Comment 21 for bug 167907

I agree that unlinking is the best option. Somebody suggested that a set of options be provided as to whether unlink, paste as is etc. But I am not able to imagine a use-case where an orphaned clone would be usefully pasted into a new document.

In bug 169120 (which I've marked a dup of this bug) someone reported that when an original+clone is being pasted if another object with the same ID as the original already exists, then there is a problem. This *might* be bug 165936 but I'm not sure (as that seems to talk about gradients which I don't grok too much about). Anyhow, I'm reposting my comments from bug 169120 regarding the policy to be following when copy-pasting clones:

When copy-pasting a set of objects where one is a clone, Inkscape should check to see whether the original of the clone is also being copy pasted.

1) If no, then Inkscape should unlink the clone and paste it.
2) If yes, then it should check to see whether an object with same ID as the original is already present.
2a) If yes, then it should rename the original being pasted and re-point the clone to the new ID.
2b) If no, then it should just paste the original and clone as is.

Note that when a set of objects is being copy-pasted, and one of them is a clone, it is not guaranteed that the original of the clone is also in the set of objects, hence the above checking procedure is required.

This bug is a huge usability problem. My humble request to the devels to fix this soon. Thanks.