agile egret
When users highlight a portion of text and click Ask ChatGPT, instead of scrolling the main chat down, consider opening a small overlay / modal chat anchored to the selected text.
The chat would be scoped only to that selection, allowing users to ask clarifying questions or go deep without breaking context or cluttering the main conversation.
When the overlay is closed, the highlighted text could retain a subtle indicator (icon / underline / gutter marker) showing there’s a nested discussion attached. Clicking it would reopen the mini-chat.
This would:
- Preserve context and spatial memory
- Reduce main-chat clutter from micro-questions
- Encourage deeper exploration of documents (audits, research, specs, etc.)
- Enable hierarchical conversations instead of a single linear thread
Optionally, useful insights from the nested chat could be promoted to the main conversation. Feels especially valuable for long documents and technical workflows.
fringe kestrel