Stop Typing and Start Talking

Tonya Bricco-Meske, Microsoft MVP1 Comment

Have you experienced the newest bottleneck in your development process: Not being able to type your prompt fast enough.

There is an extension within VS Code – “VS Code Speech” that allows you to talk to the Chat.

Setup

Once installed, you need to enable “Hey Code” to keep your fingers off the keyboard.

Open VS Code Settings (Ctrl + ,) and search for “voice keyword”.

You will want to set your Keyword activation, and there are couple different options.

  • off: default value, your microphone will not be activated
  • chatInView: listens for ‘Hey Code’ when you are in the Chat view
  • quickChat: This is a lightweight, global chat UI window that you can open with
    Ctrl + Shift + P > Open Quick Chat
  • inlineChat: This opens chat directly in your editor at your cursor / selection with Ctrl + I
  • chatInContext: listens for ‘Hey Code’ wherever you are in VS Code.

Note: the description states that VS Code will record from your microphone, but the audio is processed locally and is never sent to a sever.

Once you say ‘Hey Code’ you can start talking, and GitHub Copilot Chat is listening.

Extension Features

End Dictation

To end dictation you have a couple of options.

  • Click the microphone button
  • Press Escape
  • Press Enter – which will also submit your chat request

You can also edit the text being generated as the microphone is listening, in case it didn’t understand you correctly.

Read Aloud

With “VS Code to Speech” enabled, you can also have the chat responses read to you. Once GitHub Copilot is done responding, you can click the speaker icon, and it will read what it responded with.

Dictate to Editor

You can also dictate directly in the editor. Think writing your markdown instructions.

Ctrl + Alt + V will open your microphone within your editor, and you are ready to talk!

Thank you to Michael Megel for sharing this with the community on this blog post.

VS Code Speech – Extension Details

Building Business Central Excel Reports with Copilot

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What’s changed recently isn’t just one new feature, it’s the combination of Copilot capabilities across M365, and how they now naturally show up inside of Excel. When you put Excel Copilot, Agent Mode, and in‑place editing together, Excel stops being a passive spreadsheet tool and starts acting like an active reporting assistant.

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There is a procedure on the Sales Header RecreateSalesLines() that deletes and rebuilds all lines for the document after key header changes. It copies existing lines into temporary tables, validates header-driven changes, and then re-inserts lines via CreateSalesLine().

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GitHub Copilot Playbook

GitHub Copilot Playbook: Chat Modes

Tonya Bricco-Meske, Microsoft MVP1 Comment

GitHub Copilot is more than a fancy auto-complete, as it offers multiple chat modes that empower developers to interact with their code in natural language to streamline development. Whether you need quick answers, automated refactoring, structured planning, or autonomous multi-step execution, Copilot’s chat modes provide tailored solutions for every stage of your development process. This playbook will guide you through each mode, illustrating how to leverage them effectively to boost productivity and maintain coding flow.

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