I respectfully suggest you're quite overthinking this issue. There are only a couple of reasons to duplicate an item, and I think for all of them the idea is simply to save yourself from typing everything all over again. Thus, one duplicates the item, then makes whatever changes are required, such as due date, or where to file vis a vis project and/or context. Why would someone duplicate an item and then just leave it there? And why protect that person against such inaction, when there are good reasons to allow this mechanism, such as saving me from typing the whole thing all over again. Do we really need to be protected in this way?
And wouldn't your same logic apply to even allowing a user to create a new action in context view? As it is, when I'm in context view and create a new action, it automatically fills in the project with my default single-action project list. By your reasoning, that should be disabled too, because you don't know that that's really the project you want to put it in. But the case for duplication is actually easier, because you actually already have some information about the "new" dupicate, including the project from which it was spawned, so that it's far more likely that the duplicate will be properly placed in that project anyway. But at the least, it should be no worse off than a new action being placed in the default miscellany project. See what I mean? Unless you actually intended all actions to only be created while in project view. I can't believe I'm the only person that adds new actions while in context view. Sometimes, I go to my @phone context, and add in a bunch of calls I have to make, assigning them to various projects as I add them. I do the same in other contexts. So I can add a blank one (which gets assigned to my default miscellany project) but I can't duplicate one? That simply doesn't make any sense at all.
So instead, when in context view I find an action I want to duplicate, I should select it, switch to project view, duplicate it, add the context/project there or switch back to context view for doing so. Why? And this is supposedly to avoid "yanking" me around and "disrupting the workflow"? On the contrary, I find this over and over again, disrupting my workflow. Hmmm, maybe I'm just using this tool wrong.
For me, the great power of contexts and projects is that I can view AND enter new actions from wherever it makes more sense to do so. Sometimes I like context view for doing so, sometimes project view. For example, I have one context called @phone, and I have an action in there to call a client. In the note I have a call-in phone number and password, and a bunch of info I need to see before I make the call. So at the end of the call, it's been set that I have to make another call a few days later. I'm in context view. I'd like to duplicate the action, change the due date, and mark the one I just did as done. Yes, I could just change the due date on the action, but I like the record of having made the call, because I use these done actions as reminders for billing time.
In short, when I come across an action that needs duplication, I shouldn't have to switch to any specific view to duplicate it. I certainly shouldn't have to copy the action, create a fresh action, paste in the action info, go back to the original and copy the note, go back to the new action, paste in the note, assign a category, and assign dates. I'd think that's what a duplicate command is actually for.
Just my two cents.
Mark
Last edited by igrok; 2008-12-04 at 04:16 PM..