Database Info

SMS on Android

Hello chaps
I've just got an HTC Legend and love pretty well everything about it ...except...
The SMS side of things is awful - you access it via the "Messages" widget, not sure if this is a native Android app or an HTC add-on but it's rubbish. All you get is a list of messages you've sent and received with no indication as to which is which and messages from the same person are bunched together into one on the list - it's just awful and there seems to be no way to change it so just an "inbox" view or whatever.
In addition, when you compose an SMSthe text entry box statys tiny and docks at the bottom so yuo get the recipient at the top and the message at the bottom with a big space in between unless the message is really long.
I'm amazed how bad it all is. Is there a good market replacement for it?
Cheers
K

Check out Handcent. Not only does it make the list more similar to an iPhone-esque style, but adds a bunch of extra features like colored trackball alert if you're rooted, or a Quick Reply function, where you can quickly send a message to anyone using your hardware buttons.

Is this some kind of joke!? April 1st has passed!
kurtalden said:
Hello chaps
I've just got an HTC Legend and love pretty well everything about it ...except...
The SMS side of things is awful - you access it via the "Messages" widget, not sure if this is a native Android app or an HTC add-on but it's rubbish. All you get is a list of messages you've sent and received with no indication as to which is which and messages from the same person are bunched together into one on the list - it's just awful and there seems to be no way to change it so just an "inbox" view or whatever.
In addition, when you compose an SMSthe text entry box statys tiny and docks at the bottom so yuo get the recipient at the top and the message at the bottom with a big space in between unless the message is really long.
I'm amazed how bad it all is. Is there a good market replacement for it?
Cheers
K
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Handcent is the best IMHO....
There should be a messaging application you are using... not just the widget.

I would have to agree that Handcent is a pretty decetn app!

is it possible to disable the default sms proggy and let handcent be the only one?
Sent from my HTC Legend using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk

sackynuts said:
is it possible to disable the default sms proggy and let handcent be the only one?
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Click to collapse
Yeah, It should just be a matter of going into the stock Messaging app. On the main screen that shows all your threads, press menu, go to Options/Settings (whichever one is there, cba to look at my phone at the moment) then just disable notifications. That means it should never bother you again (unless you want it to - in which case just re-enable that)

Google Voice Unread Count Widget

Download the latest version of google voice. They've finally included an unread count widget in their app.

I thought about attempting this, but I only really need the Google Voice Unread count notifications. I do just fine with the Gmail notifications that I get now. I'll be watching this and hopefully a better solution for JUST getting the GV notifications.

Mach3te said:
I thought about attempting this, but I only really need the Google Voice Unread count notifications. I do just fine with the Gmail notifications that I get now. I'll be watching this and hopefully a better solution for JUST getting the GV notifications.
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Click to collapse
EDIT: Actually, I thought I understood your post, but now I'm not so sure. I'm pretty sure it would meet your needs. If you didn't want to mix text notifications and gvoice notifications to the widget then just don't set up the filter to forward your text notifications to your Gvoice dedicated inbox.

A real GV unread widget just launched
search for "google voice unread count" or "feokala" in the market.
The widget does everything described but in just 1 widget. It works great

jerry1847 said:
search for "google voice unread count" or "feokala" in the market.
The widget does everything described but in just 1 widget. It works great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, the new google voice app has it's own unread widget. No need to pay for a market asp. Thanks for digging this dead thread up though?

I guess i am missing this, unless you are talking about the GINORMOUS inbox widget, that gives me way more info than I want. Am i missing something? I would just like a widget that shows unread message count, nothing else, well maybe also the google voice logo....

vantagejuan said:
Actually, the new google voice app has it's own unread widget. No need to pay for a market asp. Thanks for digging this dead thread up though?
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Click to collapse
Are you talking about the "g2" version? The one with the HUGE WHITE inbox that is ugly as all get out? I would not classify that as an unread widget, that is much more, and much bigger, and did I mention, much uglier?

ejkeebler said:
I guess i am missing this, unless you are talking about the GINORMOUS inbox widget, that gives me way more info than I want. Am i missing something? I would just like a widget that shows unread message count, nothing else, well maybe also the google voice logo....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly, the widget is way to busy. I purchased the Google Voice Unread Count app and it works great. You can use the google voice icon with a simple unread count on the edge of the icon and have the option of including sms and/or voicemail.

vantagejuan said:
Download the latest version of google voice. They've finally included an unread count widget in their app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you apply this?

