Quick reference Character ability in chat?

Is it/would it be possible to quickly trigger a character's ability from the chat in the same way you can access a player's macro's (using #)? Here is why I ask. I am using Character Abilities to setup actions that a character can take and, in this 4E game, many of the actions are simple skill checks with character specific modifiers (IE, Init for Bob the Warrior may be /r 1d20 + 5) Turns out in 4e, there are alot of these little calculations - setting each up for a Character is fine, its a one time thing. However triggering them becomes a bit cumbersome. The only two ways I know of are either to put them all on your macro bar or leave open the Character window which takes up space (or open the character window each time you want to roll something not on the macro bar which is cumbersome). I was thinking, if a new meta character were added to the chat for abilities, say '&' you could type '&' and the dropdown of the abilities on characters you have access to would appear. ['Bob:attack','Bob:init'...] I think this UI would be more scalable than the macro bar and easier to use than keeping the character sheet open. Thoughts?

There is no autocomplete for this, and typing it out is something of a bear but currently you can type out ability macros in chat like this: %{Name|Ability} where name is the character name and ability is the ability name. If you want to add a modifier afterwards the following also works: %{Name|Ability} +number - Gauss

In looking back through the older posts, it seems there may be a way - Gause %{Name|Ability} +number It isn't easy to use and doesn't autocomplete but it is there. - Gauss That works for now, thanks :)

Awesome, thanks Gauss

Is it/would it be possible to quickly trigger a character's ability from the chat in the same way you can access a player's macro's (using #)? (. . .) Thoughts? Since it isn't exactly easy to handle right now, I think it's important and useful --in the future-- to be able to handle character abilities via the Text Chat box in the same way than other Roll20 macros. For instance, that would allow to add modifiers on the fly without needing to edit any existing macro during the game for character or NPC "abilities", which is also a plus for those of us not playing via VoIP but via the Text Chat box.