How do I duplicate a page without creating new views of embedded tables?

[Ankur_Pansari]

Hi folks,

I’m newish to Coda. Loving it so far but I’m hung up on an issue and hope someone can help:

I’ve created a Meeting Template which I duplicate for each of my meetings. I tried using the “in cell” / table storage method for the meeting notes but it did not meet my needs and find a page meets my needs better.

Inside each Meeting Notes page, I have an embedded “tasks” view of my universal tasks table filtered for the the client that the meeting notes are about. I use this tasks table to enter the latest tasks and view any outstanding ones for this particular client.

The problem is that each time I duplicate the page, it creates a new View for the original Tasks table. I don’t mind it on its own but there are going to be hundreds of these duplicated views when in reality, I just need one single view. Is this possible or can anyone recommend ways around this issue?

See screenshot!

[Pch]

Hi there @Ankur_Pansari ! And Welcome to the Community !!

Normally, you should have seen a furtive pop-up window appearing (in the middle at the bottom of the page) just after the duplication of your page looking like this (this pop-up also appears if you copy/paste a table) :

If you choose “Duplicate data instead”, it should solely and independently duplicate the datas.

Now, if I understand correctly your setup, I’m not sure that separating your master table of tasks and the views will be beneficial. The views being just another way to see and work on your master table of tasks, which means that everything you do in those views is done in fact, in your non filtered master table of tasks.

If you do this the other around (by creating a mini template for your filtered tasks table), you might need to find a way to add those bit of tasks to your master table at some point.

I didn’t have much coffee yet, so I might be wrong here …

[Ankur_Pansari]

I think Coda is semantically not really setup for what I want to do. As Coda creates a new table view for every duplicate page, I will end up with hundreds of views after I have enough meetings. Instead, I think the solution is to make a single page template that I duplicate into a new doc each time, and then Crossdoc that to extract the data from my data tables.

It’s unfortunate that Coda doesn’t have a “copy page to new doc” function instead of just “copydoc”. This would also be solved if Coda allowed for reusable elements. The latter of which seems like the biggest miss.

There’s actually a final solution which is to use FormulaMap to manually draw a table and extract the appropriate data from the primary tables

[Pch]

You could still contact the support directly too before leaving your original setup behind .

@Ankur_Pansari

There’s actually a final solution which is to use FormulaMap to manually draw a table and extract the appropriate data from the primary tables

Your approach with FormulaMap() seems to be a good lead and something to try .
That’s where I didn’t really have the time (and enough coffee) to go when I first replied .

@Ankur_Pansari

It’s unfortunate that Coda doesn’t have a “copy page to new doc” function instead of just “copydoc”. This would also be solved if Coda allowed for reusable elements. The latter of which seems like the biggest miss.

And that’s a really good point!
You could create a post in the Suggestion Box

[Piet_Strydom]

I don’t quite get all the details of what you are trying to do.

My assumption is this
You have a table with meeting appointments, and you want to link this record row to a separate page where you keep detailed notes.

What I do is to have a separate page, where I create subpages for each meeting. In a special column I create a link to that sub-page using the link button at the top of your CODA page. In my example below the column is called “Detailed Pages”. The link can be to any object in the CODA document, or to any URL on the web.

.

[Saul_Garcia]

Hello @Ankur_Pansari In this case I don’t recommend having duplicated tables with the same info.
What I would do instead is having a meetings table and a tasks table, so every task is linked to a meeting, that way you can have as many meetings as you want, each with their own tasks.

I share an example on how this would work. Here you can duplicate a section of a meeting and right afterwards you just change the control filter on top so it only shows the meeting you want to add notes to.

[Ankur_Pansari]

That’s not really what I’m trying to do. I want a reusable control or reusable table view. It’s not really possible so instead I’m making a single “meeting notes” page now that pulls from the table. I will just store the meeting notes directly into a table cell instead of separately as its own page. This is a little more annoying for my team but seems to be the best option right now.

[Saul_Garcia]

I see, sorry for the confusion. It seems that the way you are doing it (storing the notes inside the table) is the way to go here.

[Connor_McCormick]

I use this copy page functionality for my meeting doc. It’s really not a hassle. You create a template doc, then you have a date selector, and all of the filter formulas for your table views are made specific to the date of your meeting.

I agree with the desire for controlling pages as if they are rows. But I assure you I have this setup right now with duplicated pages and it’s quite seamless.

I’d be happy to show you if you’d like

[Ankur_Pansari]

@Connor_McCormick I have something similarly setup; however, I want each of my Meeting Note pages to also have a table representing the action items relevant to that specific company. It’s that “Tasks” view that gets duplicated each time I duplicate a page and that’s what’s annoying. It messes up any other actions in that page that may rely on the View’s name staying static and clutters up my autocomplete with dozens of incorrect names.

[Connor_McCormick]

You should have a master All Tasks table, the view of which is filtered to only show tasks that are relevant to the current meeting.

No way around the autocomplete issue, that’s its own beast.

How to not auto complete when entering text

Yeah it’s insane. The only current workaround is to click on another cell after inputting the values you want. Hitting Escape, Enter, Tab, all of them accept the autocomplete. And even when I’m trying to input something else. Like, I’ll try to input the number 10, and because the number 1 has been input before it will force me to input 1.