Unable to modify a single line by right clicking

[allanday]

This is an upstream Continue issue observed with:

• VS Code version: 1.96.2 (rpm)
• Continue version: 0.9.255

In the editor view, I can select a block of text, right click, open the Continue context menu, and use one of the items to make changes. However, if no text is selected and I use the right cilck button on that line, there's no Continue section in the context menu.

If I want to make changes to a single line, then it would be easier to be able to just click on the line, rather than having to select the text first.

Making the Continue context menu visible in more contexts is also a good way to make users aware of its existence.

[owtaylor]

What might not be clear is that in the current implementation, if you select text and do an operation on it or use Cmd/Ctrl-I to send it to chat, Continue will only edit the selected text, and nothing else.

With that restriction, I don't think it makes sense to consider a right-click on a line the same as selecting the line and then right-clicking on it - a user would probably natural assume that the operation has the freedom to work on a larger section of the code. E.g.:

• For "Fix this code" you'd expect the coding assistant to have the freedom to suggest changes to nearby lines of code if that's what is causing the problem
• For "Write a docstring for this code" - docstrings attach to the beginning of a function, so a user would expect that the region of operation is the entire function.

If we moved away from the context menu and to a "quick pick" as I mentioned in #28 - there would be some ability to do fancy things like highlight the area that the edit would apply to, or have a second step where you can pick between line / region / function / class.

[allanday]

What might not be clear is that in the current implementation, if you select text and do an operation on it or use Cmd/Ctrl-I to send it to chat, Continue will only edit the selected text, and nothing else.

Speaking personally, that aspect of the behaviour was clear and what I expected.

I don't think it makes sense to consider a right-click on a line the same as selecting the line and then right-clicking on it

I just checked, and this is what Copilot does, and is what I naively expected in Continue.

[fbricon]

I opened this PR upstream continuedev/continue#6711