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Dan Stone

Possible To Merge Duplicate Source Types?

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I tried searching for an answer to this, but could not find one. I've ended up with duplicate source types in my project (Cemetery Marker, Cemetery Marker1, and Cemetery Marker2, for example). While it doesn't appear to cause any problems, other than having to remember if you want to modify a source type with duplicates you need to remember to modify both the original and the duplicates, it would be nice to clean this up. I am wondering if there is a way to merge the duplicates together? If not, what would be the easiest/best course of action, or should I just leave things as is? Thanks in advance for any suggestions/answers.

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Dan,

 

Yes, it is, though it is not particularly obvious. You do it in the Source Types list. First, you make the one you want to keep Primary. Then you delete the other one, and all the Sources that use it will be transferred to the primary Source Type.

 

Just to be on the safe side, before you do any "major surgery" like this on your Project be sure you have a fresh backup.

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Hi Dan,

 

You don't actually "merge" Source Types. You "delete" the one you no longer want, but at the same time re-assign all Sources that were instantiations of that Source Type to reference a different Source Type which you retain. This is easy to do in the Master Source Types window.

 

Whenever you have multiple Source Types (often from an import) that you want to merge to a given Source Type, temporarily set the one Source Type you want the others to be changed/merged into as the “Primary” source type. On the Master Source Types window, select the Type to become "primary" and click the "Primary" button. It will now have an asterisk '*' in front of its name.

 

Now you can delete the similar but undesired Source Type(s). This will not delete the Sources that were instantiations of those Source Types. Any Sources that used the deleted Source Type are re-assigned automatically to the current “primary” Source Type.

 

Using your example I would set "Cemetery Marker" as Primary, and then just delete "Cemetery Marker1", "Cemetery Marker2", etc.

 

Repeat as needed for any other unwanted Source Types. Remember to change the “Primary” back to something that makes sense to you when you finish, and finally re-Optimize the project files.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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Thanks for the help, Terry and Michael. I had tried to do this on my own, but got nervous when it said it was going to delete all source types based on the one I wished to delete. Rather than proceed, I thought I had better ask here first, just to be safe. I appreciate the thorough explanation and reminder to do a backup first.

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