I moved from Samsung Galaxy S2 to S3 with a later Android version (4.3), and there are just a couple of things that are driving me crazy as far as the stock contacts and sms apps are concerned.
Before I decide to move to other apps (which I don't really want to do as I've been pretty glad about the stock apps so far):
How to change the generic picture for contacts?
I liked the earlier format with simple silhouettes in different colours and I totally hate the new creepy-looking faces with a smile, eyes, nose etc. (sorry, I am not allowed to post outside links yet, which is why I had to remove all the sample links from this question and the following ones, which may make my questions a little more difficult to understand).
How to remove the contact pictures besides the text messages?
Before, the text messages were displayed with text bubbles only.
Now there are little annoying contact pictures next to the messages. I've found a couple of threads about it on the Internet but no real solutions, unfortunately.
And this one has been bugging me since Galaxy S2:
How to hide all those contacts that include no phone number (i.e. those imported from my Google account)?
I am able to hide the contact in the normal view (if I simply scroll down the list, only phone contacts are displayed) but whenever I use the in-app search option, the e-mail contacts appear, too, which is pretty annoying (I use the search to find someone I want to call, not if I want to write an e-mail).
Anyone, anything? I know these aren't exactly the most interesting or serious problems, and they're rather Android- than phone-related... but I've spent a lot of time researching this and I've found no solution whatsoever (besides using other apps).
Question [Q] Stock contacts and SMS apps - configuration problems
I moved from Samsung Galaxy S2 to S3 with a later Android version (4.3), and there are just a couple of things that are driving me crazy as far as the stock contacts and sms apps are concerned.
Before I decide to move to other apps (which I don't really want to do as I've been pretty glad about the stock apps so far):
How to change the generic picture for contacts?
I liked the earlier format with simple silhouettes in different colours and I totally hate the new creepy-looking faces with a smile, eyes, nose etc. (sorry, I am not allowed to post outside links yet, which is why I had to remove all the sample links from this question and the following ones, which may make my questions a little more difficult to understand).
How to remove the contact pictures besides the text messages?
Before, the text messages were displayed with text bubbles only.
Now there are little annoying contact pictures next to the messages. I've found a couple of threads about it on the Internet but no real solutions, unfortunately.
And this one has been bugging me since Galaxy S2:
How to hide all those contacts that include no phone number (i.e. those imported from my Google account)?
I am able to hide the contact in the normal view (if I simply scroll down the list, only phone contacts are displayed) but whenever I use the in-app search option, the e-mail contacts appear, too, which is pretty annoying (I use the search to find someone I want to call, not if I want to write an e-mail).
Hi! Changing default generic picture is not possible without root at least(i think it might be best to use a custom rom maybe), removing the picture next to each sms is linked with the contact list so you should try other sms apps from playstore for that and hiding contact with no number in contact list is impossible - try to make a group with the ones that have number and one group with the ones that don't have numbers or remove the email only contact from google contact list(on gmail). Hope i gave you some directions Cheers!
Related
Hi,
One thing I really dislike on Android, is the very little flexibility on contacts organization. I can't seem to figure out a good way to organize all my contacts.
I have 2 problems with the current contacts organization:
Problem 1)
I like to have a contacts database with ALL my contacts and on that database I like to have the persons first and last name. However, for some of the contacts, I don't want to have their name displayed, I want to have something else instead; like a nickname for instance. I can't do what I want because of two simple things:
a) Google Contacts does have support for a "nickname" field, but Android doesn't. At least not on my Hero... I'm not sure but I believe the 2.1 ROMs already support this field if I recall correctly from the last time I tried one.
b) The People app on the HTC Hero (and probably the stock Android one but I don't know for sure) does not allow me to pick what I want to display as the contact's "name", if their real name or the nickname.
If these 2 things were possible, my problem would be solved. I could have my contacts database with their first and last names, but also with a nickname for some people where I could pick which one to display on my phone.
Problem 2)
My full contacts database on Google Contacts, includes every single person I ever contacted in my whole life since I had a mobile phone. Well, not exactly every single person cause I lost a few numbers over the years. But I have a big collection of names and phone numbers of people that I no longer can associate a face with or don't get in touch that often anymore.
However, I don't want to delete those numbers, so I know who's calling/texting/whatever (if that ever happens or if I need to contact them). But I also don't want all of them displayed on the main contacts list (People app on my case). Only a few contacts are the most important contacts to me, my family, closest friends, people that I get in touch from time to time, etc... Those are the ones that I wanted listed on the phone so I can quickly find one on the list if I need it.
Basically, I just want to hide a few groups of people from the main list. I still want/need them on the phone in case they call or I need to reach them (like I said above), but 95% of the time, they are cluttering the contacts list.
Now, it doesn't help much but, for those "less needed" contacts I placed them on a few different groups than the other "most contacted" contacts.
