AI Quick Actions, Copilot Conversations in the Browser, and More 🦾: The Pieces for Developers Suite

This week, we rolled out updates to every single product in the Pieces for Developers Suite. While the releases focused on user experience and bug fixes, we also dropped a few exciting new features to improve how you use the Pieces Desktop App and the Pieces Web Extension. Check out Persisted Copilot Chats on the web and an easier way to set conversation context in the desktop app.

Stay tuned for new functionality, additional LLM support, and more in our upcoming releases!

Pieces for Developers Desktop App

While this release is packed with bug fixes and tiny UI adjustments (check out the new snippet count in list view! 👀), there are two helpful new features that will speed your interactions with the Pieces Desktop App.

Annotations Quick Actions

Annotations are way more than simple code descriptions— they’re the perfect place to store commit messages, documentation notes, comments and explanations. This release adds Quick Actions to Annotations so that you can easily ask Pieces to generate Things to Note, Performance Insights, or Use Cases for any code snippet in your repository.

Easily Set Conversation Context

When starting a new Pieces Copilot chat, we’ve made it easier to set context for that conversation. Setting context for Pieces Copilot allows you to get more personalized copilot responses to your questions and more specific generated code, thereby speeding up your workflow and making Pieces Copilot an even better teammate.

To set context in a new chat, choose one or more of the context buttons and select the local folders, files, or saved snippets you want the copilot to use in this conversation. Then, ask a question and get specific responses back!

Pieces Web Extension 2.8.7

Chatting with Pieces Copilot around the web is a massively useful feature— we hear from our users all the time that they love learning more about their code without leaving their browsers. In Pieces Web Extension 2.8.7, we’re bringing persisted Pieces Copilot Chats to Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Brave. To access persisted chats, select the “Conversations” button at the top of your current copilot chat.

We’ve also improved the Pieces Copilot experience in the web extension by automatically adding context to your Copilot chats. When you launch a Pieces Copilot conversation using the Ask Copilot button, we’ll automatically use the origin website as context in that conversation. This should make your Pieces Copilot chats on the web even better!

Moreover, we've introduced a feature that links a specific site to its corresponding conversation. This means that when you use the ask-copilot feature, it will automatically direct you to the conversation associated with that particular site. This intuitive linkage ensures that you can easily navigate and reference chats related to a specific site, all within a unified conversation thread, streamlining your workflow and keeping your discussions contextually organized. This will allow them to keep track of chats tied to a particular site in that one conversation.

In addition to our key updates, we've implemented a series of UI enhancements to the PWE. These improvements should make it simpler and more efficient for everyone to navigate and utilize the PWE.

Pieces for Developers Plugins

The releases for Pieces for VS Code, Pieces for JetBrains, Pieces for Obsidian, and Pieces for JupyterLab are packed with bug fixes and user experience improvements. Some of the most notable include far better notification behaviors in Pieces for VS Code and updated links to route you to our new support process.

Here's a closer look at the user experience and onboarding improvements we've made:

• We've integrated convenient buttons within all error messages, providing direct links to our documentation and support page for quick assistance.
• For new users, if Pieces OS isn't detected upon launch within 6 seconds, we'll prompt you to install it, ensuring you're set up for success from the start.
• In subsequent uses, if there's a hiccup in connecting to Pieces OS, you'll receive a clear error notification, so you're never left in the dark.
• Notifications for refreshing snippets have been enhanced to clearly communicate success and failure states.
• Updates to Pieces OS will be suggested only when your version falls below the supported threshold, which is currently 7.2.0, to keep your setup optimal without unnecessary prompts.
• We've defaulted the Copilot placement to the left side panel upon installation, streamlining the setup process.
• The Copilot connection error view now boasts improved styling, especially on slim screen sizes, for a more pleasant visual experience.
• Should there be an issue launching Pieces OS, we've added a prompt to guide you through the installation process, ensuring you're able to get up and running without a hitch.

New & Improved User Support

We are excited to introduce our new community-driven support process! We have recently created a public Github repo where you can create issues to get assistance from us and other users, as well as join in on discussions to request features, show off something you’ve done lately with Pieces, and generally engage with us and the rest of the Pieces community.

Don’t worry— you can still reach out to us for individual assistance by filling out this quick form. Don’t forget to check out our extensive documentation as well!

Pieces ❤️ Open Source

Did you know Pieces has recently broken into the Open Source community? We recently launched support for our TypeScript SDK on NPM where developers around the world have started to build on top of the Pieces Platform and get familiar with our APIs.

With our SDKs, you can build your own apps, extend Pieces functionality, and so much more. Check out our GitHub to learn more about our Open Source initiatives and how you can start contributing today!

Join our Discord Server 🎉

Do you love Pieces? Stop sending us carrier pigeons 🐦 and join our Discord Server to chat with our team, other power users, get support, and more. 🤝