[Under consideration] Enhancing SMS experience

[rami]

There is so much room for enhancing n900 SMS experience, what are your thoughts on the matter?

vote and propose solutions here (http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/)

http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/


some of the ideas are

1- "Mark as unread" feature
2- "For follow up" flag
3- Send to Calendar feature: a feature that allows you to create a calendar entry from the SMS text or part of it
4- advanced search

[osfight.de]

There is so much room for enhancing n900 SMS experience, what are your thoughts on the matter?

vote and propose solutions here (http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/create_solution/enhacing_sms_experience/)

http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/create_solution/enhacing_sms_experience/

url is dead

[rami]

url is dead

my bad, can you try again please

[Fargus]

my bad, can you try again please

Still dead....

Error 404: Page could not be found.

[osfight.de]

Still dead....

Error 404: Page could not be found.

Works! Gonna check it now

[rami]

Still dead....

Error 404: Page could not be found.

Fargus please try again, it's working fine here

[Andraeseus]

all of those ideas are awesome

[hypnotik]

The url is dead again - nevermind it works...

[Texrat]

Another solution added: SMS from contacts in phone UI.

[edgar2]

the brainstorm conversation integration in calendar (http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/conversation_integration_with_calendar/) is somewhat related, especially solution #4: "create new appointment from specific sms/IM"

voting up/down is much appreciated.

[Fargus]

Fargus please try again, it's working fine here

maemo.org
Error 404: Page could not be found.
The requested URL /community/brainstorm/create_solution/enhacing_sms_experience/ could not be found on this server.

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:46:14 +0200

[Fargus]

Think this is a mistyped URL later on in the thread, this link appears to work: http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/

[Fargus]

Suggestion for Solution #3 - For Follow Up Flag

How about creating a To Do entry with a link back to the original SMS or possibly copying the information over to keep as self contained in case the original SMS is deleted.

[Frank Banul]

I added Send to a group of recipients to the SMS brainstorm. Please vote up/down as appropriate.

[Inacurate]

Solutions 2 & 3 could be combined(I think should be) and still retain the same goal in mind?

Send to Calendar goal is rather obvious. Follow up, would you not want to make some sort of calendar entry or be able to setup a Note / Alarm? Calendar would be a great focus point, and should have SMS/MMS, Email, Notes, Alarm and Contact integration.

While in an MMS/SMS or E-mail, I click drop down menu and have additional options to "Create Event" "Create Alarm" & "Files" - Files can be Notes, PDFs, audio, etc.

Add an MMS Contact direct to Calendar even to a "With Whom" field or maybe into the Description, but make the Contact name interactive on event page so when clicked it goes to their info or when long pressed, menu pops up to call, find location, etc.

[rami]

Suggestion for Solution #3 - For Follow Up Flag

How about creating a To Do entry with a link back to the original SMS or possibly copying the information over to keep as self contained in case the original SMS is deleted.

if I got you right, what you're suggesting is -more or less- Solution #2, "Solution #2: "Send to calendar" feature"


Solutions 2 & 3 could be combined(I think should be) and still retain the same goal in mind?

Send to Calendar goal is rather obvious. Follow up, would you not want to make some sort of calendar entry or be able to setup a Note / Alarm? Calendar would be a great focus point, and should have SMS/MMS, Email, Notes, Alarm and Contact integration.

While in an MMS/SMS or E-mail, I click drop down menu and have additional options to "Create Event" "Create Alarm" & "Files" - Files can be Notes, PDFs, audio, etc.

Add an MMS Contact direct to Calendar even to a "With Whom" field or maybe into the Description, but make the Contact name interactive on event page so when clicked it goes to their info or when long pressed, menu pops up to call, find location, etc.

i have to agree that 2 & 3 serve the same purpose up to some extent, but it leaves room for different preferences... what do you think Inacurate?

[maxximuscool]

all of the solutions are good. so bring them all in.

