I love to copy/paste nodes to recycle parts of my workflows or add other testing branches. A couple enhancements would be great.
Keep input connections when copying/pasting. If I copy a set of things with multiple input branches, especially metanodes with multiple inputs, then I have to reconnect everything upstream.
Paste at the mouse location or in the center of the screen. if I copy/paste a node, it places it down and to the right either behind a bunch of connectors or off the screen where the current workflow focus is.
I agree with you about the copying and pasting and it ought to go to current mouse location rather than approximately at the “original” positioning, but are you aware that pasting using the mouse context-menu (i.e. right-click and paste) is the way forward in the meantime… It only took me 2 years to find that
A bit of an off topic hack - I am also a heavy recycler via copy paste. Another cool trick is that you can copy a series of connected and configured nodes, then paste the text and save it, then paste that text whenever you need it to allow instant access to that series of pre-configured and connected nodes. (This can be done via Macro for instant access) I have also found that text representation occasionally requires updating when a major KINIME update is installed.
I typically reserve this for massive time savers, not pasting a string of pre-configured base nodes. I rarely lean on Metanodes, as they are not quick to access and insert, they do not provide access to the “interactive views” of anything inside, and they require expansion (or bouncing back and forth) for modifications.
Background info: I use my own standardized custom internal field names in my workflows whenever possible, much like a standalone software platform. This uniformity allows me serious process portability between projects, but allows for any level of customization.
With the touch of a button, I instantly can paste a string of 10 pre-configured interactive view based components (as well as any necessary transition nodes) to jumpstart all of the initial steps of column name alignment, column order, data type cleanup, value cleanup, formatting, etc.
Maintenance / volatility is an issue, so I typically only use this when I need access to interactive views and there is a big off on time saving.
@iCFO Your workflow is a higher-level abstraction (or template, if you will) than meta nodes or components abstractions. It offers greater flexibility and explicitly highlights its suitability for interactive views. Thank you for sharing this idea, it is quite intriguing.
@EvanB one question to 1.: so you want to copy all downstream nodes but not the “source node” in this case the metanode and want to keep the connections to the new pasted nodes. Perhaps, therefore, an interaction to duplicate items would be the preferred functionality.
In Modern UI we changed some paste logic in a way that is similar to your described behaviour:
If you just copy and paste one time → there is an offset for all pasted elements
If you copy and paste multiple times without moving the canvas around → the offset is smaller
If you paste via the context menu → it uses the mouse position for the top/left element of the copied elements
If you copy and paste it somewhere else on the canvas and the copied elements are not anymore “visible” → it is pasted in the “middle” of the visible canvas // same logic is applied if you paste it into another workflow
