Authoring - How shares and hyperlinks are treated in a clone

The clone process treats shares and hyperlinks only when they are exclusively contained in the scope of the clone. A shared object or a hyperlink target that occurs in a folder outside the clone scope is by default not cloned. This rule does applies to regular hyperlinks to folders and topics, snippets, glossary terms, images and files. Let's revert to the example of the 'Animals information' project to demonstrate this behavior.

Project with shared folder

The project with a shared folder

Assume that the chapter 'More information' is shared (directly) by the books.

The project with a hyperlink

The hyperlink

And that the topic 'About birds' contains a hyperlink to the book 'Fishes'.

If you clone the entire project then the shares and the hyperlink target are exclusively contained in the clone scope as indicated by the red rectangle in the next image. 'Exclusively contained' means you won't find the shared chapter 'More information' nor the hyperlink target 'Book: Fishes' anywhere under 'Content' outside the red rectangle.

The scope of the clone

In that case you get a clone result as shown in the next images.

Treated share

Treated shares

Both the cloned books 'Birds' and 'Fishes' still share the same cloned chapter 'More information' but it is a new instance, different from the one in the clone source. So, the shares are treated in the clone.

Treated hyperlink

Also, the hyperlink in the cloned topic 'About birds' is treated; it refers to the new cloned book 'Fishes'.

However, if you would clone only the 'Birds' book then the clone scope is narrowed: it does no longer exclusively include the shared chapter 'More information' nor the hyperlink target 'Book: Fishes'.

Smaller clone scope

A narrowed clone scope

Hence, you get a different clone result.

Untreated share

The cloned 'Birds' book still shares the same chapter 'More information'. The chapter is not treated because it also occurs in the book 'Fishes' which is outside the scope of the clone.

Untreated hyperlink

Also, the hyperlink in the cloned 'About birds' topic still refers to the original 'Fishes' book. The hyperlink is not treated.

So, if you clone a folder it is recommended to first examine the included hyperlinks and shares and to consider the position (I.e the scope) of the clone source in the content hierarchy.