I noticed in the IDE that you can “copy” an object but if that object is has a parent container (I.E. a button on a page panel) you cannot paste it - paste is disabled, but you can paste it to the parent window. However, you can right click on the button in the page panel and “duplicate” it, which appears to copy & paste in the same operation. This seems inconsistent and prevents copying controls from one page of a panel and pasting them on to another page.
Why is the behavior different based on whether a parent container is involved? What am I missing, or is this a bug?
Copy and Paste vs Duplicate, in general, is kind of mucked up. That functionality depends on what you have selected and how you initiate it (keyboard shortcut vs right-click in the Navigator list).
So I would say, yes, it’s a bug. But it’s a bug with a couple of dozen similar but yet slightly different neighbors.
It’s getting better, incrementally, with each release. The interaction of the Navigator, the individual editors, and the Inspector is very complex.
When people start to rant (myself included) I have to remind myself that if it was simple to fix it would have already been done by now. The IDE is a huge beast and any change, no matter how small, might break something else.