[Design] What should Copy and Paste mean in Chandler?

[Mimi Yin]

Reference: https://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5461

Copying items between Collections is essentially the same as DnDing  
(Drag and Drop) items between Collections. It adds "the same item" to  
the destination Collection.

Q. Can anyone think of any use cases for treating Copy and Paste  
between Collections as "Add Duplicates of the Copied items to the  
destination Collection"?

We also want to support Copying and Pasting items within the same  
Collection. However, if we extend the model we've established for  
Copying and Pasting between Collections, C&P within a Collection is  
essentially meaningless.

So, after chatting with Alec and Jeffrey briefly, we came up with the  
following proposal:

Create a new Edit menu item called Duplicate (Cmd/Ctrl - D) which  
creates a 2nd item that is essentially identical in every way with  
the original item except that the 2nd item has a different UUID (and  
different "date created", "created by" values as well).

And Copy and Paste is either:
1. Disabled when C&Ping within the same Collection; OR
2. If you Copy and Paste an event on the same calendar, it create a  
recurring event with custom recurrence dates (e.g. Esther's  
scenario). C&P within the same Collection would be disabled for non- 
event items.

If you don't want to create a custom recurrence, you can always use  
the Duplicate menu item (Cmd/Ctrl - D) first and then Cut and Paste  
the Duplicate.

The biggest downside of this approach is that Cmd/Ctrl - C is a lot  
more common than Cmd/Ctrl - D, so users might accidentally create a  
custom recurrence, when they really mean to Duplicate.

Q. What are use cases for using C&P to create a custom recurrence?
+ I'm a traveling salesperson. For the next 3 weeks, I'm going to  
visit the same client and I take the same flight out on Monday  
morning and the same flight back on Friday evening.
+ Esther's scenario: Scheduling an irregularly re-occurring board  
meeting 18 times a year.

Q. What are use cases for Duplicate?
+ I am having a meeting with the same people in the same location  
about a different topic tomorrow. I want to Duplicate today's meeting  
item and re-title it for tomorrow's meeting.

Do other people have use cases? Which scenario is more common in  
calendaring? Custom recurrence or Duplicate?

Thx.

Mimi



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