Forum Discussion
Painful behavior of "slash" ("/") in chat prompts
I know about the /commands (/reset, /help, ...) in Copilot powered applications where hitting "/" triggers auto-completion suggestions.
Here we are talking about Copilot chat (Teams or Web app for instance)
Each time you hit the "/" key, it pops up a menu inviting you to upload files, preventing you from going on typing until you hit the <esc> key.
That's too disruptive. That would be ok if the upload menu what acting like a suggestion -- You may select with arrow keys if you wish, or just go on typing if you just need a "/" in your prompts.
Please consider disabling this "feature" or I at least enhancing it so the upload menu is not modal and gets dismissed when you go on typing.
Comments positive or negative are welcome, thumbs up too 😉
28 Replies
This really should allow this to be turned off or allow the user to set the key to a user selectable. Like others have already commented, the slash / is so common for many reasons that this is extremely disruptive.
I often ask questions that include multi-part unix-style paths, as in /path/to/my/sub/sub/subdirectory. A horrible defect from my perspective. There is the '+' button for uploads. Why include this second approach that destroys the experience of others like me?
I completely agree—this should absolutely be an optional configuration. Unfortunately, like with many Microsoft products these days, configurability seems to be treated as a "nice-to-have" rather than a standard. Only after enough user complaints does it become something they reconsider offering as an option.
I'm considering using AutoHotkey to intercept and block the / key conditionally, based on the active window or app—for now, just as a workaround.
Has anyone here already written a script for this or found another reliable way to block the content menu from popping up in Copilot chat when pressing /?
Would love to hear if there’s a cleaner or more effective solution out there.I was able to prevent the menu from showing up by blocking the element using uBlock Origin. However, this prevents the menu from showing up in general, even if the + button is pressed. I don't upload files so this solution works perfectly for me.
Thanks for the tip! I use uBlock, so I’ll definitely give this a try first. I assume drag-and-drop for file uploads in the chat window should still work, so that shouldn’t be an issue for me.
Not worth the effort. If you're going to those lengths, just use CGPT, instead. It's all OpenAI anyway, Microsoft has provided zero perceivable innovation to the AI industry here.
I completely understand your point. Personally, I use ChatGPT alongside Copilot, and also experiment with Grok and Gemini. However, for business purposes, our company policy mandates the exclusive use of Copilot Enterprise. That’s why I’m currently exploring workarounds until Microsoft provides an update or resolution on this annoying issue.
I hate this new feature so much. At least let us configure whether we want it or not.
Please. Remove. This. "Feature."
The very particular behavior of it makes it seem entirely intentional... come on...
Same here; this "feature" is incredibly annoying, and I only started playing around with Copilot two days ago. This immediately became a reason for me to prefer Gemini, CGPT, or Perplexity over Copilot. I'd like to use Copilot for work, but if MSFT is just going to hard-code (as confirmed by Copilot, itself) "features" into the system that ruin the experience, I'm staying far away from it.
Fun fact, while signing in to make this comment, MSFT Authenticator literally stopped me to ask me if I would recommend/rate their app on the play store.
Intrusive nonsense features no one asked for. Is that really the strategic plan for these products?
It seems like slash + space (i.e. "/ ") automatically dismisses the menu. Regardless, this should have never been a feature, the ability to enter anything other than a space after the slash is made extremely difficult.
Nope. Doesn't matter if you type a / after a space or after a letter, it throws up this context menu with focus on "Upload from this device". Whatever you type next has no effect until you hit space, which works as enter and opens the "Upload from this device" dialog, which you then have to close with Esc before you can continue typing.
Utterly stupid, and utterly annoying.
After further testing, you're right, insofar as you wait a moment between typing / and ANY character. However, if you type / and ANY character (not just space) in quick succession, the menu never appears.
Man am I glad it isn't just me. I thought I had a modifier key stuck down or something similar. What a miserable way to catch/handle keystrokes. Many people use Copilot to debug coding issues... the forward-slash is very common in markup languages such as html closing elements. Who thought this was a good idea?
I can't believe someone thought this disruptive behavior was a cool idea. I get it works natively this way in other applications, but a text heavy application should do as the OP suggests.
So frustrating that it can only be MS.The Copilot web interface has a "+" button that pops up the same menu that is invoked whenever the "/" is pressed. Please just let the user use the "+" button for the menu. This makes the use of the menu intentional and not accidental.
