3.10 Creating and Deleting Duplicates of a Node

     

It is possible to represent one node by several instances of the same shape. The Duplicate command copies the node shapes in the selection and puts them into a paste box . The copied node shapes can be positioned at an arbitrary place, just like with the Paste command. Edges cannot be duplicated yet . Unlike the Copy command, the new node shapes have the same node subject as the original. When a node has duplicate shapes then all these shapes have a small asterisk in the top-left corner.

When the label of a duplicate shape is updated then all its duplicate shapes are updated too and when a node is deleted (with Delete) then all the duplicate shapes of this node are deleted too by that command.

The duplicate command is intended to be used when the same node has to be represented at different places to avoid cluttering up the diagram. For instance, in a DFD, the same external entity or data store is often drawn at different places in the same diagram, and TCM keeps track that these are in reality the same subjects.

The Delete command can be used to delete all selected duplicate shapes, see section 3.8. When all the shapes of a node are deleted then the node itself is deleted too. But you can delete individual duplicate shapes as well.