How can i copy nodes without unplugging noodles?
select all the nodes you want to copy -> ctrl c
go into the material you want to paste them into -> ctrl v
the internal connections will be kept, anything plugging into them / out of them will be lost.
I know Cntrl V and Cntrl C. What i wanted is method which allows not only to copy them but also to leave all of the connections and i found Cntrl Shift D does what i what i needed.
It is also sometimes useful to create node groups. These are, effectively, what we programming-geeks would call macros. They are a container of nodes, which can be treated (copied, linked from a library, etc …) like a single node.
These are useful both for convenience and for consistency in large projects.