Refactoring Code
Refactoring is vital for improving your code's structure and maintainability without changing its behavior. The Pieces for VS Code Extension simplifies this process with its Modify Selection with Copilot feature.
Modifying your Code with Pieces Copilot
You can modify your code to include changes to error handling, changing function names, and adding functionality in two different ways.
via Right-Click Menu
Right-click a highlighted piece of code you’d like to modify, then hover over Pieces and click on Modify Selection with Copilot.
Once you click Modify Selection with Copilot, Pieces Copilot will open the Copilot Chat window in the VS Code sidebar, generating showcasing the proposed changes.
You can review the modifications and decide whether to accept them, automatically integrating the updates into your codebase from the point the code was selected—i.e, at your cursor.
via Command Palette
You can also access the Modify Selection with Copilot feature quickly using shortcut commands in VS Code.
Press ⌘+shift+p (macOS) or ctrl+shift+p (Windows/Linux) to open the command palette, then type Pieces: Modify Selection with Copilot.
Once the input modal is visible at the top of your IDE, enter in your prompt—i.e, whatever changes you’d like made to the code—then press return (macOS) or enter (Windows/Linux).
This method offers a fast, efficient way to refactor and improve your code without interrupting your workflow.
You can use Modify Selection with Copilot to add detailed logging to critical functions for improved debugging and restructure long methods into smaller, more modular functions.