[QGIS-Developer] Copy layer vs Duplicate layer ???

[Nick Bearman]

Thanks Chris, Richard and Paulo for sharing your views.

I note that in 3.40.5, choosing 'Duplicate layer' does cause a pop-up 
notice to say:

Layer duplication complete: Note that it's using the same data source.

Although this does disappear after ~5 seconds.

I tried 'copy layer' and was baffled for a moment, then I realised there 
was a 'paste layer' option which I had to do (before anything visible 
happened. Yes, the layer definition was copied to the clipboard when I 
clicked copy).

Both Duplicate layer and Copy-Paste layer work on multiple layers at 
once, and groups as well.

Interestingly keyboard shortcut Ctrl-C Ctrl-V doesn't copy and paste as 
you might expect.

Ctrl-C does nothing as far as I can tell. Ctrl-V gives me this message:

Layer not editable: The current layer is not editable. Choose 'Start 
editing' in the digitizing toolbar.

So I think it would make sense to remove the 'Copy Layer' / 'Paste 
Layer' options.

Thanks!
Nick.

On 04/06/2025 20:01, chris hermansen via QGIS-Developer wrote:
> Richard and list,
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 4, 2025, 08:00 Richard Duivenvoorde via QGIS-Developer 
> <qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
>     Hi People,
>
>     A user had an issue in which she 'copied' a layer, edited it and
>     then found out she edited the original data...
>
>     My response was: yes (join the club ;-)) it is called 'duplicate',
>     but it only duplicates the layer, NOT the data.
>
>     Then she responded: but I did not use 'duplicate', I used 'copy
>     layer' ...
>
>     Then I found out they indeed both exist in the context menu, and
>     actually do the same thing... ???
>     (tested with a gpkg and a shapefile)
>
>     So my questions:
>     - should there be 2 context menu items for the same thing (the
>     always tricky 'duplicate' which (in my view) counter-intuitive
>     does not duplicate data)
>     - should these 2 functions not behave different?
>
>     Regards,
>
>     Richard Duivenvoorde
>
>
> (Without a working QGIS for now as I await the latest release for 
> Ubuntu 25.04, so I cannot confirm my comments below with testing...)
>
> It's my recollection that I too have fallen for the same false 
> solution to my problem.
>
> I think my current approach is to "save as..." and have the saved copy 
> show up as a new layer; is that what most people do when they want to 
> creat a copy of a layer for editing?
>
> From that perspective, why not just get rid of both the "duplicate" 
> and "copy" layers since (if I am not wrong) one can equally just open 
> the same data set as a new layer?
>
> It doesn't seem that we benefit much by those and apparently some of 
> us have found them distracting...
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Nick Bearman
+44 (0) 7717745715
nick at nickbearman.com

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