Provide 'copy module' and 'copy sign' options

[kvesik]

More generally, we’ll want a ‘copy module’ option (and a ‘copy sign’ option). This is particularly relevant because of the relation module, though, because I realize that my thoughts about having a single relation module being associated to two separate location modules (e.g. for the fingertips in ADULT being the relevant non-contacting handpart at two subsequent locations, at the chin and top of head) didn’t take into account the necessity of a module having timing specified. We don’t actually want it to be a single relation module, in that e.g. the chin location shouldn’t be tied to a relation at the end of the sign — that’s meaningless. But it would be good if the specifications for the relation module for the chin location could be easily copied over for the specifications for the relation module of the top of head location. We should talk about this. (It might also be helpful to be able to copy the timing from one module to another, even across module types — for a complicated sign, it’s annoying to have to re-specify the same timing points multiple times.)

Originally posted by @kchall in https://github.com/PhonologicalCorpusTools/SLPAA/issues/100#issuecomment-1675437965

see also issue #14

[kvesik]

@kchall How should the 'copy module' and 'copy sign' (and potentially 'copy timing' )functionality be accessed?

For 'copy module' I could see any or all of the following:

• a 'make a copy of this module' type of button in the module dialog (increases visual crowding)
• a 'copy from another module' type of button in the module dialog (increases visual crowding)
• right-click context menu on the module's rectangle/ellipse in the visual summary panel: 'create a new Module as a copy of this one'

For 'copy sign' I could see any or all of the following:

• a button in the ribbon bar at the top of the main window (eg, next to the add & delete sign buttons); creates a new sign auto-populated with all the data from the active one
• right-click context menu on the sign's gloss in the corpus list panel: 'create a new sign as a copy of this one'
• right-click context menu on the sign's ID/gloss in the visual summary panel (not very intuitive since it's just text and not a polygon): 'create a new sign as a copy of this one'

For 'copy timing' I could see any or all of the following (this one's a bit trickier to figure out a good solution for...):

• right-click context menu on the timing selection window of a module dialog has a 'copy this timing' option, then you can open a new/other module and right-click on that timing selection window to see a 'paste timing' option if there's timing info on the clipboard
• right-click context menu on the timing selection window of a module dialog has a 'copy timing from' option, then you can select an existing module whose timing info to fill in for the current module
• right-click context menu on the module's rectangle/ellipse in the visual summary panel: 'copy this module's timing' and then you could paste either... in another module's timing selection window in the module dialog? or by right-clicking and selecting 'paste timing' on another module's rectangle/ellipse in the visual summary?

Feedback on any of these possibilities? Or any additional ones?

[kvesik]

Notes from 20231030 meeting...

Copying a module

• right-click on a module in the sign summary panel, which brings up a context menu
• select 'copy module' from the context menu
• right-click in the summary panel of (a) the same sign, (b) a different sign in the same corpus, or (c) a sign in a different corpus, which brings up a context menu
• select 'paste module' from the context menu
• if the x-slot structure of the destination sign is not the same as that of the source sign, then open the module editing dialog with an empty timing window (but all other info populated from the copied sign) and notify the user that the x-slot structures didn't match so they will have to specify the timing for the copied module

Copying timing info

• right-click on a module in the sign summary panel, which brings up a context menu
• select 'copy timing' from the context menu
• in either (a) the same sign, (b) different sign in same corpus, or (c) a sign in a different corpus...
  • either (i) click on an existing module or (ii) add a new module to open the module dialog
• right-click in the timing panel, which brings up a context menu
• select 'paste timing' from the context menu [I could also see having the option to 'copy timing' from this timing panel in addition to being able to do it from the sign summary panel]

Copying a sign

Option 1:

• right-click on a sign in the corpus list, which brings up a context menu
• select 'copy sign' from the context menu
• right-click anywhere in the corpus list of either (a) the same corpus or (b) a different one, which brings up a context menu
• select 'paste sign' from the context menu

Option 2:

• click on a sign in the corpus list
• click the 'copy' button in the ribbon bar at the top of the main window
• in the same corpus or a different one, click the 'paste' button at the top of the main window
• *** these buttons already exist but aren't currently linked to any behaviour
• *** this option may be a little confusing because it's not obvious what kinds of objects the copy & paste buttons can handle-- signs? modules? plain text? etc

Note that copying signs is also connected to importing a whole or partial corpus (see issue #14 )

It was also pointed out that it would be useful to be able to select more than one module in the summary window and copy several at once. This could be facilitated by changing our click system to one more like the kind that a file explorer uses, where a single click highlights a module (or hold ctrl/cmd down to click and select several) and a double-click opens it for editing. We could/should then also implement the same behaviour for signs in the corpus list.

