Is there an easier way to add an attribute to a data view?

Can you share an example of the View you want to modify and what you have already tried?

Depending on the specific View you need to modify there could be alternatives.

If you just need to add attributes like PXFilterable, then you can extend the Graph, override the View and would need to copy and paste the existing BQL (here you are right about the copy and pasting). That should be enough, since the Extension would invoke the Base view delegate.

If, for example, you need to add a condition, you can override the view delegate, call one of the PXView methods (WhereAnd, WhereNew, WhereNot, etc.) inside it to modify the Base view BQL and then return the Base delegate which should use the modified BQL. This may not work in all cases, as some delegates are more complex than others, but it's worth looking into.

It's usually the first one, adding PXFilterable, PXImport, PXCopyPasteHiddenFields, etc.

The original post is 8 months old. I don't remember what the situation was. I just searched for something similar and found it again, unanswered. I do recall wanting to add PXImport to a detail tab, which you can imagine was more complex than most.