I'm using the GV Unread Count purchased widget, and not overly happy with it. It has delays before updating.
I'll quote the post above...how do you apply this?

[APP] Youlou Address Book (Not My App)

http://androinica.com/2010/11/02/yo...-new-favorite-dialercontacts-app-app-reviews/
Check the market for it. It's all kinds of awesome. Ignore the fact that the market description is in Chinese, it's very cool.

Been using Youlou since upgrading to 2.1 a few weeks ago. I must say it's a really slick address book.

this is way faster then stock froyo address book ...just missing option to create shortcut for direct dialer

looks good. i think i will try this one

How can I use this app as default dialer? I need it because I want to see the counter for missed calls?

I love this app too. The widget shows missed calls BTW the widget is awesome.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

It's frustrating, this app.
It's rad, the UI looks awesome. It pretends to be so functional... But it's so far from it.
No * or # key, really? I get that it's chinese, but come on. How many users have to request it in the comments before you just add the damn things?
I don't want to have to add a widget to homescreen. There isn't room for it. Make the app fully functional without it (aka show missed calls).
Doesn't sync with facebook.
Doesn't thread together contacts (like say if you had a regular phone and a google voice phone already in your contacts... in the default I can just thread the two together, in Youlu I have to delete one and then add the other to the contact manually)
Pictures are sometimes there for my favs, sometimes not. I even re add a picture or change the picture. It sometimes takes the app opening closing like 5 times before it appears, and then it can leave just as easily.
After all that I'm still struggling to remove it from my phone, but being realistic, this thing isn't a dialer. It's just not. It's a cool UI that pretends to be one, while missing a half a dozen key components.
Sometimes I wonder if the stock dialer was something that was actually ****ty, and then the current stock dialer came out with a hip name and was third party, how crazy would people go for that? It has everything.

irish22022 said:
It's frustrating, this app.
It's rad, the UI looks awesome. It pretends to be so functional... But it's so far from it.
No * or # key, really? I get that it's chinese, but come on. How many users have to request it in the comments before you just add the damn things?
I don't want to have to add a widget to homescreen. There isn't room for it. Make the app fully functional without it (aka show missed calls).
Doesn't sync with facebook.
Doesn't thread together contacts (like say if you had a regular phone and a google voice phone already in your contacts... in the default I can just thread the two together, in Youlu I have to delete one and then add the other to the contact manually)
Pictures are sometimes there for my favs, sometimes not. I even re add a picture or change the picture. It sometimes takes the app opening closing like 5 times before it appears, and then it can leave just as easily.
After all that I'm still struggling to remove it from my phone, but being realistic, this thing isn't a dialer. It's just not. It's a cool UI that pretends to be one, while missing a half a dozen key components.
Sometimes I wonder if the stock dialer was something that was actually ****ty, and then the current stock dialer came out with a hip name and was third party, how crazy would people go for that? It has everything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no choice but to completely agree irish22022 it's a very nice looking UI and I enjoyed it quite a lot until I was trying to get in touch with customer service (*611) or check the balance on my phone (#BAL) it's extremely frustrating to be missing these two key digits, almost a showstopper however I keep using it hoping they will eventually add what we need. As far as for only allowing one account that doesn't bother me so much because I have all of my contacts backed up to one Google account which only made sense to me, so that doesn't bother me so much. However the * and # issue really needs to be corrected.

has the inter-grated sms thing still there, i can t get rid of it!

ballubas said:
has the inter-grated sms thing still there, i can t get rid of it!
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Click to collapse
you can open the sms client in the app drawer that appears after installation, go to settings, and disable everything.
It's still ridiculous that they install that on your computer along with the address book. Should definitely be a seperate app.

Just update is now acceptinf # &*

It has been the fastest smart dialer for me-even faster than dialer one. I would still like it if you could search within the call log and/or the contact list as well.
Sent from my FroShedYo.V8-ERIS using XDA App

Unfortunately the last version also installs a default SMS app which is worse than Handcent....

whipping said:
Unfortunately the last version also installs a default SMS app which is worse than Handcent....
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Click to collapse
Agreed. I don't like the fact it installs an SMS client, as I already have and prefer Handcent. At least you can disable it.

saltorio said:
Agreed. I don't like the fact it installs an SMS client, as I already have and prefer Handcent. At least you can disable it.
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Can you explain me how?? I didn't find any option!