[kchall]

Note that copying a sign should be the first priority in terms of building functionality; then copying a module; then copying timing information.

[kvesik]

@kchall I have a few questions about pasting a copied sign.

Scenario 1

Suppose the user copies a sign and goes to paste it right back into the same corpus.

1. Should I automatically open the Sign-Level Information dialog populated with the existing info and ask the user to confirm and/or change the glosses, lemma, and ID-gloss as necessary?
2. And then once saved, the pasted sign will get the next available EntryID counter?

Scenario 2

Suppose the user copies a sign from Corpus A, then opens Corpus B and pastes the sign.

3. Should the pasted sign get the next available EntryID counter in Corpus B, or should I try to keep the original counter if possible?
4. If the sign already exists in Corpus B, should the Sign-Level Information dialog be opened as above in question (1)?
5. What does it mean for a sign to already exist in Corpus B? Matching ID-glosses? Matching glosses+lemma+IDglosses? Matching all sign content and modules?

[kchall]

Thanks, @kvesik!

1. Yes, that sounds great.
2. Yes, again, sounds great.
3. I think next available EntryId is fine.
4. Yes, sounds great.
5. It's probably safest if it can do this check if any of gloss, lemma, or ID-gloss are the same if that's an option.

[kchall]

@kvesik I just tried opening the sample corpus, copying BEER, pasting it back into the sample corpus with a new gloss and ID-gloss, and it shows up totally empty instead of with its original content:

Original:

Copy:

Same thing happens with other signs, or when I paste into a different corpus that also has the same basic sign(s) already in it (e.g. BEER), and I'm not getting any background error messages.

However, it does work correctly (copies a non-blank version) if I create a brand new corpus and paste into that, or open a corpus that doesn't have the same sign in it.

[kvesik]

• [x] @kchall thanks! will look into this bug.

[kchall]

@kvesik Sorry, I'm a total dolt and clearly should stop working for the night. I was just on the wrong branch.

[kchall]

@kvesik Okay, but this time it's a real comment. 😅

If I copy a sign and paste it back into the original corpus, and tell SLP-AA to auto-update the ID-Gloss (e.g. GLOSS), it literally just adds "1" to the original ID-Gloss (e.g. GLOSS1). This is fine for the first copy, but leads to two problems:

1. If I paste it a second time, I get GLOSS1 again, so now I actually do have duplicated ID-Glosses, which shouldn't happen. Presumably the number should iterate each time I paste.

2. If I copy the copy and paste that in, then I get another "1", e.g. GLOSS11. This does follow the basic logic of just adding '1' to the ID-Gloss, but is confusing. Is there some way to separate out the name and the number and actually iterate the number? or is it going to be impossible to do that given that the original ID-gloss is a free-text field by the user? could the auto-update actually be something like "-1" and have whatever comes after the dash be iterable?

[kvesik]

@kchall Thanks for those comments. I've been pondering the same thing myself in parallel to working on the other outstanding elements of this issue. I had spent some time trying to figure out how to auto-iterate the tag, but things got a bit weird (yes, partly because the ID-gloss is completely up to the user). I like the idea of the auto-update having a special format; that might make things a bit easier.

[kvesik]

Still need to implement the copy-module portion of this issue.

