I've been hunting around here and various other places trying to find a straight answer to this question, and have had no luck so far. Hoping the community here might be able to straighten me out. Also, Mods, I'm not sure if this issue is specific to the Aria, or my Aria, or if it is more general - please feel free to move this if there is a more appropriate location.
The issue:
while test-driving Attn1's CM6-Liberty ROM, I happened to note the option for custom labels for phone numbers in my address book (apparently I missed this option previously). There were a couple I wanted to change, so I made the changes, and they synced up to my google contacts just fine. After switching back to Liberated Aria b005 ROM, I realized there were a couple of other numbers I'd like to change. I went back into contacts and selected the custom option - however, the edit field window blinked closed, and the phone number label remained the same as was previously set. No window opened up to enter a custom field label.
I was able to find instructions on a workaround used by exporting google contacts, editing the CSV fields, and then re-importing. I made my additional changes this way (though in one case in which I named a phone label "Google Voice" the re-import process changed it to "grandcentral".)
I would like the ability to make these changes on the device...just wondering if this is an error happening on my device, or a feature that only works in Android 2.2+, or a limitation of HTC Sense?
Thanks,
DD
Hy everyone,
I've tried searching the forums for a solution but no luck..
Is there any way to save a number while having a conversation?
if i select the "keypad" during a call, and write down a number, there isn't a "save to contacts" option or anything similar to that..
i've fiddled around a bit and the only thing remotely similar to what i need is only an option to save a note during the call, but that is absolutely ridiculous, why would i want to save a note and then go and retrieve it.. i just want to save a contact while talking...
I take it that the phone number you want to save to contacts is different to the telephone call you are currently connected to.
Why not, while on a call, press the Home button, then select the Contacts tab, then select New Contact. You can then write the number in the new contact, along with other details.
hey fred_up thanks for the reply!
actually i did thought of that right after i posted the question, but i just think it's sad that we need to perfotm so many actions in order to do such a simple task... one i used to do once without even taking the phone away from my ear... (and no - i'm not complaining about my hd2, i love it despite its little flaws).
A very handy bit of software is called AutoLoudspeaker - if you do a search, you'll find it on this site. As soon as you take the phone away from your ear (ie the screen lights up via the proximity sensors) the phone goes automatically into loudspeaker mode. That'll take one step out of the process.
No doubt some clever clogs will develop some registry edit that means a long press of the Windows button will open up a new contact page.
Yeh i'm aware of that option, and i use it sometimes when at home, doing the coocking or dishes when the GF is out or while playing pc games but it doesnt really meet my needs when i need to remember a nuber for just a second after i hang up..
fred_up said:
No doubt some clever clogs will develop some registry edit that means a long press of the Windows button will open up a new contact page.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now THAT WOULD BE GENIOUSLY AWESOME!
or maybe even a little app, that is called "numbers" for that matter, which can be located on the home tab and when opening it you'll get a numpad and a screen, and would be able to save numbers in a big font, only numbers, nothing else, the numbers will stay on the screen untill you decide to delete them.
unlike the notepad which saves the notes in a file you need to open, and which is not so finger friendly when coming to fast numbering..
food for thought
maybe i'll just forward the idea to a new app request
omricn said:
or maybe even a little app, that is called "numbers" for that matter, which can be located on the home tab and when opening it you'll get a numpad and a screen, and would be able to save numbers in a big font, only numbers, nothing else, the numbers will stay on the screen untill you decide to delete them.
unlike the notepad which saves the notes in a file you need to open, and which is not so finger friendly when coming to fast numbering..
food for thought
maybe i'll just forward the idea to a new app request
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
may be you can put in a quicklink for 'calculator' on home screen..
I have one, but for that matter - you cannot save numbers you type in the calc, they just vanish once the app is closed, and also - i don't like using things for a purpose they were not meant for, it feels a little stupid..
use panaromic calculator, pressing the x only minimises the program
I've seen numerous questions regarding problems merging sms messsages after being restored from databases, applications, social networks or ported from different operating systems, etc all of which seem to relate to compatibility issues. My issue is, on the face of it, much more simple but I have yet to find a solution.
