Copied List Filter items with custom icons do not retain icons on paste

[Chris Messina]

I noticed that if I copy a List Filter in which items have custom icons from one workflow to another, the custom icons are not successfully copied to the other workflow. 

 

See atached.

[deanishe]

IIRC, not copying icons along with items is a deliberate choice.

 

A user may or may not want to use the same icons in the second workflow, and if they don't, they now have a bunch of extra icons in their workflow that aren't always easy to associate with specific items because they're named after the items' UIDs (which aren't visible).

[Chris Messina]

I see.

 

That's not how copy and paste works anywhere else in my operating system, so it breaks my expectations.

 

I would expect, however, that using a modifier with ⌘-C would cause the behavior to diverge from the typical behavior. 

[Andrew]

The issue lies in image resources being external to the item you're copying. The copy does a top level copy, and doesn't include all the disk resources below. While this works for copying items within one workflow (as a workflow shares its own resources), copying to a different workflow loses resolution to the resources.

 

This is somewhat typical behaviour for apps which use linked resources (e.g. Music software with external samples, or 3D software with external textures), and while I'm not treating it as a bug per se, I do recognise that it's less than optimal.

 

I do have future plans for a resource management feature in Workflows which will address this issue and add a tonne of extra stuff too.

[Chris Messina]

I see, got it. Technically makes perfect sense — just wasn't the behavior I was expecting.

 

Looking forward to the new resource management feature!