Paste within a group and maintain relative position?

[jAffinitySerif]

I have many identical groups of shapes repeated on a canvas. I would like to change one of the shapes within all groups. If I change one group of shapes, copy that group, and paste it into the other groups, the shapes within the pasted group maintain their positions relative to the canvas. Is there a way instead to have them maintain their positions relative to the group within which I’m pasting them? I hoped “Edit -> Paste Into” would do this, but it does not. Thank you. Affinity Designer 1.10.6, macOS 13.2

[v_kyr]

No, by plain copy/paste objects/shapes keep their position just, also when then copied into another group.  You would have to move them on the canvas where you want them to be positioned. Note however that there is a power duplicate function which allows a copy and transform.

Further when having to use/change similar/same objects Symbols are a good way to use, aka changing one changes all same symbols.

[jAffinitySerif]

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You would have to move them on the canvas where you want them to be positioned

They’re all on the same canvas.

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there is a power duplicate function which allows a copy and transform

But then I would lose my nesting. I want to paste a group of shapes within many groups that also contain text elements.

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Symbols are a good way to use, aka changing one changes all same symbols

I need to be able to change the visibility of different shapes within each subgroup.

Perhaps a diagram would improve my meaning:

I have 60 supergroups on a canvas. They all contain a unique text element and an identical subgroup of shapes, and the shapes I may toggle to be visible or hidden.

I made a change to the shapes in one subgroup, and now I’m pasting that updated subgroup into all other supergroups. Pasting is quick enough. But because they each paste with an absolute rather than relative position, it’s tedious.

Canvas

• Supergroup 1
  • Text 1
  • Subgroup
    • Shape 1 (may be toggle visible or hidden)
    • Shape 2 (may be toggle visible or hidden)
• Supergroup 2
  • Text 2
  • Subgroup
    • Shape 1 (may be toggle visible or hidden)
    • Shape 2 (may be toggle visible or hidden)
• Supergroup 3
  • Text 3
  • Subgroup
    • Shape 1 (may be toggle visible or hidden)
    • Shape 2 (may be toggle visible or hidden)

 

[v_kyr]

13 minutes ago, jAffinitySerif said:

I made a change to the shapes in one subgroup, and now I’m pasting that updated subgroup into all other supergroups. Pasting is quick enough. But because they each paste with an absolute rather than relative position, it’s tedious.

That's the point here, there is no paste but apply some relative positioning into other groups. Or the other way said, there's no relative paste one command operation, you have to paste and then move relative to where you want the pasted objects to be positioned. - The only operation AFAIK, which allows to copy and paste with some relative positioning/transformation applied is, when using the power duplicate (Ctrl-/Cmd-j) function. But that doesn't work the way you would need it here (as far as I've understood what you want to do) for pasting relative transformed into other groups.

[Old Bruce]

20 hours ago, jAffinitySerif said:

I have many identical groups of shapes repeated on a canvas.

This sounds like a job for Symbols. Not of any use once you have copied and pasted and moved all of your "identical groups". It doesn't work in retrospect, but it would be worth looking at if you do a lot of use with "identical groups". 

Two of my top wishes are: A Paste Replace, meaning I select something and hit that and get the clipboard contents replacing what is selected. And to be able to right click at a location and select Paste Here from the context menu and have the clipboard contents pasted at that location.