I’ve gotten another request from a user via a Play Store comment. Since I cannot respond to comments on the Play Store, I’m hoping that the user will see this post.
First and foremost… if you have a request for a feature PLEASE email me! That way I can reply directly. My email is listed on the Play Store and in the app in the “Credits” screen.
Now, onto the request. It was a 2-part request:
- Custom replies for individual contacts – as I’ve mentioned here before… I’m working on that. The hard part is not the coding, it’s working out in my head exactly how I want it to function. I think I’ve finally got it figured out, so I’ll probably start coding soon.
- “no reply option for non contact list numbers” – This is already done by default in the app. I thought it was in the app description on the Play Store, but apparently it’s not. However, it IS in the “About” screen in the app – “It will only respond to contacts in your address book”
- This is done because I don’t want to be sending text messages to non-cell phones. Therefore, when a response is being sent, the app first checks to see if the number is in your contact list. If it’s in your contacts, it checks to see if the contact is in your “do not respond” list. If it’s not in your do not respond list, it checks to see if the number is listed as a cell phone. If the number fails ANY of these checks, the response is not sent. (Oh, and after the cell phone check, it checks to see if the number has already been sent a response during the current session.)
- If anyone knows of a better way to check to see if a number is a cell phone, I’d love to hear about it. But I did some research early on, and right now this seems to be the only way to do it.
UPDATE: The information in #2 has been added to the Play Store description under “Features”, and #1 has been added in the description under “Ideas for future versions”.
There you have it. Some requests, some replies, and some insight into how the app actually works. I’ll be willing to bet that a lot of you had no idea there was so much going on before your response is sent. Fact is, there is a LOT going on in the background of this app that you don’t think about unless you’re the one who’s coding it. And the best part – all of this happens in a matter of milliseconds, so your response is usually received before the recipient has a chance to put their phone down. (assuming that you both have a good connection to the cell network.)
Side Note – I don’t know how many of you will actually use this, but I think I may have gotten the “Ignore Call” option working. I’ve yet to actually test it (I hope to do that today) but I actually understand how the code is working now. I added this option into my settings screen a while back, but it was disabled because it didn’t work. Then I removed it completely because I couldn’t fix it. Well, I may have finally fixed it 🙂