Doesnt work for me on my x10!:-(
irish22022 said:
you can open the sms client in the app drawer that appears after installation, go to settings, and disable everything.
It's still ridiculous that they install that on your computer along with the address book. Should definitely be a seperate app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

ballubas said:
Doesnt work for me on my x10!:-(
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
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Click to collapse
are you at least in the sms client? it looks nothing like the phone book. If it's not in your app drawer, open up the dialer, go to contacts, click on a contact, and click the envelope rather then the dialer (if you don't see the envelope, then go to settings and look for the option to include a text shortcut for your contacts). This defaults to youlu's sms client. From there, hit the menu button, click settings and disable notifications.
You can't uninstall the sms app, but you can silence it so you don't know it's there. And you also can't change the default sms app within youlu phone book, it will always open up their sms app.

irish22022 said:
are you at least in the sms client? it looks nothing like the phone book. If it's not in your app drawer, open up the dialer, go to contacts, click on a contact, and click the envelope rather then the dialer (if you don't see the envelope, then go to settings and look for the option to include a text shortcut for your contacts). This defaults to youlu's sms client. From there, hit the menu button, click settings and disable notifications.
You can't uninstall the sms app, but you can silence it so you don't know it's there. And you also can't change the default sms app within youlu phone book, it will always open up their sms app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
isnt work step by steb but is no such a menu

[Q] Hangouts Notification icons for SMS

Is anyone else annoyed/confused by the notifications presented by Hangouts?
Notification icons shown in the status bar from a text message or an actual Hangout message look the same, and you can only tell its a text message by sliding the down the status bar. Maybe a silly a reason to complain, but it would have been a lot more convenient if a different icon was implemented for a text message vs. a hangouts message.
Any known workaround to this? Or will we have to wait until Google decides to look into it.

nexuus said:
Is anyone else annoyed/confused by the notifications presented by Hangouts?
Notification icons shown in the status bar from a text message or an actual Hangout message look the same, and you can only tell its a text message by sliding the down the status bar. Maybe a silly a reason to complain, but it would have been a lot more convenient if a different icon was implemented for a text message vs. a hangouts message.
Any known workaround to this? Or will we have to wait until Google decides to look into it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear you - you can set diff notification sounds for each though. Or use Lightflow to distinguish colors between a hangouts chat and SMS/MMS

AceKingNYC said:
I hear you - you can set diff notification sounds for each though. Or use Lightflow to distinguish colors between a hangouts chat and SMS/MMS
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Click to collapse
This is exactly what i do.

The idea was that you use the same app to message people. You just open hangouts and message, and the phone will send the message whatever way works best (Hangouts if it can, sms otherwise.)
I'm a fan of it personally but I could see why a lot of people wouldn't like it.

nexuus said:
Is anyone else annoyed/confused by the notifications presented by Hangouts?
Notification icons shown in the status bar from a text message or an actual Hangout message look the same, and you can only tell its a text message by sliding the down the status bar. Maybe a silly a reason to complain, but it would have been a lot more convenient if a different icon was implemented for a text message vs. a hangouts message.
Any known workaround to this? Or will we have to wait until Google decides to look into it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try looking into alternatives for an SMS app. I use Textra and it is so much better than using the hangouts for SMS. I like to keep my hangouts separate from my texting and the Textra UI is very nice and clean.

bobokun said:
You can try looking into alternatives for an SMS app. I use Textra and it is so much better than using the hangouts for SMS. I like to keep my hangouts separate from my texting and the Textra UI is very nice and clean.
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Click to collapse
Although I like that Hangouts is a unified messaging app (I still think there can be tweaks to make it much better) - I might have to try Textra out of sheer curiosity. I have seen numerous people cite this app and say nothing but good things about it so naturally i'm curious.

AceKingNYC said:
I hear you - you can set diff notification sounds for each though. Or use Lightflow to distinguish colors between a hangouts chat and SMS/MMS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that's basically what I've been doing so far, but like I said its more of "convenient" feature that would make hangouts noticeably better, at least in my opinion it would

nexuus said:
Yeah that's basically what I've been doing so far, but like I said its more of "convenient" feature that would make hangouts noticeably better, at least in my opinion it would
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Click to collapse
I understand your POV on it but on the flip side, I think creating another icon might just undo the direction they are moving towards with hangouts. Maybe a variation of the hangouts notification with an envelope in the middle to distinguish between the two. Only issue is, when you get a chat AND sms then you run into the issue of having 2 different icons pop up for the same app technically. Unless there's a way it can switch between the two and look like a loop movement if you know what I mean

