Convert & Delete/Replace Entity

Entity conversion from one type to another is already implemented and works really well. The default behaviour is to create a new entity of the new type and copy content fields of the same name and type from the existing entity to the new entity.

However, one of the things that does not transfer over are references/back-links. This makes sense when you are copying/duplicating an entity, but in some cases, the intent is to actually convert an entity from one type to another and replace/delete the old one (i.e. a true conversion rather than creating new and copy content). In this case the desired behaviour is to have all the back-links pointing to the new entity.

This is not a big deal if you have a few entities and only a few backlinks. But it can quickly become a nightmare if you are converting large sets of data. So I am proposing extending the convert function to provide this possibility.

I think this was discussed as part of the [APPROVED] Replace All References, but that request seemed to focus on general ability replace all references to a certain entity with a new reference (see also Search & Replace). If they are one and the same, I will combine and delete this.

Hi!
That’s the real problem, we face as well
Noted your feedback, have the feature-solution in our backlog :sparkling_heart:
Will be back, once it’s done

Btw, if anyone else is struggling here too - please, leave your comments here, so we could better understand how the popular (painful) the problem is :muscle:

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I tend to do a lot of converting-to-type-then-deleting as i test, tweak, and scrap Spaces and Entities all the time, and it would be nice if references could be transferred.

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We need to convert the same entity to a different entity type a lot, and never actually need to copying into another entity type that now happens.
I assume the copying of content into a new entity of another type, as happens now, may be a security measure to prevent loss of data or relations, but I did not use that feature once.
Essentially, the need is to clone one entity into another database, include all relations and all references as much as possilbe as far as fields are corresponding, and delete or archive the old entity.

It will likely need a step in between in which users can match fields so that relations and references are not lost if the databased don’t contain the same type of fields.