[evad]

Just added another two new solutions to this brainstorm, I hope people will like it and vote. These are:

Solution #12: Add option to disable simley icons
Solution #13: Make selecting SMS recipients easier

[amer19]

just added

Solution #14: Disable or enable message threaded view

voting up/down is much appreciated.

[freppas]

#15 in response to #9, syncing groups from mailing lists for SMS/IM

[pixelgeek]

"Solution #6: Change language within SMS"
Isn't this already working using Ctrl-Space? (http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_shortcuts_and_gestures)

[benny1967]

"Solution #6: Change language within SMS"
Isn't this already working using Ctrl-Space? (http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_shortcuts_and_gestures)

yes. i was wondering about this suggestion, too. my explanation was that it probably relates to the S60 GUI or something similar where you can easily switch between much more than only 2 languages. (OTOH, the relatively high number of votes makes you wonder... do all these people need more than two languages?)

[gerbick]

One SMS feature I would love to see... send SMS from a calendar event or be able to delay a SMS. Draft it now, send it later. Just throwing it out there.

[claesbas]

One SMS feature I would love to see... send SMS from a calendar event or be able to delay a SMS. Draft it now, send it later. Just throwing it out there.

I would like that for emails too

[lcuk]

make links and pictures visible by default.

if someone sends me a picture in an sms, like http://liqbase.net/snowcat.jpg then download it and make it a thumbnail in the conversation.
same for links and other identifiable information in the info stream.

have pictures open in the image viewer when clicked on, have links opened in the browser etc, even postcodes and isbn numbers can have special meanings, the point is to make them easily clickable and usable in context.

the experience would be greatly improved then.
i have similar working in my irc test package liqtactoe :)

heres a rough preview where ive been testing feasibility:

http://liqbase.net/liq.20091201_191242._maemo.scr.png

http://liqbase.net/liq.20091201_044343._liqbase-test.scr.png


works for me here, and since we are all using conversations, might as well try to add new usable features.
link it with any of the image uploading services and add a way to select your recently uploaded urls and we could feasibly have pseudo mms

[rami]

One SMS feature I would love to see... send SMS from a calendar event or be able to delay a SMS. Draft it now, send it later. Just throwing it out there.

I like the delayed SMS idea, it happens often that I want to send an SMS later, but I want to write it now

propose it as a solution here (http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/)if you like

http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/

[gerbick]

I like the delayed SMS idea, it happens often that I want to send an SMS later, but I want to write it now

propose it as a solution here (http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/)if you like

http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/

Sure. Didn't know if anybody outside of myself wanted it.

[matrim]

I'd like to see a reply via option. Where when in a conversation you can select this and have the option to reply via IM, email and possibly allow other apps to register for this so you could have other possibilities,.e.g. a webtext application or somerhing like a twitter or facebook app.

[Sasler]

I would like to be able to see details of messages I've received and sent. For example, if the contact has several numbers it would be beneficial to see from which number it was sent or to what number did you send it. On the messages you sent, it would be nice to see when it was delivered.

I added this as a new solution. :)

[matthewcc]

Im curious why we think of an SMS as something special.

Why not just consider it a generic message, like an IM or eMail.

What I would like to see with the conversation experience is a more complete view of your interaction with a contact or group of contact. Im not sure if anyone remembers lifeblog on the n95.... what I would like to see is a lifeblog like view under a contact. This would / could be very similar to google wave.

Essentially when i look at a contact i see the different conversations and interactions i have had including all im's tagged photos sound clips attached docs etc. For me this would be an awesome experience as I find a separate email app redundant on such an awesome piece of tech as the n900.

So to describe
- email becomes an aspect of the contact along with all messaging
- an automated way to tag files (photos or music or documents) with a contact

btw, all the other ideas around event management here are awesome and fit naturally into what i described above. Anyone wants to chat further about this idea feel free to PM me.

[osfight.de]

Im curious why we think of an SMS as something special.

So to describe
- email becomes an aspect of the contact along with all messaging


I allways wondered myself why Email is not included in the conversation app, or is it just because I havent merged all contacts yet? Is there a idea to implement that?

