Seeking Guidance on How to Create Template Elements via Specializations

[gianantonio.confalonieri]

Hello Archi Community! 

I am currently facing a challenge while using the Archi software and I'm hoping to find some assistance here.

My goal is to create specializations of elements that could be used between different views while preserving some characteristics such as name-value properties and graphical aspects.

With "Specializations Manager" alone it is not possibie to satisfy this need. So I attempted to realize a "template view" and created the elements of interest there, with the intention of copying and pasting them into other views. However, I noticed that the first paste operation results in copying an instance of the same object, which also modifies the properties of the "template elements" in the corresponding view. To obtain a copy of the same object, I need to perform the paste operation twice.

Similarly, when I use the "Duplicate" option for a view, the instances of the same elements are retained, leading to changes in the properties of the elements in both views.

For this reason, I would like to ask you if there is a way to:

• Generate a "template" of a desired element starting from a specialization, while preserving the graphic and key-value properties of the object.
• Copy and paste the desired element into another view without needing to perform the operation twice to obtain a copy.
• Duplicate a view, creating copies of the objects rather than retaining the same instances.

I am using Archi 5.3 with ArchiMate 3.2.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

[Phil Beauvoir]

Hi, you can use the "Paste Special" command instead of "Paste".

First, change the default behaviour of "Paste Special" in Archi's Preferences under "Diagram -> Paste Special Behaviour" and select "Always paste a duplicate of copied element".

Now when you copy an object select "Paste Special".

To duplicate a view with copies:

1. Create a new blank view
2. Select all the elements from the view you want to duplicate and Copy them
3. Select "Paste Special" in the new view

For more information about copying and pasting behaviour please consult the Archi User Guide.

Hope that helps!

[gianantonio.confalonieri]

Hi Phil, thank you very much for your explanations!

Thanks to these I was able to solve this problem.