Copy/Paste Diagram vs. Owned Elements

[JohnWSaundersIII]

For the first time, I used Copy Diagram to Clipboard followed by Paste Diagram. There were a few things that surprised me about it.

This was with a sequence diagram where some of the lifelines were classes, and some were just Sequence elements created for the diagram and therefore were owned elements.

When you paste, you have the choice to make a shallow copy (only owned elements duplicated) vs. a deep copy (all elements duplicated).

So, I did a shallow copy (of a diagram showing the classic async operation pattern in .NET 1.1) and then pasted it (in the same package) to a diagram called "2.0". I intended to change the original to show how things are different in .NET 2.0.

This did duplicate the owned elements. I then decided I didn't want all the duplicates in the same package, so I deleted my "2.0" diagram.

This did not delete the owned elements, and I'm surprised by that. They were created when I created the diagram, so I thought they'd be deleted by deleting it.

So, perhaps they are owned by the package and not the diagram?

And, is there a better technique for making a copy of a diagram which will only be slightly different from an existing one?

Thanks,
John

[Paolo F Cantoni]

From memory (some time back), looking at the database, a sequence diagram is distinctly different from the other kinds of diagrams.

If you tried the same process with (say) a Class diagram, you should get different results...

HTH,
Paolo

[peter.zrnko]

I think that everything what you see in project browser under a package is owned by the package.
Diagram ownes elements like notes, hyperlinks etc.