this.

fryeguy · 09-23-2009, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Seems like you would be able to query the current project and/or drawing when you override the "shape added" event handler in dTools code and determine where the shape/block is coming from.

This assumes the objects that are sitting in the clipboard actually contain data that identifies them within a specific project. I don't believe this is the case. Hence the problem of copy/paste between projects not working as seamlessly.

NareshN · 09-23-2009, 05:17 AM

Hi All,

Just FYI - by inspecting Visio shapes in the clipboard we cannot tell which drawing they came from.