AceKingNYC said:
I understand your POV on it but on the flip side, I think creating another icon might just undo the direction they are moving towards with hangouts. Maybe a variation of the hangouts notification with an envelope in the middle to distinguish between the two. Only issue is, when you get a chat AND sms then you run into the issue of having 2 different icons pop up for the same app technically. Unless there's a way it can switch between the two and look like a loop movement if you know what I mean
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Click to collapse
I never really thought of it as issue to have two notifications for the app, but like you said it might not go along with what they're trying to do (unifying everything). But if they were actually able to loop it like that, it would plain awesome. Maybe a unlikely feature for now (especially if it were to come from Google), but maybe some future devs are willing to work on it... would be amazing if they did :good:

nexuus said:
but maybe some future devs are willing to work on it... would be amazing if they did :good:
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Click to collapse
my THOUGHTS EXACTLY...I just wanted to get someone's wheels churning, since I don't know how to do this myself :fingers-crossedDevs, read this - I command you) lol

[Q] Text app like Facebook Messenger? (Consistent popup)

Hi there,
Since the new update of Facebook Messenger, the functionality of sending texts (SMS) has been removed. As I don't like holding on to an older version that will get outdated one time, I'm wondering if there is any text app like it.
I have searched dozens of pages on Google, including threads on xda, but none seem to have what I'm looking for. The closest I have come to is GO Sms (which I'm using now) and SMS Ninja (I even tried Paranoid Android with it's Halo functionality) Both SMS apps have the same chathead-like popup of FB Messenger which you can press to open, but once you close the message, the popup is gone.
In Facebook Messenger, the chathead-popup stays on the screen until you drag it to the bottom to delete the overlay from the screen.
Do you happen to know an app that provides me with what I'm looking for?
Thanks in advance for your time!

I'm afraid I don't have an answer but I'm curious why you want it to stay open? I never used the Facebook messenger and am wondering if I missed some functionality.

krabman said:
I'm afraid I don't have an answer but I'm curious why you want it to stay open? I never used the Facebook messenger and am wondering if I missed some functionality.
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Click to collapse
What I like about Facebook Messenger is that I can open the chathead, read the message, and don't have to reply instant because the popup would close. I can just close the bubble, go on with what I was doing and reopen the bubble whenever I want to reply

Ok, thanks. Not sure if that would suit me or not as I've never tried it. I avoid Facebook on principle although I grudgingly created an account some time ago.

Maybe you could give Portal a try. Personally I'm more interested in the multi-window function it provides.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gflam.portal

Ninja SMS popups work almost identically to Facebook's chat heads. You just have to click the collapse arrow instead of the close button.

jacob_woolf said:
Ninja SMS popups work almost identically to Facebook's chat heads. You just have to click the collapse arrow instead of the close button.
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Click to collapse
Oh I didn't know that! Although I find the popup layout of Ninja SMS pretty ugly, I guess I'll have to live with that for now.
I'm gonna give Portal a shot as well once I get home, although I'm not sure if it has the permanent popup functionality that I'm looking for.
Thanks to both of you for your helpful replies! More suggestions always welcome

Hey guys, letting you know what solution I'm using now:
Textra is a great, simple, text app that uses popups with quick reply. It doesn't have sticky, permanent chat heads, HOWEVER. It does have the option at the popup 'Leave it', which leaves a notification in the drawer. Whenever you press the notification, the popup opens again (you can keep doing this).
It's like a chathead that doesn't take up space! Awesome!

Ad Fundum said:
Oh I didn't know that! Although I find the popup layout of Ninja SMS pretty ugly, I guess I'll have to live with that for now.
I'm gonna give Portal a shot as well once I get home, although I'm not sure if it has the permanent popup functionality that I'm looking for.
Thanks to both of you for your helpful replies! More suggestions always welcome
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't forget you can (kind of) change the appearance of the popups! Go to settings, choose theme. I use Holo Light just because it's simple. I agree that it could use some extra customization features. It seems like the devs do a really good job of responding to user feedback though, so maybe that'll be fixed in an upcoming version (fingers crossed )
Ad Fundum said:
Hey guys, letting you know what solution I'm using now:
Textra is a great, simple, text app that uses popups with quick reply. It doesn't have sticky, permanent chat heads, HOWEVER. It does have the option at the popup 'Leave it', which leaves a notification in the drawer. Whenever you press the notification, the popup opens again (you can keep doing this).
It's like a chathead that doesn't take up space! Awesome!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've heard awesome things about Textra as well, I might have to give that a go.