One of my contacts recently changed telephone numbers resulting in subsequent texts being listed in a different thread. After adding the new number to the existing contact I now have two sms threads under the same person's name. I'd like to merge these and delete the old number but I can't find a way to do that. This means that if I want to keep a name for the old sms thread then I have to keep the old number in my contacts. Seems a bit daft to me.
I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy GT-I9000 with 2.34 firmware but unless I'm missing something WM, iPhone, etc have the same issue. Does anyone know if merging texts in the way I've mentioned can be done?
I don't know if apps like GO SMS and Handcent address this problem but even if they did its like taking a sledgehammer to a minor inconvenience.
Thanks
I'm having exactly the same problem for more than a year now. I really hope someone will come up with a solution for this! Thanks
I have been also trying for a solution but nothing
(Hope I'm not resurrecting a too old thread...)
I successfully merged SMS threads by creating a backup using SMS Backup & Restore.
Just open the created .xml file in e.g. Notepad++, then replace your contact's old number in the "address" field with the new one. Now load the altered backup file back onto your phone, delete your messages from within the app, and restore your newly created backup file.
Although it worked fine for me on the first try, I recommend keeping your initial backup file, and save your editing to a copy - just in case.
Using this method, I also fixed some splitted threads, where one contact with one number got split up in several threads, because of an incorrect number restore from backups when switching phones.
Hope this helps.
Thanks to pucksen for resurrecting this old thread. I got here by google.
My problem was a bit different - I had multiple conversation threads from the same number from the same contact (in both stock SMS app and Go SMS Pro). It started after using Pure Messenger, and only affected my two contacts with iphones. It seemed random which messages ended up where.
Looking in the XML backup file from SMS Backup & Restore, I noticed why I was having this problem, the address field sometimes had random space characters appended to the end of the numbers! For example:
address="4165555555"
address="4165555555 "
Removed the spaces after the affected messages and voila, all is well.
No idea how or why this happened, or if im going to have to export/fix/reimport my messages often to keep my conversations readable... but at least there's a way to fix it.
Now if only I knew how to write an app that could automate this for me...
epexegenesis said:
Thanks to pucksen for resurrecting this old thread. I got here by google.
My problem was a bit different - I had multiple conversation threads from the same number from the same contact (in both stock SMS app and Go SMS Pro). It started after using Pure Messenger, and only affected my two contacts with iphones. It seemed random which messages ended up where.
Looking in the XML backup file from SMS Backup & Restore, I noticed why I was having this problem, the address field sometimes had random space characters appended to the end of the numbers! For example:
address="4165555555"
address="4165555555 "
Removed the spaces after the affected messages and voila, all is well.
No idea how or why this happened, or if im going to have to export/fix/reimport my messages often to keep my conversations readable... but at least there's a way to fix it.
Now if only I knew how to write an app that could automate this for me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thread re-resurrected! Not sure if you've solved this, but I imagine the process could be expedited by using the Find/Replace feature in Notepad++ (or practically anything else) by searching for " with a space in front of it and replacing it with " with no space.
As for the thread's OP, I agree that Android needs to have this functionality built-in. Especially considering how many users have alternate Google Voice numbers.
This is the one thing that WebOS actually got right. Never believed I'd ever actually miss something from that terrible phone.
Thanks patthew, that makes it a bit quicker - it is still a pain though. And unfortunately the problem also has gotten bigger....now I've got this:
address="4165555555"
address="+14165555555"
So up to 4 threads with each contact.
This is ridiculous.
I also can't believe how many people there are with the same problem and no fix. From page 1 google search:
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1262261
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1397030
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1192736
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1124902
http://android.stackexchange.com/qu...-creates-multiple-threads-for-the-same-number
http://www.droidxforums.com/forum/d...t-creating-multiple-threads-same-contact.html
hello all,
I am also having this problem, i confirm that not even with handcent sms it doesn't work if a contact has several numbers it opens a new thread by phone number.
the manual edition of the xml file seems the only workaround is the edition of the backup file which is of course prone to error.
anyway thanks for the tips i hadn't thought of editing the sms backup and restore xml.
kind regards
Mario
Before doing this BACK UP YOUR SMS/MMS!!! If you screw something up and lose everything don't come crying to me, back your crap up!
