Most annoying Amibroker problem is that it keeps making copies of same AFL over and over and over and over again. On one installation, I had seen 440+ copies of Price.afl (with little or no change amongst them).
The drag-drop folder could be, by far the biggest source many of the afl bugs.
The amount of nonsense in this forum is incredible.
There is no Drag&drop problem. The only problem is that you don't understand how it works.
Drag&drop is applied only if you
double-click an AFL of "Charts" window.
Now if you double click price.afl to one chart sheet's pane the first time ever it will have name of Price 1.afl in drag&drop folder. If you double-click the AFL of same name to another sheet's pane or to completely other chart tab or in completely other database
only then it will have name Price 2.afl in drag&drop folder and so on.
Now if some amateur would have 400 numbered price afl then it would be a good idea to use a provided already existing tool called
"Indicator maintenance" of "Tools" menu. That tool scans for Amibroker Workspace layout files (.awl) that
don't use AFLs being part of drag&drop folder
anymore and provides you with
option to delete them from disk. So no problem at all.
But panes that are closed remove AFLs being part of Drag&drop folder
automatically (you can view it yourself if you keep drag&drop folder opened). So once again no problem at all. They are only kept in Drag&Drop folder if a database has gotten deleted (chart panes with dragged&dropped files have not been closed then. Well, surprise surprise the deleted DBs don't exist anymore). So then some files in drag&drop have no connection to any DB then and are not active. So what now? Well, we are back at already mentioned
"Indicator maintenance" of "Tools" menu. Which means again that there is no problem at all.
Now if you wanna completely avoid AFLs being created as copies and wanna avoid being moved to drag&drop folder then there simply is existing option
"Insert Linked" available if you right-click a formula of "Charts" window. That one will
not move AFLs to drag&drop folder but will apply them as
original AFL. Oops, I'm repeating myself as it means again that no problem exists.
Now what is the purpose of drag&drop folder? Its purpose is to keep original files untouched by default. My guess is that AB were thinking of amateurs who blindly or without thinking would edit files and then would be wondering about why original file does not work anymore. If drag&drop would not be default option then there wouldn't be the original file available anymore that could be restored but just the blindly edited one.
But let's see the difference of insert (does the same as double-clicking a formula) and insert linked in AB help:
Frequently Asked Questions about drag & drop functionality
Q. What is the difference between Insert and Insert Linked option in chart menu?
A. Insert command internally creates a copy of the original formula file and places such copy into hidden drag-drop folder so original formula will not be affected by subsequent editing or overlaying other indicators onto it. Double clicking on formula name in the chart tree is equivalent with choosing Insert command from the menu. On the other hand Insert Linked command does not create any copy of the formula. Instead it creates new chart pane that directly links to original formula. This way subsequent editing and/or overlaying other indicators will modify the original.
But that simple difference possibly is too much challenging for some people.