Features of chompSMS

As well as all the features of the built-in Messaging app, chompSMS has some great extra features:

Widgets

We have 2 great widgets that can be easily added to your Home screens.

The chompSMS Icon widget, which can be used as a replacement to the chompSMS shortcut icon and comes with the benefit of showing an unread message badge.

The chompSMS Big widget, which allows you to easily manage your unread messages from your Home screen at your convenience.

To use the chompSMS widgets, simply go to your Home screen, press the Menu key, Add, Widgets, chompSMS Icon or chompSMS Big.

Quick Compose

Busy inside another app, and want to quickly send an SMS? Then simply long hold the Search hardware button (or Camera button on G1's) to bring up the Quick Compose window.

Works inside any application or from the Home screen, makes it so convenient and quick to send an SMS.

Works in landscape mode as well, for example when playing a game.

Chat Style Bubbles

Chat style bubbles, just so much easier to read!

The timestamp is shown at a default granularity of 15 minutes, to keep the screen uncluttered.

Contact Pictures

Cool! Contact pictures…

To add the contact pictures simply use the built-in Contacts application.

Quick Reply

Imagine you're browsing the Internet and an SMS comes in. With Quick Reply there's no need to quit surfing, just reply straight away and keep browsing!

Quick Reply appears on top of any app, not just your browser. The color of the Send button shows you how you'll be sending it: green via the chompSMS network and blue via your Carrier network. You can quickly switch by holding down the Send button for a few seconds. Includes privacy features and also works in the lock-screen mode as well!

Signature

You can set up a signature that automatically gets appended to every message.

Templates

You can enter templates easily: just bring up the menu by hitting the "+" key, or by long holding the text box, or by hitting the "menu" button:

You can manage your templates in the chompSMS Settings screen or by simply long holding a message and tapping 'Add Template'.

Quick-Pick Contacts & Groups

Composing a new message and want to quickly choose multiple contacts or in fact an entire group? It’s easy with chompSMS!

Character & SMS Counter

The character and SMS counter makes it very clear how many SMS messages will be sent and how many characters remain for the text being entered.

Typically each SMS message allows you to send 160 characters, unless you type a special character, switching the character set to Unicode, in which case you'll only get 70 characters.

So let's look at how the counter works:

User Interface Customizations

You can customize pretty much all aspects of the conversation list and conversation bubble threads.

Conversation List

Let's look at the Conversation List customizations:

As an example, let's customize the background:

Or perhaps a background image instead, also viewable in landscape mode:

Conversations

You can customize the conversations as well:

As an example, let's customize the Outgoing Bubble Color:

Notification Customizations

In Android, an application can only control its own notifications. So, first turn off the Notifications preference in the native Messaging application settings page. Then you can start to use the chompSMS notifications instead, and tailor them to suit you!

Ringtones per Contact

Bored with just one ringtone? Then choose a different ringtone for any contact you have.

If you want to create and use custom ringtones, then install a third-party application, like Ringdroid, from the Android Market. Create your ringtone (save as Notification), then it'll appear in the list shown above, neat!

Blacklisting

Want to stop seeing SMS messages from an annoying ex-friend, or marketing company? Just blacklist them!

Want to view all current blacklisted conversations? Or un-blacklist a contact? Go to the Settings page, and tick the box:

Speak Text

For those who prefer to hear their text messages being spoken to them.

You can also long-hold on a specific message bubble, and choose the "Speak text" option as well. You can set the language, speech rate and volume for this feature in the Settings page of chompSMS.

Mark all as Read

Easily mark all your messages as read.

Hide Keyboard

When typing text in an SMS message you can tap in the bubble area and the keyboard will slide away, letting you read the conversation more easily (as an alternative to pressing the hardware back button).

Save Money!

As well as all the great features above, there are some additional features to help save you money by using the chompSMS network to send messages, for example for texting to overseas.

Once you have bought credits, simply choose chompSMS as the SMS Network in the Settings page: