Currently when endnote detects a duplicate and you are asked to keep one, the one you do not keep is deleted. That is, it is removed from groups it was in, and becomes a broken link in documents. This is unintuitive and non-functional.
Expected and ideal behavior would be for the references to be merged, where any links referring to one of the references now refers to the other (or a new merged reference), and now a single, identical, reference appears in all groups that had either of the two originals.
My problem arose because I unknowingly added the same references several times, placed each in different groups, and now I would like to have the group information carry over to whichever reference I don’t delete in the duplicate search. In other words, I would like to merge duplicate references and maintain either or both of their group designations.
A few related suggestions:
-Add a warning when a user is about to add a duplicate reference to their library. All operating systems and file management systems have this feature. It will help to curb the duplicate issue in general.
-The group(s) each reference is in should be listed as a field that can be checked. Seems silly that the only way the group ID can be shown is by clicking References>Record Summary.
Please update the forum on these issues. A basic issue like this should not persist for 5+ years. It has been brought up in multiple threads over the years.