So, does anyone have any suggestions to help me fix, or at least workaround these organization problems? Does any one face the same or similar situations?
No suggestions, anyone?
Too complicated request?
aContact or Dialer One
This two app for contact maybe help you.
Not in evere question, but for me are very usefull.
You can switch betwen "saved" contact and all collected contact (google cont.).
aContact is for Android 1.5
Dialer One for Android 2.1 (1.6...?)
MMS Debacle/Debate/Laughter/Annoyance
Apps related but Development related for Future Builds, Move if Needed
"Error in Server Response" ***THIS APPLIES TO THE TOUCHWIZ MMS.APK VERSION***
It has been posted numerous times and people still numerous times have had problems & been easily dis-missed with the 10 or so work arounds suggested that still inevitably don't work for some select few out there. I have posted attempted possible solutions in the Apps section before & troubleshooted my own MMS problems for the past 2 months till blue in the face. I wanted to share everything I have tried and everything I have noticed in an effort that maybe a Developer out there can correct the issue for us.
Brief summary to Developers for what I think is the problem or solution: I believe in order for outgoing MMS picture messages to work you have to either A: Have the MMS.apk properly re-format the phone number that it pulls from the contacts list by removing the dashes and maybe adding the 1 in front. MMS has always worked without the 1 or the +1 in front for me.
B: Have the Contacts.apk or Contacts list designed so that it only saves phone numbers without dashes in them. I think from some of the recent Contact.apk's I messed with that current builds are not automatically putting dashes in anymore when phone numbers are saved so that may be helping alot of people.
Now onto what I have noticed past several months:
Many have dissed the poor people with failing MMS picture messaging by simply suggesting removing dashes, adding 1, adding +1, trying Handcent, Chomp SMS, Go SMS. etc etc. Also those same people said MMS works fine or works fine for them. However I question how many of those people are using Contacts saved to their actual phone as myself as it appears if your using your Google account or your SIM card to save your contacts to than this issue does not seem to exist. Also, removing dashes is not an option for Phone saved contacts or not in my current ROM build. Some newer ROM Contacts builds looks like it will let you save numbers without dashes now. Mine does not with Phone contacts. People wiht Google contacts probably did not have to worry about that as they could edit within Google. It specifically exists for people and myself with Contacts saved to their phone who may or may not be using their SIM or Google account to save their contacts to. I tried various APN and separate MMS apn settings with no difference.
I have pulled and tried just about every MMS.apk from AOSP and various froyo builds. Always Handcent, Chomp, Go SMS formatted and worked perfectly for MMS picture messaging. AOSP always worked for me but I had other issues with attaching Audio that caused force closes. propably due to my aging Obsidian V4.2 ROM. My issue was on previous build ROMs as well and been on my ROM since freshly loaded up to now where you cant recognize it is Obsidian anymore with all my mods. SMS always worked period. MMS always received perfectly for me. MMS always sent perfectly as long as I manually typed in the number without a 1 or +1 needed. MMS always worked when replying to an already received SMS/MMS. Only specifically when selecting Contacts to create a SMS/MMS does the "Error In Server Response" exist leading one to believe that its a formatting problem somewhere between MMS.apk and Contacts.apk when the softwares transfer over the phone number/contact information to create the message header.
This has been the only issue I would love fixed short of using alternative Handcent, Chomp, Go etc. It is also the reason why I have held off flashing newer builds as it is some work to re-setup my entire customized phone and still have the problem remain as I have been reading in recent Team Whiskey Nero v5 builds still.
Maybe I'm retarded or maybe I'm onto something but I felt I should put my efforts out there for developers to examine and also to take a Users poll of MMS issues regarding which people are using various ways to save their Contacts....SIM, Phone, Google account to pin point the cause.
Thank You for reading, sharing, and looking into this. If I had programming skills I would rewrite the damn MMS.apk myself since every other 3rd party seems to work and format the numbers properly to send MMS without issue.
MMS Issues
God knows I've tried just about all the ROMs in the forum and unless it's either the stock rom or one of the leaked ones, Touchwiz MMS has never worked. If I used the custom ROMs MMS suite it's fine. As soon as I mod it for Touchwiz MMS it pukes.
ive tested almost every rom and i always have my contacts save through sim and my mms is flawless every time.
I've had this issue a few times. I do NOT save my contacts to phone or sim, they are ONLY in my Google account. I finally went and edited all my contacts on the Google Contacts website to remove the dashes and 1s, and now it works fine every time.
raduque said:
I've had this issue a few times. I do NOT save my contacts to phone or sim, they are ONLY in my Google account. I finally went and edited all my contacts on the Google Contacts website to remove the dashes and 1s, and now it works fine every time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same story here. Removed the dashes and now MMS messages send perfectly.