[qgil]

Is it me the only one thinking that http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/ has gone out of control? Brainstorm proposals need to be around a concrete proposal.

Now what? Imagine that one of the 19(!) "solutions" is under development. Should we move the whole proposal to In Development and leave a big question mark about all the rest?

[jjx]

Is it me the only one thinking that http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/enhacing_sms_experience/ has gone out of control? Brainstorm proposals need to be around a concrete proposal.

Now what? Imagine that one of the 19(!) "solutions" is under development. Should we move the whole proposal to In Development and leave a big question mark about all the rest?

I think you have to do it iteratively. Take all the serious ideas, and their votes as guidance, think about the user experience when you combine some of the ideas, implement something or form another proposal combining several things, and at some point come back to this community and say "ok, this is what we did - now what do you think?" Followed by another brainstorm... repeat.

That way the product will improve iteratively. It's impossible to make it excellent all in one go, and anyway without trying out changes, the best ideas cannot emerge yet.

For example the idea for combining email with SMS conversations. There's so many ways to do that. But what does "Clear conversation" translate to? Some people delete messages and emails after a while, but some people think deleting old emails is weird and archaic - and presumably same applies to SMS if they are merged, all should be searchable and archived. IMs are logged and archived forever by some apps and not others. What's best?

I think to a large extent, those sort of things and many others can't be answered without a certain amount of getting on with implementation or good prototypes, and repeatedly getting feedback and more refined ideas each time, and occasionally fresh new idea emerge that nobody could think of earlier. Or limitations become clearer, and ideas emerge for how to handle them.

In a more conventional devoper + developer's customer scenario (where customer is paying for development), there is a lot of iteration like this if it is done well.

Same applies here, imho.

[qgil]

One thing are iterations, they are good and I agree.

Another thing is to make meta-proposals that end up being cul-de-sac of all kinds of ideas, generating huge brainstorms and long threads difficult to follow and focus on.

[jerra]

I have proposed to have same sharing of calendar notes via sms functionality as in S60. Please vote!

http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/sharing_calendar_notes_with_other_users-devices/

[Frank Banul]

Hi,

I've got a partial solution to sending SMS to groups of people. If you have a google voice account, the attached files can use that to send to google voice groups. This is a port/modification of some existing work (http://everydayscripting.blogspot.com/2009/08/python-google-voice-mass-sms-and-mass.html). I modified the script to work with python 2.5 and also added some scripts and .desktop file for an icon. This is a very manual experience. I'm considering turning this in to a python based GUI program that would go in the normal repository but until then, this is a command line version that does the job.

This requires root access.

Place gvsms.desktop in /usr/share/applications/hildon/
Place all other files in /home/gvsms/ (you can adjust this location by modifying the .desktop file)
chmod +x /home/gvsms/gvMassContact.sh

That should be it. Now you can send SMS to groups of people defined in Google Voice.

Frank

[jonshipman]

I had an idea/request. How about figuring out a way to connect a laptop/computer to the N900 and send and receive SMS. It'd require a desktop app as well.

[troff76]

I noticed that the Numeric Keypad that appears in the Phone app also shows letters under each number (like the traditional phone keypads).

Is there a way to use the numeric keypad to type SMSs?

[twigleaf1976]

I nearly posted a brainstorm but found the two things I wanted in the long list of 19.

I agree 19 solutions is an issue for a brainstorm, however go off the number of votes and you can at least get the idea of what people want.

For me I can't stand "conversations view", I like the view you get in outlook and normal emails of each message just being where it is. Unrelated. I don't like seeing the text I sent in the inbox, that is what a sent box is for.

[Frank Banul]

I've created a GUI and packaged up some work I've been doing into gvSMS, currently in extras-devel. It's a PyQt based application that will send SMS messages to groups defined in Google Voice. Enjoy.

Frank

[dbs11]

What I'd like to see is a Notification when the phone is locked.
On the image provided, it would be ideal to see HOW MANY Notifications of SMS/Phone/Voicemail/eMail etc has been received and waiting to be read.

