For those having any difficulties performing any copy/paste/drag/drop operation, please confirm you are using 2.0.8.22 or later of E-Prime.
If you are using 2.0.8.22, then the copy/paste/drag/drop quick outline below should all apply.
If you are using a more recent update, then you'll also find that the two notable anomalies with crashes involving dragging near the experiment object and David's find of right click lock up during a paste conflict have been resolved.
Drag and Drop
From Structure: The intention for a drag and drop operation from the structure is to drop within a structure or open procedure. Dragging a Procedure will have no successful drop target with the exception of the Experiment object. The drop location can be in the same instance of E-Studio or another open instance of E-Studio. When dragging in a structure view, user feedback arrow will indicate where the drop will occur. For better results hover the mouse just to the right of the name of the object. Please note that the only accepted drop area for an object is onto a procedure. When dragging in the structure view, E-Studio is asking the procedure nearest where the mouse is located if the item can be dropped at that location.
Items dragged from the Structure cannot be dropped onto the Unreferenced branch directly but can be dropped onto a Procedure that is unreferenced. Items dragged from the Toolbox can be dragged to the Unreferenced branch or also follow the similar behaviors when dragging items from the Structure.
When dragging, holding the Shift key will attempt to move the object and will denote the standard move icon. Holding the Ctrl key down will attempt to make a cloned copy of the object when dropping. Holding the Ctrl+Shift key down during a drag will attempt to make a referenced shortcut when dragging. When dragging within the same instance of E-Studio the default is to make a shortcut of the object being dragged. When dragging into another instance of E-Studio making a copy is the default.
From Browser: Dragging from the Browser will yield in the identical behavior as if dragged from the Structure. No location in the browser will accept a drag.
Copying
From Structure or Open Procedure: The selected item will be copied to the clipboard when the Copy toolbar button, Edit menu Copy, right click Copy, or Ctrl+C is pressed.
Pasting
Into Browser: Paste of any object type inserts into Browser based on current column sort and item is part of Unreferenced branch in Structure view (unless conflict resolution takes place of preexisitng object).
Into Open Procedure: If no item on Procedure line is selected, then selecting paste (Edit menu, right click menu, toolbar, Ctrl+V) will insert the item as the first item in the Procedure. If an item is selected, then the paste operation first removes the selected item and then places it at the front of the Procedure line.
Into Structure:
When the Unreferenced node is selected, the paste operation will paste the item into Unreferenced.
When the item selected is a direct node of a Procedure, the paste operation will first remove the selected item from the Procedure and then place the pasted item in the same ordinal postion.
NOTE: Right click pasting into design workspace uses the same rules as the currently selected open window in workspace.
Pasting Conflict
A pasting conflict occurs when pasting an object (or child) that has the same name as an object already in the experiment.
When pasting or dropping in the same E-Studio instance...
If the item is an object other than a List or Procedure (or is a List or Procedure with no children), then the paste autonumbers the object.
If the item is a List or Procedure with a child, then a prompt appears to indicate if the children should be pasted also.
If Yes is selected, then the object and all of its children are cloned and autonumbered.
If no is selected, then only the object is cloned and autonumbered. Any children it referenced will have the same name.
For example, if TrialList only has TrialProc on it, when Yes, then the paste would result with TrialList1 with TrialProc1 on it. If not then TrialList1 with TrialProc on it. This basically represents a deep/shallow copy and paste option.
When pasting or dropping in another E-Studio instance...
The conflict resolution dialog always appears.
Other Notes
In 2.0.8.22, when right clicking in Structure the "Default" item comes up. This is a bug and has been corrected. For the most part this "Default" item can be ignored. However, as David notes if the paste conflict comes up then the behavior of being able to paste becomes disabled until E-Studio is restarted. A workaround to this would be to perform the paste via another means than right clicking in Structure (Edit Menu, Context Keyboard button lower right, or Ctrl+V).
In 2.0.8.22, dragging anything to the experiment object or the title bar and other areas of the E-Studio interface will cause a crash. This also has been corrected.
The deep/shallow paste option is detailed in KB3360 - FEATURE: Ability to perform deep and shallow copy and paste (paste special) introduced in 2.0.8.56 or later.
The behavior where you select the Paste option while an item is selected in a Procedure removing the item as well as pasting into the locaion where you right click in an open Procedure are items PST is reviewing for a future update.
Some of the KB are not on the web site as of this writing but shown for later review when they are available.
KB References
KB3084 - BUG: Dragging items in Structure view near Experiment Object causes crash in E-Studio
KB3849 - BUG: Paste Conflict dialog appears frozen when right clicking paste on structure view to invoke it
KB3979 - BUG: Right click in structure view shows extraneous Default menu option
KB4022 - BUG: Pasting objects onto a Procedure results in the removal of the selected item
KB4023 - FEATURE: Right click paste in Procedure places new item at point in line of mouse instead of first in Procedure line
The public update spoken about in this will have a version 2.0.8.72 or later and will be avialble for public download as soon as it passes through QA.