As a way of troubleshooting why it seems to works for some people and not at all for others (even when considering the no-dash, no-paren formatting), it might make sense for people to post their configuration:
Think I'm interested in learning if people who are having this problem are
* syncing to Google,
* not syncing with Google,
* if they are typing in a phone number,
* if they are looking up a contact by name,
* if they are replying to a sent message,
* and so on.
My thought is that if we provide a little detail about each configuration - especially those that aren't working, that we might be able to figure out what's really going on.
Thanks.
Moved of: Samsung Vibrant > Vibrant Android Development
To: Samsung Vibrant > Vibrant General
So far seems the majority of people are using the "Cloud" Google/Gmail Account to store their contacts and do not have the "Error In Server Response" problem. Few SIM card saving people said they have an issue but most of those have always seemed to work. Nobody has voted saving to their Phones as of yet....
Mainly cause SIM only saves basic information...the Name & the phone number so little room for error in storing the Contact data.
Contacts saved to Phone can save pictures, addresses, e-mails etc etc so I think because of that ability to save additional information it affects formatting somehow when the number is pulled and transferred over to the MMS messaging when creating a new picture message to send.
Seems like best answer for everyone is to use their Gmail/Google account to save & edit their Contacts if saving to Phone keeps causing the problem. Which is probably what I will do but have been avoiding because I do not want to see all my Gmail contacts and e-mail contacts on the phone at the same time hence why I liked keeping a clean Contacts list primarily on my phone.
***I Love all the people that voted I'm retarded
feelx77, it has nothing to do where the contact is saved, and EVERYTHING to with whether or not there are dashes in the phone number.
A phone number with dashes, ie: 000-000-0000 = "error in server response", every time, no exceptions.
A phone number without dashes, ie: 0000000000 = works fine.
Ah, but it does matter where it saved because certain locations willl or will not let you edit the dashes out and/or because SIM already saves the contact information in a basic information format without pictures, addresses, e-mails etc etc. Which is stated in my lenghty long post. Removing the dashes is already a well known solution but depending on where contacts are saved it may not allow the editin gor it may still not work with or without adding the 1 or +1 as well.
I'm full aware of the dashes removal trick. Hence why I recommended that maybe the MMS.apk (Touchwiz Version Messaging Program) or the Contacts.apk that hands over the contacts header to the MMS.apk should be rewritten/reprogrammed to automatically remove dashes in the phone number header regardless of what saved source was used IE: Gmail, SIM, or Phone.
Also this "Error In Server Response" is strictly in regards to MMS (Picture Messaging when creating a new picture message and selecting existing Contacts from within the Touchwiz Messaging app. This is not in regards to standard SMS (text messaing)
Clarified further?
BUMP
Its been a while so thought to BUMP for more poll statistics etc.
I finally caved last month and just moved my contacts over to my Google/Gmail account and as expected, as already known, I've had no problems sending MMS that way or off my SIM card. Just gave up trying to fix or get MMS Picture Messaging to work with having my contacts saved to the phone. Only saved contacts saved to the phones memory always returned the "Error In Server Response" when selcting a contact in the drop down in the messaing app.
Over all I'm going to like using Google/Gmail saved contacts better, was just avoiding as I was too lazy to port them all over and the error or issue should not have existed in the first place using phone saved contacts.
Just wanted to share, and BUMP this thread for anyone still having issues or wanting to vote in the poll. Laterz...
Hi All,
Before you say it, I know what I'm doing and understand how Google contacts work, I had a HTC HD2 (thanks Pongster and XDA!) and I am used to Android.
I know how Google contacts work, infact I submitted a bug fix to AweSync to fix up their syncing of Google Contacts with Lotus Notes.
Why does the Samsung Galaxy 1 (and 2!) show me _ALL CONTACTS_ when trying to SMS people? or when I try to save a newly dialled number into contacts, it shows all contacts?
I don't want to SMS an email address! I don't want to sift through 1,300 contacts yet this idiot phone is showing me them.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~scottylans/derpderp.jpg
http://members.iinet.net.au/~scottylans/diddlyderp.jpg
http://members.iinet.net.au/~scottylans/derpphone.jpg
It's listing email Address's in the SMS TO: field - yet I've CLEARLY unticked "All contacts" and I've made it only show contacts with a phone number.
What is wrong with this thing?
EDIT: also, forgetting my ring tone every time I reboot isn't impressing me either.
Okay, I can't answer all your problems, and I do agree that the management of contacts on this phone is pretty poor, but there's obviously ways round certain issues.
One thing that will immediately help you is to use the contacts app to send SMS, rather than the SMS app. Select your contact (filtered as shown in your post) and you can swipe them left to SMS or right to call. That's a pretty handy feature.
However, if you're sending a message to more than 1 person you're back to square 1. I'd strongly recommend getting GO SMS Pro and GO Contacts (both free) from the Market. They're excellent replacements and I'm sure you'll be a LOT happier with them.
