Help with text messaging

[pblanton]

I am a 4th generation iPhone user and was saddened to have soaked my iPhone 3Gs in gasoline at this year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. I was waiting until the white iPhone 4 came out, but was forced (I believed at the time) to get a new iPhone 4. OMG is that a serious piece of ****!

I gave it to my wife (who was still on an old motorola flip phone) and switched to Verizon on the Droid X. I've had my Droid X now for about 24 hours and am digging it! However I have one seriously nagging issue; I have a problem with the text messaging.

Whenever I receive a text message, the phone plays the proper ringtone and vibrates a bit, then goes silent. When I pick it up and wake it up, I have no visual indication that I have received a text message. On the iPhone it always showed me a list of the recent received activity (missed calls, missed messages, etc...) but on the droid, it always shows me the same home screen whenever I wake it up. If I just so happened to hear the text message tone, then I can dig into the messaging app and read the message. If I leave my phone on my desk and go out to lunch, when I return I have no idea if I missed anything. There is no visual indicator on the home screen.

Another helpful - albeit annoying - feature of the iPhone is that it will periodically "badeep" you about text messages until you acknowledge them. Apparently on the Android you have to be paying attention in order to text.

Is there not a way to make the android OS show a list of recent missed activity on the home screen?

As a thank you for your thoughts, I offer a dancing banana

--
Phillip

[jefbystereo]

While not familiar with the X (I have the Droid1), all recent activities should appear in your notification bar. That is the band at the top of the screen, that shows bars, time, battery etc. So when you turn on the screen, you should be able to glance at that bar and see if you have any waiting mail or texts without having to unlock your phone. If these dont appear, you might have to go into the individual app settings and turn on notifications. Does the X have an led in the front? If so, you can also use apps like "missed call" and "handcent" (recommended for texting btw) to customize the flashing led color so that you dont even have to turn on the screen to know what you have waiting for you.

[guidot]

Welcome to droid does.
I'm fairly sure that the droidx has the information bar on the top of the home screen. You can slide it down or select it from the menu on the home screen (notifications).
You do have to unlock the lock screen.
You can try another messenger app such as handcent or chompsms. They have different notification options and Widgets you can put on your desktop.
Hope that helps you.

[jefbystereo]

Ok, I Checked and you do have a notification led. So if you want to go a step further than just looking at your notification bar when you wake the phone and basically be able to know what kind of message is waiting for you from across the room try this:

Get "missed call" This will allow you to customize the led color for calls based on caller. For ex: missed call from wife blinks pink led, missed call from others blink orange.

Get "handcent" Not only is it a great messaging app, you can also customize the text message led color. For ex: again, missed text from wife blinks pink, while others blink blue

Get "gmail notifier" This allows you to customize gmail led color (not by individual sender unfortunately) For ex: all gmails are light blue.

After doing this, you can pretty much glance at your phone from across the room, see the led color, and already know what kind of message is waiting without even having to get up.

Real life example: as Im writing this, my phone is blinking light blue. I know I have a gmail waiting and I dont even have to turn on my screen.

[fish1552]

That was one of my wife's complaints as well. So I hooked her up with LauncherPro which lets you to enable a red circle with a number on it for missed calls, texts, and emails in the dock at the bottom (phone icon, browser icon & app drawer) where it is clearly visible. I use that now too - it's a nice quick visual and won't make a lot of noise when I'm in the middle of something important.
You can also download something like SMS Popup that puts a window up with text messages so when you unlock it, the pop up is waiting. Only problem with that is it only shows the last one.
Just like Handcent a little app called Blink let's you change LED color for SMS, MMS, incoming calls, missed calls and some system things as well.

All those jefbystereo & I mentioned are free (although LauncherPro has a paid version that lets you do other things too) so it's worth trying them all out and seeing which works best for you.

I tried Handcent and chompSMS, but I got rid of them because I hated having to clear messages from them, then also having to open them to mark as read in the default SMS app as well before it annoyed me. (maybe an OCD thing for me? - LOL) I could have disabled the notification, but then I wouldn't have noticed missed texts. Just a personal thing for me really, but I liked the apps outside of that. That said it's been some time since I used them.

[guidot]

You just need to turn off the notification in the stock app.

[SGMD1]

handcent

handcent

handcent

Handcent

Notice a pattern? I too must recommend Handcent. It will solve all your woes.

Need repeating notifications until the message is checked?
Need a popup of the text on your screen?
Want the text popup to turn your screen on? Or just to be there when you turn the screen on yourself?
Want to change the color/blink speed of the LED notification?
Want to change the received text icon that appears in the notification bar?

Handcent does all of the above plus TONS more

[SGMD1]

I tried Handcent and chompSMS, but I got rid of them because I hated having to clear messages from them, then also having to open them to mark as read in the default SMS app as well before it annoyed me. (maybe an OCD thing for me? - LOL) I could have disabled the notification, but then I wouldn't have noticed missed texts.

I'm confused by this part. If you disable notifications/auto-retrieve in the stock messaging app, but turn them on in Handcent, you will still see your missed texts in the notification bar...

[fish1552]

I could have disabled the notification, but then I wouldn't have noticed missed texts.

I'm confused by this part. If you disable notifications/auto-retrieve in the stock messaging app, but turn them on in Handcent, you will still see your missed texts in the notification bar...

That is true. At the time I had Handcent, I only had the phone maybe 1 week and didn't know the ins and outs of the menu and what settings I could tweak. I uninstalled it after about a month and haven't used it since. Mostly I don't text enough to use anything but the default app and short of the time-stamp, it does what I need.
I would still recommend it or chompSMS to anyone looking for good texting apps.