Copy / Duplicate Page

[nils73]

While working on a new project I wondered if it would be possible to duplicate any kind of content within CMSMS, like pages, blobs, tags --- because sometimes all I need to do is to change some minor things but creating new pages is - though it is already pretty quick - time consuming. The ability to duplicate / copy stuff would save me some time ...

Just another 0.02 EUR ...

Regards,
Nils

[nils73]

Sorry, Patricia. I searched the forum but my search yielded no matches. However I think that global content blocks are not quite the same. But I will watch the new thread. Thank you for moving my request where it should have been in first place.

Regards,
Nils

[forreststevens]

I saw the feature request for content duplication in the development tracker but it seems as though it's been languishing for a while.  Any chance content copying/duplicating will make it into the next release?

[ganeshXL]

I absolutely agree: I would love to have a "copy this page" feature as well.

Right now, I'm in the process of setting up a two-language website (german and french). Every language version will have something like 70 single pages. It would be tremendously useful if I could be able to just click on an icon and duplicate the german version of page x, and just change the text there as needed.

(The template section has this feature already built-in, btw)

On a related note: How easy/difficult would it be to manually manipulate the database tables to copy pages? Any special things I need to be aware of?

[5ofclubs]

ganeshXL is right.

When working with big multi-language web sites this feature would be sooooooooooo nice.

[nils73]

It would be nice in almost any case ... because most of the time all I need to do is to create a set of pages and duplicating them would make life easier, especially for prototyping when you do not have a final navigation structure and just some idea of how it should work.

Regards,
Nils

[djkirstyjay]

I would have thought it would be relatively easy, as it has already been done with stylesheets & templates... but then again I know sweet FA!

Anyway, that's by-the-by... I think this would be a FANTASTIC feature, as you can set up pages and if other users need to add stuff they can duplicate a page and fill in the blanks without messing with layout.

For example, I have put a table at the top of each page for property details for a rental company... so that it shows the area, complex and number of bedrooms/bathrooms, then the description below.

Rather than the users having to draw a table every time (and let's face it, as good as the WYSIWYG editor is, it still messes up and someone that doesn't know what they're doing could send the page pear-shaped) it would be great if they could duplicate the page and replace the content.

I can't really use globals for the table, as the table content is changed for each new page...

[calguy1000]

Isn't that what templates are for

You could create a template with that information in it, and N content blocks and then all they would have to do is  "fill in the blanks", literally, the system would provide input fields and text areas in all of the places where stuff is supposed to be filled in.

[forreststevens]

Sure but that doesn't eliminate the need/want to copy an existing page to save time!    I think this feature should be high priority.

[djkirstyjay]

Isn't that what templates are for

You could create a template with that information in it, and N content blocks and then all they would have to do is  "fill in the blanks", literally, the system would provide input fields and text areas in all of the places where stuff is supposed to be filled in.

Yes, and no... you can create a template, however if I put a table into the template, it wouldn't be editable unless I stuck a contect block in each cell, which would be REALLY confusing when you came to editing it on the admin end, as all the content blocks would be displayed in sequence down the page... each with it's own WYSIWYG editor (which in itself would cause the page to load a lot slower) I want it to be as easy as possible, not a mind mash for the people that are going to use it!

To duplicate the page and replace the text would be far simpler.

[ganeshXL]

OK, here's what I did now to duplicate all pages of language version 1 to lang. version 2 (german -> french)

a) from inside phpMyAdmin, export all pages (complete inserts), and save it to a text file
that'll be the db-tabels 'cms_content' + 'cms_content_props'

b) change the alias names.
in my case I used something like "page-name-d" (d = deutsch = german)
that became "page-name-f" (f = french) in the 2nd lang. version.
quite easy and painless with a good text-editor that features good search-and-replace functions

c) manually alter the id-names: in my case, I used 1000 as the start of the french pages. So the latter numbers would reflect the same page.
e.g. german = id 65, french = id 1065
Again, this is quite easy with search-and-replace in a text-editor

d) Alter the template id-numbers, if you're going to use a sep. template for your 2nd lang. version. Also see point g)
Search and replace is your friend here, too.

e) update the 'cms_content_seq' table (equals highest id number)

f) in phpMyAdmin again, execute the queries: easiest way is probably just "import textfile" (SQL submenu).

g) update / create the templates needed for the 2nd lang. version. I only had to change 2 or 3, for the header, footer and so on. Easy.
see d)
Depending on your use of templates, you can skip d + g altogether.


All in all it wasn't just a 5-minute job, but fairly straightforward. At least if you know your way round basic mysql stuff.
It's not as difficult as the above description may sound.

I do not rely on the in-built auto-navigation feature though. That is, I'm using a separate PHP file that I include, instead of CMSMS's in-built navigation modules. I don't know if that would complicate the whole thing (keeping structures intact and so on).

[vaughnt]

I just want to throw more weight behind this request.

I think users of CMSMS who might want to base one page upon another fall into two groups... Admins with developer ability, who can build a template if they need it, and "Editors", who know how to add/edit/delete basic content and work the WYSIWYG, and not much else.

Having a "copy page" function (a common editing task) would mean that the Editor class of user could both create content AND clone that content if need be. Considering an editor's role is to add/edit/delete content, that makes sense. That fits the philosophy of a simple CMS.  To have to require a developer admin to make a custom template everytime an editor wants to base one page upon another is definitely not Simple.  It unnecessarily makes content editing a development task.

So, there is my case for why there should be a "copy page" function, similar to "copy template". 

[calguy1000]

This is a valid request, and keep plugging it on a regular basis (better yet, see if there's an entry on the forge, and put your comments in there).  However, feature cutoff for 1.0 has come and gone (mostly), and we're just trying to increase stability at the moment, and want a 1.0 final before the end of the month.

so... although I agree with you (I actually wanted to copy a page myself today)... it isn't gonna happen for 1.0.

k  ?

[Jonny]

I'd like to plug for this one too.

I'm surprised this hasn't been featured from the start as it would greatly simplify content creation. I'm in the process of adapting a site which displays images and captions in a range of slightly different table layouts. The end user is decidely non-techie so the ability for him to copy an existing page and swap the pics and text would be ideal.

Apart from this, CMSMS is everything I could ask for. Thanks to everyone who's contributed.

[pbrady]

Where is this now? Any new status? 1.0 has been out for a while not and I'd think this might get a higher priority...but seems to be stalled.

I could really use a copy page feature...for all the reasons stated above...I'm building large site with many similar pages...it'd be nice to simply copy pages from one "product group" to another easily.

It'd make my life way way easier.

Any chance someone will work on this in the near future??