QDL allows you to set one post to get its Data Source, and Data Type, and Rights from another post. This saves having to make all of the same settings to get one post to act like another. More significantly, once so designated, changing the properties of the prototype updates all of the posts using that prototype. This means that you can control the settings of any number of other posts all from one place. If you are managing a large number of posts, this workflow is highly recommended.

 

To get settings from another post,

1. check the get settings from prototype box,
2. click the Browse... button,
3. select the post to use as a prototype, and
4. click Done.

To make it easier to select the desired prototype post, you can edit the prototype, and check the add to pop-up list for other posts box. If you're the sole creator of that post, it will show up in the pop-up list when editing the metadata for other posts.

 

If you set up workgroup folders (in which the creators are members of a group, and you're in that group), and if the folder is getting its settings from a prototype, then by default, any new post you create in that folder will use the same prototype. After creating a new post, you can manually uncheck the get settings from prototype box, if you need its settings to be different from the prototype.

 

Since a post that uses a prototype inherits all of the properties of the prototype, there wouldn't be any utility to setting up cascading prototypes. In other words, consider that you create post #1, and set everything the way you want it. Then you create post #2, and tell it to get its rights, source, and type from post #1. Now you create post #3, and set it to get its properties from post #2. So there would be three levels of posts, with cascading properties. But the properties that post #3 gets from post #2 will be identical to the properties of post #1. So there actually isn't any advantage to this. Therefore, when saving such posts, if QDL detects multiple levels of prototypes, it will redirect everything to the original source. So if you save post #3 having selected post #2 as the prototype, QDL will change it to use post #1 as the prototype. Hence post #1 defines the properties, and posts #2 and #3 will both get those properties directly from post #1.

 

If a post is being used as a prototype for other posts, and if you need to make changes to that post that you do not want applied to the other posts, the first thing you have to do is get all of the other posts to use something else for their prototype. For example, if post #1 is the prototype, and posts #2 and #3 are using it, and you want to alter post #1 in such a way that doesn't affect posts #2 and #3, you first have to set posts #2 and #3 to use a different post as a prototype. If you have a lot of posts using a prototype, it would be inconvenient to have to manually edit all of them to change the prototype. The easier way is to just edit the prototype (i.e., post #1), and set it to use post #2 as its prototype. This creates a cascade that QDL will resolve into setting all of the posts (i.e., #1 and #3) to use post #2 as the prototype. Now that nothing is using post #1 as a prototype, it can be manually changed without affecting anything else.

 

The easiest way to redirect all of the children to get their settings from one of the other children is to:

1. click the Show Others button,
2. copy the title of the child post that will be the new prototype,
3. close that window,
4. click the Browse... button,
5. paste the title into the box on the right, and
6. click Done.

People using one of the Classic Layouts also get a checkbox at the bottom called apply to all expanded sub-posts. If the process encounters a sub-post that has more than one parent, it doesn't change anything there (or lower in the hierarchy), and it generates a PM listing all of the posts in the hierarchy that it could not change.

 

Inherited Properties