Now, here is how I did it. This merged 2 different phone numbers/threads into 1 SMS thread and moved all MMS (Pictures/Media) as well.
In my XML file I found these 4 formats for the number I was changing, why the numbers are all different formats I have no idea. Make sure you don't have even more.
(555) 444-7777
5554447777
+15554447777
+1 555-444-7777
And here is a small sample from the XML file with the numbers changed to the 555 crap or X'd out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<threads count="7" xmlns="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX">
<thread address="+15554447777">
<sms msgBox="inbox" date="2012-07-30T21:40:43.522Z" locked="false" seen="true" read="true" serviceCenter="+1XXXXXXXXXX" address="+15554447777" encoding="plain">Hello World!</sms>
<sms msgBox="inbox" date="2012-07-30T21:41:13.522Z" locked="false" seen="true" read="true" serviceCenter="+1XXXXXXXXXX" address="+15554447777" encoding="plain">Hello World AGAIN!</sms>
<mms msgBox="sent" version="1.2" type="sendReq" contentType="application/vnd.wap.multipart.related" date="2012-09-08T02:30:19.000Z" locked="false" seen="true" read="true" subject="">
<addresses>
<address type="from">insert-address-token</address>
<address type="to">5554447777</address>
</addresses>
<part contentType="application/smil" contentId="<smil>" contentLocation="smil.xml" encoding="plain"><smil><head><layout><root-layout width="1230px" height="720px"/><region id="Image" left="0" top="0" width="1230px" height="648px" fit="meet"/></layout></head><body><par dur="5000ms"><img src="IMG_20120907_212958.jpg" region="Image"/></par></body></smil></part>
<part contentType="image/jpeg" order="0" contentId="<IMG_20120907_212958>" contentLocation="IMG_20120907_212958.jpg" encoding="base64">/9j/4ABAAD/2wBDAAIBAQEBAQIBAQECAgICAgQDAgICAgUEBAMEB</part>
</mms>
</thread>
</threads>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First off, I used Titanium Backup Pro to dump SMS/MMS to XML (It's under Options/Backup data to XML) I have no idea if the standard Titanium Backup has this or not.
Titanium Backup Pro stores the messages with all SMS first, then all MMS after for that thread. What I did was a search/replace for all 4 different number formats listed above to the new phone number, then I cut/pasted all of the SMS from the new number thread the old number thread right under the last SMS message in that thread, then I cut/pasted the MMS from the new number thread to the old number thread at the end of the MMS section. In short, I moved the SMS and MMS from one thread to the other to their corresponding areas. I moved the "new" number to the old number thread because there were only a handful of messages in the new thread so I went that route. And because I did it this way, all the messages were in order by date.
After I had emptied out the thread (nothing between <thread address="XXXXXXXXXX"> and </thread>) I deleted the thread.
Then I updated the threads count to "6" because I was merging 2 threads and of course taking one thread away from the 7 threads = 6, saved it, and then restored it using Titanium Backup and BAM, 2 threads were now 1 with all of my texts and pictures intact.
Now, I have no idea if the cut/pasting is necessary or if Titanium and Android can magically figure out the two threads belong together after changing all the numbers but I didn't feel like messing with it. I just made it a nice neat XML file like I figured it should be and went with that.
For the XML editor I used XMLSpy 30 day trial (it's expensive to buy but I figured I would only be doing this once so what the heck, trial it is) but I'm sure anything that edits XML properly
would do just fine.
Initially I tried merging the two threads using Sqlite3 update commands on mmssms.db and succeeded in merging the 2 SMS threads but found that MMS didn't follow and decided that I'd rather mess with XML. Eh...
Also, if for some reason (like me) you can't see the XML backup file in Windows I wound up just using adb to pull/push the file from/to the phone.
Anyway, hope this helps those of you trying to do this. Good luck!
Good method but UNconceivably hard to perform on 9000 text messages, when more than 2 or 3 are seperated into multiple threads
But i did it (at least for the contacts i sms the most)
It cannot be that difficult for an average IT student to write a simple script to do what android should be doing on its own.
Anyway.