[kvesik]

@kchall please fetch/pull branch 191 and try out the copy-module functionality so far. You should be able to:

• select (or multi-select using ctrl-click) modules in a sign
• right-click on any (selected) modules to copy to clipboard or delete
• right-click on any (selected or not) modules to paste clipboard contents - whether in the same sign or a different one
• double-click on a module to open it for editing

Notes:

• pasting a signtype module back into the sign it was copied from has no effect
• pasting a signtype module into a new sign will overwrite any existing signtype info in that sign-- should we warn the user about this?
• I have not yet implemented this note that we discussed at the Sep 20 meeting: "when copy/pasting a linked module but not its partner (mov or loc vs rel), ask user if they want to paste the partner too"
• Currently the only way to access the right-click menu is to click on one of the module rectangles or ellipses. I'd like to eventually set it up so that you could also right-click anywhere in the sign summary (eg blank background space) to access the paste option (but not copy or delete). Does this make sense to you or would you prefer a different way to interact with the menus?

[kchall]

Thanks, @kvesik ! From what I can tell, the copying / pasting functionality seems to be working as expected -- yay! I have tried copying and pasting into the same sign, different signs, and a new corpus. I have tried editing the copy or the original and confirmed that the other is not affected. I can copy both single modules and multiples, of both the same and different types.

The double-clicking I think is basically fine, but I keep forgetting that we need to do that, so it keeps taking me by surprise when single-clicking doesn't do anything. We'll have to be very clear when we communicate changes to the coders!

Notes:

• pasting a signtype module into a new sign will overwrite any existing signtype info in that sign-- should we warn the user about this?

• [x] Yes, please. The warning should include information that we're not doing any cross-checking for compatible sign types. E.g. if they paste a 1H sign type into a sign where they've already got 2H modules, the system won't give them a further warning -- they should manually check everything.

• Currently the only way to access the right-click menu is to click on one of the module rectangles or ellipses. I'd like to eventually set it up so that you could also right-click anywhere in the sign summary (eg blank background space) to access the paste option (but not copy or delete). Does this make sense to you or would you prefer a different way to interact with the menus?

• [x] Yes, that makes sense and aligns with my intuitions, thanks! (In particular, that's helpful if they're trying to paste into a new sign that has no modules -- otherwise, they have to create a fake module just to paste.)

• [x] Can we also add a check for whether the module being copied and the sign it's being pasted in to have the same number of x-slots? If they don't, can we just add a warning saying "The module to be pasted has a different number of x-slots than the current sign. If you proceed, you should manually check the timing options in the pasted module." ...with options "Cancel paste" and "Proceed with paste"

[kvesik]

@kchall here is a summary of module copy-paste behaviour when there are linked modules (eg, movement or location with associated relation). Sorry it's a bit messy/small. The full column titles are:

• initial relationship(s)
• what you copy/paste
• result when pasting into the same sign
• result when pasting into a different sign

Please let me know if any of this doesn't seem logical to you.

Also fyi there are a few issues with copy/pasting signs that I've noticed as I'm working on modules.

• [x] copying/pasting a sign with linked modules doesn't keep the linking between the modules
• [x] copy/pasting a sign with rel1--mov1--rel2 association only pastes mov1--rel2 ... what happens to rel1?

I implemented the check for mismatched x-slots (from your comments above). If the user chooses to proceed, all pasted modules have their timing set to "whole sign" in the background. Questions:

• Would you like me to notify the user of this (as well as telling them to go check the timing)?
  • [x] from 20241108 meeting: Yes, let them know about the "whole sign" default.
• should I do something different instead by default? for example, keeping as much of the timing as possible, up to a maximum of the destination sign's x-slot structure? ... or give the user a choice?
  • from 20241108 meeting: No, don't worry about being fancy.

And finally, with respect to menu access when right-clicking on the background instead of specifically on a module button:

• this is now accessible, with only the "paste" option being available when clicking on the background
• the background-click menu is disabled (but still visible) if user hasn't yet set x-slot structure for the sign
• [x] I'm just working on figuring out a duplicate-menu issue when the user deletes the last module in the summary

One more note from 20241108 meeting:

• [x] when pasting sign type module, improve wording on handedness mismatch-- eg something like "make sure you check compatibility between modules" instead of "make sure you check sign type compatibility"

[kchall]

@kvesik Just confirming that the summary behaviour all makes sense to me. Thanks!