Quick chat and hold to talk
One key from any app, type or talk, and your words reach your operator.
Quick chat is a small panel the Mac app opens over whatever you are doing when you press ⌃⌥N. You type a message to your operator, or dictate one, press Enter, and the panel is gone. Hold to talk is the same panel driven by a key you hold: hold it, speak, let go. Both come with the Mac app, and both land in the one conversation you have with your operator on every device.
Quick chat: ⌃⌥N from any app
Press ⌃⌥N. The panel opens in the middle of the screen with the operator's own composer in it: type, dictate with the mic, paste a screenshot or attach an image. It takes your keyboard without bringing Roma to the front, so the app you were in stays where it was.
Press Enter to send. The panel says it got it and that the operator is on it, with View (or Enter) to open Roma on the conversation and Dismiss (or Escape) to stay where you are. After three seconds it hides on its own. Escape, or a click anywhere else, closes the panel at any time.
What you sent lands in your conversation with the operator, the one the Operator tab shows, on the Mac and on your phone within a second. Roma does not come forward. The operator reads it the way it reads anything you say to it, so "send Noor the invoice on Friday" becomes a task due Friday, and a question gets its answer in the conversation. When a reply is waiting, the Dock icon wears a mark.
Mara is in a spreadsheet and remembers the invoice. ⌃⌥N, "send Noor the invoice on Friday", Enter. The panel thanks her and hides. The spreadsheet never lost her cursor, and the task is on her phone by the time she looks.
A message you did not send stays in the panel, attachments included, until you quit Roma.
Change the key
Settings → Shortcuts → Capture → Quick chat holds the hotkey. Click the recorder and press the chord you want. Reset returns it to ⌃⌥N, and you can remove it and have no hotkey at all. A single function key or the space bar works as a trigger too. The choice belongs to this Mac. If another app already holds ⌃⌥N, pick another chord here.
Hold to talk
Settings → Shortcuts → Capture → Hold to talk → Enable hold to talk. The moment you turn it on, macOS asks you to grant Roma Accessibility: that is how Roma can see the key you hold while another app is in front. The section shows where the permission stands, with Open System Settings and Re-check.
Then pick the trigger. Three are one click away: Globe (the fn key, the default), Shift Globe for a Mac where another app already takes the bare Globe key, and Right ⌘. The recorder takes anything else: a function key, a bare modifier such as Control, any key, or a chord.
Hold the key anywhere in macOS. The panel appears without taking focus, already listening, and your words show up in it as you speak. Let go, and the take stops. By default the panel then takes focus and the words sit in the field for a look: Enter sends, Escape discards.
Turn on Send on release and letting go sends at once. The panel never takes focus, shows its confirmation and hides. A take with nothing in it slips away without a sound.
The microphone is on only while the key is down. A plain ⌃⌥N opens the panel idle, and voice starts only from a hold or a tap on the mic.
Questions people ask
Does quick chat create a task or send a message?
It sends a message to your operator, in your one conversation. What happens next is the operator's call, as with anything you say to it: a task when you describe one, an answer when you ask a question, a note when you ask for one. The reply waits in the conversation, and the Dock icon marks it.
Why does Roma ask for Accessibility?
To notice the key you hold while another app has the keyboard. Roma asks only when you turn hold to talk on, never at launch, and uses the permission for the trigger key alone. Quick chat's own hotkey needs no permission.
Can I use hold to talk in the browser?
No. It needs the Mac app, and it is macOS only. In the browser, the mic in the composer records a take the same way (Talk to Roma with your voice), and on the iPhone the Action Button does.
Where do I find what I sent from quick chat?
In your conversation with the operator: ⌘O opens it on the Mac, and the Operator tab holds the same conversation on the iPhone. How to use the operator describes the conversation itself.