Just try and find the contacts whose conversations have been split. Note them down and open the xml from sms backup and restore through Notepad++ or a simple kate (if you are in a linux environment)
Search for your contact using some of the characters of its name. For example if the conversations of Smith John have been split, then try first to look for smith (disable case matching)
When you find the line that corresponds to the first message of Smith, copy every single character in address.
ie
Code:
address='"SMITH JOHN" <693123458>'
Here you HAVE to copy everything after the = until the gt;'
DO NOT include the =, nor any character after the last ' , NOT EVEN the space that comes right after.
Paste
Code:
'"SMITH JOHN" <693123458>'
in the find and replace dialogue.
For the replace part, include only the phone number between ""
Code:
Replace with
"693123458"
Replace all.
Now try again searching for smith. Sometimes we change little things in our contacts and over time conversations split for that reason. You might find that you once upon a time you had saved the contact as Smith Johny. So search again. Then search using the phone number if your phone has the bad habit of spliting up the numbers like
123-1234-123 or something
Try looking for -123 or space123
Replace everything with the phone number alone surrounded by "".
This way when your contacts are in place there will be only one thread for each contact.
SO many hours of sleep lost
epexegenesis said:
Thanks to pucksen for resurrecting this old thread. I got here by google.
My problem was a bit different - I had multiple conversation threads from the same number from the same contact (in both stock SMS app and Go SMS Pro). It started after using Pure Messenger, and only affected my two contacts with iphones. It seemed random which messages ended up where.
Looking in the XML backup file from SMS Backup & Restore, I noticed why I was having this problem, the address field sometimes had random space characters appended to the end of the numbers! For example:
address="4165555555"
address="4165555555 "
Removed the spaces after the affected messages and voila, all is well.
No idea how or why this happened, or if im going to have to export/fix/reimport my messages often to keep my conversations readable... but at least there's a way to fix it.
Now if only I knew how to write an app that could automate this for me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Learn how to code & do that in a handful of lines of code
Indirect Solution but this might come handy for most people in this thread
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=angel.twitch&hl=en
Another workaround
Another workaround would of using hangouts version 10 as an SMS app.
Thread re-resurrected, again. lol
Anyway, Galaxy S21U, Android 11, stock messenger. Added their old number to their contact, but all it did was name both threads after them, not merge them.
When I run SMS Backup & Restore, it doesn't seem to get ALL of the messages from the new number's thread. It did seem to get all of them from the prior thread though. SEEM being I'm not entirely sure whether it retrieved all of both theirs and my messages, without further investigation.
If it did not retrieve ALL of the messages, how would I go about making it do so? Settings, a different app/method?
Using Notepad++ was a breeze to find/replace all of the old numbers to the new one though.
If I were to restore my edited backup, without deleting any of the messages that are currently there, what happens?
Does it overwrite what's currently there, deleting the current set of messages, or does it just add back all of the messages to the specified thread, resulting in double messages that would need to be deleted?
Thanks for any help with this. Didn't anticipate this issue. Didn't think this person was going to change their number, or how seemingly difficult this problem actually is.
Hello!
Sorry if this is asked/answered, search isn't working on my phone.
Is there any way to change just the text field editing interface on the sgs2? cyanogenmod seems to have it down pretty well but the stock Samsung one that appears in practically all the ROMs I've tried is absolutely pathetic. If anyone is confused about what I mean, I mean selecting words, highlighting words, copying and pasting words, the little text selection arrows etc. It is frustratingly incompetent ATM and is making me want to throw my phone at a wall.
Its the one main thing that bothers me about Android, iOS has this perfectly sorted.
Most of the time now I have to write my emails/forum posts/Facebook posts etc (ie anything with multiple lines of text) in a notepad type program and copy and paste it over, as trying to select a sole word in the middle of many in a websites text field (or similar) is quite literally impossible.
Someone help me, it is driving me insane.
Thank you.
Is there seriously nothing that can be done about this?
I find that quite hard to believe..
I inadvertently deleted system files on my unrooted tablet .So now my screen has words on it with missing portions of the tops or bottom of words, numbers and sentences.And the last letter of word or sentence are moved to the next lower line.A web site also informed me I was missing line 1 of my SQL syntax.Is their a way to rectify this?Any suggestions?