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
johncmolyneux said:
Okay, I can't answer all your problems, and I do agree that the management of contacts on this phone is pretty poor, but there's obviously ways round certain issues.
One thing that will immediately help you is to use the contacts app to send SMS, rather than the SMS app. Select your contact (filtered as shown in your post) and you can swipe them left to SMS or right to call. That's a pretty handy feature.
However, if you're sending a message to more than 1 person you're back to square 1. I'd strongly recommend getting GO SMS Pro and GO Contacts (both free) from the Market. They're excellent replacements and I'm sure you'll be a LOT happier with them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would go contacts solve my issue when saving a new phone number into my contactl ist?
wizzbang3 said:
Would go contacts solve my issue when saving a new phone number into my contactl ist?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does what you describe above. I don't know what you expect it to do though. You dial a number, click "Add to contacts" or "New contact" to either list all your contacts or create a new one.
is there any solution to this, i quite like the messaging app, but find it quite annoying when i have to search through hundreds of contacts, or else exit out to the contact application to text some1 who's actually in my contacts list ....
Its not a deal breaker for me, i prefer the stock than go sms or handcent, or any alternative i've tried, so if there is no fix i'll grin and bear it but if there is please help out
.... its not that i prefer the stock to any other, its just that no other provides anything that makes me want to move from stock, and since both will be running anyways it seems pointless to be wasting battery .... also i found double contacts problems with other apps aswell
Osmosae said:
is there any solution to this, i quite like the messaging app, but find it quite annoying when i have to search through hundreds of contacts, or else exit out to the contact application to text some1 who's actually in my contacts list ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's just poor design by Samsung.
wizzbang3 said:
It's just poor design by Samsung.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why? I think it is a good idea, since I very often MMS to email addresses! It is very handy to automatically downsize an image to MMS size when you are sending it to a person who you know will be looking at the email on their phone (e.g. my friend in Japan doesn't have MMS at all, over there nearly everything is email).
Been wondering about this too, i know the contact app you can customize what to show, which is fine, but the sms app show everyone you have been in contact with on google. Only "fix" i've found so far is to use another SMS app that can filter the contact list.
The solution is very simple. Just open display options in contacts and select only display contacts with numbers. Also untick everything that you don't want it to display. I don't save any numbers in phone or sim card so I save it to gmail account.
Even if I select only gmail it shows lots unnecessary contacts. So I went to gmail on my laptop and opened the contacts (phone book or something like that. Its been over a year so I don't remember)
I created a new category (u can choose an existing one) and transferred every single contact that I needed under it.
And thats it. Everytime I format my phone I just go to contact display settings on my phone and only choose the category that I made. And it only shows the contacts that I need.
It works also if u want to save a contact. I chose to save contacts to my gmail account when it asks. And everytime u save it saves it to the category that u choose.
I have been using this over a year and work flawlessly. I remember beig sick of choosing amongst 1000s of contacts.
I tried to explain as I could. If there is a problem ask me I will try to help.
Edit:
I realized this doesn't answer ur question about sms. This doesn't fix that SMS list behaviour.
After reading a zillion great reviews about the S3, I bought one but quickly discovered that it does not have one place that unites all contact instances.
In case you're not sure what I mean, this is usually on a contact's screen, a place where you can see all the contact between you and them - messages, calls, emails. The idea is that you can see a full list of what's been said in a thread form.
I know that the S3 has a Contact History but this only shows SMS messages and emails from the Samsung email app and not the gmail app. It doesn't show any calls at all.
My Lumia, much like most HTC phones show all contact in thread form and I was wondering if there was any way of getting the S3 to do this or perhaps an app that does this.
It's really hard to look in 3 different apps to work out what was said and when!
Hope this makes sense..
I tried searching the net, but everything I can find relates to MM or earlier. I definitely fixed this issue when I first got this phone, so that only people with numbers were shown in my contacts list. Now I upgraded to Nougat just a few hours ago, and now I can't figure out how to do that again. That option doesn't seem to exist anymore! Am I missing something?? Or did they remove this option from the stock Contacts and Phone apps?
This is absurd. Pulling up Contacts shows a huge list of everyone I've ever interacted with over email, which is beyond stupid, imo. If I need to reach some person via email whom I don't text/call, then that's what the Gmail app is there for. What's the point of this mess? Sorry about the mini rant.
Same Problem
Same Phone, Same Problem, Same Question?!
I'm convinced now that, yes, Google really did think that a dysfunctional Contacts app is what the people want. So, the only solution here is to switch to third party apps. Oh well, not a big deal I guess.
I found a work around, create a new label in contacts and all the contacts with numbers to that label. Then you can customise the view on your phone to display only that label. If you ever add any contacts in the future with a phone number just ensure you add them to that label which you can do via your phone.