There is an error in the duplication logic. If you duplicate a level, and then proceed to change the duplicate level’s entries, it also changes the entries in the original level, and vice versa. The only way I’ve found to disconnect the two levels so that changes to one do not affect the other is to delete the entries in the duplicate level and then place new entries there.
This is a junior programmer error in that it is pointing the duplicate level entries to the address of the original entries so that when one changes, the other changes.
This is the intended effect of the feature, I believe. The items in the levels are drawn from the course’s database, and when you duplicate a level, you can see that no new items were added to the database that the level uses.
I use the feature in my courses to create multiple sets of levels with the same items, but set to different testing directions. This allows me to make changes to the entries and have them reflect in all testing directions, rather than needing to change three different entries for every little change. I think this is the intended use of the feature.
It sounds like you’re trying to use an existing level as a template for another, similar level, that you want to be independent from the original, right? The ‘copy level’ feature unfortunately will not achieve that result. What I would suggest is using a spreadsheet for the items’ data outside of Memrise, then copy that in using the ‘bulk add’ option to make new entries. This way you can easily make similar batches of items without them being ‘linked’ to one another and counting as the same items.
I hope that helps, but feel free to ask if you still have questions.
Well, the problem is then, from what I have been able to find, there is NO other way to insert a new level in between 2 existing levels - other than duplicate the one above where you want to insert and then change it.
It’s true that there isn’t any other way to do that when initially creating the level, but levels can be rearranged afterwards by dragging from the level’s number on the left in the level editor. When dealing with large courses, you can also press Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down while dragging to get it where you want more quickly.
Having a common database across courses is actually very good as it it for example flags re-use as well as you could fix a term in one place and it reflects across the courses.
True. Having two courses where you update one word in one and the other is updated is useful. It’s just not intuitive nor is it good UX. As a Principal Full Stack Engineer for Symantec, I can tell you this is just bad design. Where else in any application do you see this type of behavior? It’s an anti-pattern that should be avoided.
If you right click on a folder on a Mac and click “Duplicate”, do you expect that if you modify the contents of one folder, it will affect the original folder? Of course not! And it doesn’t.
I would call it something like “Mirror” and then mark plainly those levels that mirror another and indicate which it is mirroring.
If this kind of feature was implemented, it should be opt-in rather than opt-out. In about 99 of 100 case the same term is reflected across multiple courses as the same – having them different just causes confusion.
If nothing else, this “feature” needs to be much more obvious. When I go to edit a course with duplicates I can’t tell that they are duplicates until I save and see that other terms were affected. Is there any indication that this is what “Duplicate” does, or that an item is a duplicate?
