# UX improvements to expression editor
**URL:** https://community.tulip.co/t/ux-improvements-to-expression-editor/16544
**Category:** Product Suggestions
**Tags:** expression, uiux, expression-editor, user-interface
**Created:** [September 2, 2026, 7:16am UTC](https://community.tulip.co/t/ux-improvements-to-expression-editor/16544 "2026-09-02T07:16:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@fti](https://community.tulip.co/u/fti)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2026, 7:16am UTC](https://community.tulip.co/t/ux-improvements-to-expression-editor/16544/1 "2026-09-02T07:16:54Z")
I think several things should be done to improve user experience:
1. **Display the `@` prefix used on variables / table records / … :** Not having it displayed is especially annoying when copy-pasting an expression since these must be reinserted by hand. This is also an unintuitive and non-standard practice ; any syntax highlighter I know does one thing 99% of the time: they **format** the text. They almost never edit/alter it (if we exclude whitespaces / indenting).
2. **Add a copy-paste button somewhere:** I regularly need to copy-paste an expression. This currently requires to display the expression editor (or its preview) and to manually select the text. It would be much handier to have a simple copy-paste button displayed next to _Enabled state_ / trigger expressions that would not require any manual selection or opening the expression editor/preview.
3. **Allow to search `@` values without forcing the user to type everything:** Currently, if I want to look for `@``Users.John Doe.Email`, I cannot simply type `john` for example. I **have** to type `@users``.``john`. This is especially annoying with long prefixes like `@Machine Activity Field`, `@Last Machine Output`, `@Table record`.
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### Author:  [@thorsten.langner](https://community.tulip.co/u/thorsten.langner)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2026, 7:44am UTC](https://community.tulip.co/t/ux-improvements-to-expression-editor/16544/2 "2026-09-02T07:44:05Z")
> [@fti](#):
>
> 1. **Display the `@` prefix used on variables / table records / … :** Not having it displayed is especially annoying when copy-pasting an expression since these must be reinserted by hand. This is also an unintuitive and non-standard practice ; any syntax highlighter I know does one thing 99% of the time: they **format** the text. They almost never edit/alter it (if we exclude whitespaces / indenting).
As a short addition: In the Trigger Panel, copying the expression also kopies the @ character. In the enabled state e.g. it does not…