LiveCode Forums.

HI, Is it possible to message a Cell Phone with a LapTop?
Tom

And the connexion between your question and LiveCode is . . . ?

Using an App developed with LC on a Desktop Computer to text message a mobile phone.
Can that be done?
Tom

Good news: most desktop ecosystems have examples of this, and generally rely on a few widely available components to enable the bridge between TCP and cell networks.

Bad news: Those who do this rely on only a few components to bridge TCP and cell networks, and any implementation is at the mercy of those APIs. And since each desktop platform relies on different components, any multiplatform implementation will need to support as many different interfaces as the target platforms.

A web search on "desktop SMS" yields good pointers. IIRC Apple has their own API they provide themselves. For Linux I was exploring this using the underlying package used by a Nextcloud app for that purpose. If Linux is of interest I can dig that up.

Some of this may be doable in LC Script, any lower level APIs should be doable with LC Builder.

My own interest in this was minor, easily set aside in favor of more pressing priorities. If you pursue this I'd be keen to hear what you find as you go.

Thank You Richard!
My need for this isn't pressing, I was just curious to see if it can be done!
For now I think I will set it aside, but will let you know if and when I pursue this in the future.
Thanks again,
Tom

There are two routes I know of that you could go:

XMPP to SMS Bridge
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There is a company that has an XMPP to SMS bridge for a very reasonable fee (a few dollars/month). They give you a phone number or you can import a number. I was able to import my old Google Voice number.

https://jmp.chat/ in conjunction with https://cheogram.com

I have been using them for the last year or so. I set up my own XMPP server using ejabberd on a cheap VPS (that also runs my email server).
However, you can use an existing XMPP server. They provide a couple you can choose from.

I am able to run an XMPP clients on my desktop, android phone and tablet connected to my XMPP account that is registered with JMP.chat

The result is that I am able to send/receive SMS and MMS messages across all devices. They all stay in sync so I can put my phone down and resume a conversation on my desktop.

The desktop client I use is Dino (linux)
The android client I use is Conversations

There are also console-based XMPP clients: https://profanity-im.github.io/
Or just plain command-line if you run your own server: https://askubuntu.com/questions/533527/ ... mmand-line

It works so well that I no longer use my phones number/plan for text messaging. I only use my JMP.chat device. If I were inspired I could certainly use Livecode to create a little XMPP client, but the clients available already work very well.

The one thing I might do is use Livecode to make a contact list app. The XMPP server uses a MySQL database to store conversations and contacts, so it would be fairly straight-forward to make a contact list app for adding/deleting contacts .


VOIP SMS
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Many Voip companies offer SMS, but from my experience it is buggy. I use the company https://voip.ms for some phone stuff, but their SMS never works consistently (thus my use of JMP.chat)

One person created a voip.ms sms client, that is supposed to work ok:
https://github.com/michaelkourlas/voipms-sms-client

I have not explored it since JMP.chat works so well

If you mean sending SMS through a livecode app, there are many services that offer REST APIs for this.

Twilio is fairly well known and reliable but a more comprehensive list here: https://rapidapi.com/blog/sms-apis-send-texts/amp/