[ZogG]

I would like to add some ideas, but can't login, i tried this account(forum's) and created garage account, but can't login even to vote.

[Alan_Peery]

make links and pictures visible by default.


There are security and bandwidth cost implications to this, and I certainly believe it should be an opt-*in* option.

Scenarios:

There's somebody at work I have a major disagreement with. I get a PAYG SIM, pop it in a disposable phone, and send them a text that contains a link to a graphic on a website. If I do this late at night, I probably have their home IP address as soon as they download the files that are listed. What I can do once I have that is an exercise for the reader :-*, and that's assuming that the links weren't pointed at something unpleasant to begin with.
I am travelling internationally, and taking texts and calls. A friend sends me a text with links to the full resolution holiday pics he's just posted on the website. The 12Mp images are pulled down at $1.50/Mb...

[lcuk]

alan_peery
marginal at best.

the afore mentioned problem isn't really anything normal folks will worry about.
roaming connections would work the same way with this extension as with anything else that uses data online.

just helps for the 99.99999% of times you get things and would integrate picture messaging nicely with the current ui :)

ps, whats so bad about getting the ip?
my o2 ip address is currently 82.132.136.188
having an ip address gives you what exactly?

[marktold]

I don't know if this has been discussed or if I am just doing something wrong.

In SMS/Texting App if you have the keybord open. How to you mark words or lines

I would have expected a double tab on the word to mark it.

If you have the keyboard closed it works. When close you can also mark text by just move over text you want to mark and then can copy past.

No such thing with open keyboard (I did not find it, at least)


I never owned a iPhone and have played with a I phone for only about 5 min in my life so don't get me wrong.

But this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHT6DHRc80k seems to be a good way to cut and paste. I would love Nokia would cut and paste this functionality.

Do I need to add a solution for this?

Regards Markus

[cjard]

Is there a way to use the numeric keypad to type SMSs?

Vote for the "Provide a 3x4 dialpad with T9 style text entry" solution, in a different brainstorm:
http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/view/improving_the_maemo_5_cell_phone_experience/

[cjard]

I don't know if this has been discussed or if I am just doing something wrong.

In SMS/Texting App if you have the keybord open. How to you mark words or lines


You have to tap to move the cursor to the start, hold shift and use arrows to reach the end. CtrlC for Copy etc

[cjard]

I had an idea/request. How about figuring out a way to connect a laptop/computer to the N900 and send and receive SMS. It'd require a desktop app as well.

Can the N900 not function as a VNC server so you can type on a full keyboard, but the text is sent to the N900? I'm sure I've seen people running N900 as vnc servers so they can record YouTube vids of e.g. cracking wireless networks..

[nehpyh]

I hope sms can be posted into the calendar as an event, meeting or appointment, etc...

[cjsegninir]

Is anybody working in Solution #10 (Create custom folders)?
Any known workaround for it?
Cheers,

[cddiede]

Can the N900 not function as a VNC server so you can type on a full keyboard, but the text is sent to the N900?

Yes.

You can install and run x11vnc from extras-devel or extras-testing.

It's got a GUI, but I wouldn't use it as it's not very interactive. Once you install it, just go to the terminal (as user) and type:

nohup x11vnc -forever&

Works just fine but the VNC server tends to crash/close when the N900 switches network connections or goes offline.

Basically anything that changes the N900's assigned IP address on the fly will force a quit on the server but it's nothing that can't be bypassed with an event script in upstart or cron job to re-start the server upon it's exiting...

[rob_kouw]

1 - My old Palm had a feature for Quick Text, pieces of text I could choose that were pasted into the message. The list of Quick Texts could be edited. Example: "Kind regards" or "I'm in a meeting right now".

2 - I can go through e-mail with the > and < buttons. With SMS, I cannot choose "Next". The only way is to close the message and choose the next message from the list.

Cannot add solutions to the brainstorm, so I decided to add to this old thread...
Kind regards, Rob