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[FEATURE]: Quote selected assistant text into the composer #48664
Description
Feature has been suggested before
Related request #17493 was automatically closed after 60 days of inactivity, with an invitation to open a new issue if the feature remained relevant.
Related TUI work: #44443.
Problem
When reading a long assistant response, I often want to ask a follow-up about one specific passage.
The current Desktop/Web workflow is:
- Select text
- Copy it
- Click the composer
- Paste it
- Type the follow-up
Manually returning focus to the composer makes this interaction unnecessarily slow.
Ctrl+L can focus the input, but it is still an additional action and is not obvious during a mouse-based selection workflow.
Preferred solution
When text is selected inside an assistant response, show a small Quote action near the selection.
Activating it should:
- Add the selected plain text to the composer as quoted context
- Preserve any existing draft
- Immediately focus the composer
- Place the caret after the inserted context, ready for the follow-up
- Avoid automatically submitting anything
The intended workflow is Select → Quote → Type immediately, without another click on the composer.
Initial scope could support only plain-text selection within a single assistant message.
Smaller fallback
If the dedicated Quote action is considered too large in scope, automatically focus the composer after the user copies selected assistant-response text.
That would reduce the workflow to:
- Select text
- Copy
- Paste immediately
- Type the follow-up
This fallback would not automatically paste, quote, or submit anything. It would only activate the composer, preserve the existing draft, and place the caret at its end.
It should apply only when copied text originated from an assistant response, not when copying unrelated interface content.
Design mockups
Mockups illustrating the Quote action and the focused composer state will be attached after publication. They are design proposals, not screenshots of existing functionality.
Why this helps
This makes targeted follow-ups faster while reading long responses, especially in the Desktop app where text selection is already a natural mouse interaction.
It also aligns Desktop/Web with the intent of the selection-to-prompt workflow currently proposed for the TUI in #44443.
Activity
Wiedzmin-git commentedon Oct 5, 2026
I would also find this useful for targeted follow-up questions without manually copying text and explaining which passage I mean.
I have an independent local Desktop/Web implementation on v2.0.23: select assistant text, add a quote and comment, preserve the draft, then submit the selected text with source context. It also has source markers for returning to the quoted passage, keyboard focus handling, and RTL support. Nothing is automatically submitted.
Focused tests and production Chromium checks cover draft reload/edit/removal, prompt admission, and marker behavior during streaming and layout changes. My implementation adds source context and return-to-source markers to the select → quote → focus workflow described here. I am happy to discuss a smaller scope with maintainers. I can submit a separate PR targeting v2 after design approval and adapting it to the current branch. It does not depend on my other proposals.
The patches have been applied locally. In my own day-to-day use, I have not noticed bugs so far; this is a personal observation, not proof of correctness or a substitute for independent review.
I am not a programmer. The implementation was created with AI assistance, and I cannot independently verify the code. Automated tests and AI reviews are not a substitute for maintainer review. Please independently check the design, metadata compatibility, accessibility, and performance before merging; long-history performance is not fully established.
aleksandar-radev commentedon Oct 12, 2026
+1
GH-Mason commentedon Oct 16, 2026
Following this. On the Desktop client I can add inline comments to diff lines, but there is no way to select arbitrary text in an assistant message and bring it into the composer as a quote. Quoting a passage and replying to just that passage is the main workflow I find missing. Related: #54581.
opencodejr commentedon Oct 28, 2026
Thanks for the detailed request and the mockups, @antivixen! You're asking for a Quote action on selected assistant text that adds it to the composer as quoted context, keeps your draft and focuses the composer so you can type your follow-up right away.
The Desktop app already has this from v2.2.0. It was added in #55664:
Related work:
betadesktop buildIf you update to v2.2.0 and something from your request is still missing, please reply here and maintainers will take a look.
Tarquinen commentedon Nov 2, 2026
Thanks for the suggestion! Quoting selected assistant text into the composer shipped in v2.2.0 (#55664), so I'm closing this issue.
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