Database Users

Disabling phone app grabbing numbers

'm looking for a way (programmatic, registry, whatever) to enter numbers, *, etc. on the today page without having the phone interface automatically appear. It seems like this should be easy, but I haven't found it with a lot of googling.
thanks.

Uhm .. i'm not sure i understand correctly... But the way I see it, you have to build a plugin and add a control(i.e. edit box) which overrides the keyboard input. You need to catch the VK_ keys og WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP and handle them yourself..
But this only works if the plugin/control has focus however.

Prepaid Card status checking (USSD codes)

I'm about finishing a plugin for Today Screen and Home Screen, where the latest status of prepaid SIM Card (account) is displayed.
As you know, to get this status, you have to send a special code. Mostly, it is *101# and a green phone button. In reply, cellular network responses with a special message. As I could check that replies in a few networks, messages depend from the cellular network. And the language too. Because of that, my plugin just displays a whole message without changes.
My question is: how that reply messages look like in various networks? Could you please post here message you get?
I want to get answer, what is maximum length of such messages, to save the space of screen. Or maybe to use its content and reformat the display style finally (what's - I'm afraid - impossible due to many languages used). Correct me.
If you use prepaid card, please send *101# code (or maybe in some other networks it is different code?), and give the answer you got from cellular network in reply.

"Creditul tau de xxx.xx EURcenti este activ inclusiv pana la dd/mm/yy"
this is how it looks on Orange romania.
hope it helps.
but there is a catch... if i have extra options(like bonus free minutes) when i dial the check credit number(*133#) i also receive a separate sms(from a different number(333) )showing me the free minutes left...
i also have a small question... do you know a good USSD program that is compatible with mio?

In Belgium with provider PROXIMUS, dial code is #121# and result is formatted as Credit: nnn.nn EUR Validite dd/mm/yyyy

Vodafone Germany
Dail code for Vodafone Germany is *100#. The reply is: Ihr Kontostand betraegt xx.xx Euro.
Looking forward to check out the plug-in.

I use another prog - dciBalance - and get a relult ot Today like:
"Balanse: xx$ (-0,5$) 7:34, 07.12.2007 "
where xx$ - balance, (-0,5$) changes by per day, and time\date of cheching

is dciBalance also available in english?

no dciBalance available only on Russian....
But it is not very hard to understand "how to"

Thank for comments.
I don't know the above other program with similar funtions, and I even did not tried it.
That's why my concept is stay as: to leave an original reply message in original language. This will run independently from particular country or cellular network. Certainly, I added options to change the default code *101# to whatever some user will need in some localization or situation.
Have anybody heard, that any network charges for USSD questions?
Currently, my program checks the status: on every wake up, on every midnite, and if user will check the option: on every hour. I can add more options like: after every phone call finished, or after every message sent. But... it consumes battery. I'm already under deeper tests how it works relative to battery reasonably discharging.
User can force the checking any time manually, by selecting this plugin and press Action or Enter button.

when will we see the app?

sounds very interesting. yeah, when can we see this app?
anybody know the ussd code for vodafone nz??

beta version is here
Ok. Here it is a Beta Version. It will expire on the end of year.
This is a version for PPC only (incl. VGA), Smartphone HomeScreen plugin is upcoming... Please, users of Smartphones: give your comments what you see after *101# code and how it is displayed, or similar...
After installation:
- in PPC please check, if it is marked on system Today items list
- in SP please select one of new Home SCreen style with "prepaid..." in name
or build your own Home Screen, this plugin you get with:
<plugin clsid="{6A59C93A-4B8A-46c1-873B-269E93A8CE27}" name="prepaidstatus" height="25"><background><format state="selected" bgcolor="COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHT"/></background></plugin>
Changes:
- added delay of 10sec. in first checking since activate
- added delay of 5 sec. after wake up
- added icon of Settings... in default Programs folder (for future SP version)
- added destroying default notification icons (not sure if it works well in all devices, yet)
- added breaking each sentence for new line
- added "red alert", when your value is below specified limit (background becomes red and text white, do you want sounds?)
- added text "awaiting notification" while the request is running...
- added text "unresponsived" while network did not replied correctly
- reply message length limited do 200 characters
Some possible problems:
- in some devices I observe that after checking the status the phone line is not active till I use default Phone dialog next time. Not sure about it.
- in some devices I still cannot destroy the default notification icon of USSD reply, it is generated after every checking and collect together in status bar. If you use automatically checking, it will become a huge number of icons.
If you uncheck all available options for automatically requesting the status, you can always force it manually by pressing Action or tap the screen on this Today Item.
All comments are welcome and awating...
Files updated on 11 Dec. 2007

hello!
i tested it for a short while and here are first impressions.
Looks amaising, with a minor bug check the pic.
is it normal to show a red background?
A small sugestion....(from my little programing skills...) i believe it is possible to make the program search the ussd for the first set of numbers and display it, so that it will only show the credit. don't you think this will be a nice improvement?

thanks for comments. looks like the problem with "red alert". I will check and fix very soon.
I'm not sure about the concept of "first digit" because I don't know if this rule works in all languages and all network codes. I use this idea to define/determine "red alert" and maybe this is wrong.

there is also a small bug with the settings window... if you open the settings and pop up the keyboard the whole settings moves up, out of the window(first pic)

on Tele2 Sweden its *111#
gives you:
SALDO: xxx.xx Prisplan: Comviq Kontant Kompis. Kortet F n giltigt till 6/12-2008.
that is Prisplan = what sort of card you have
F n giltigt = expires day

I just updated the .cab file, small bug with "red alert" fixed.
If someone will get problem with red background and alert, please set 0 value for its limits. In this case it will not run.
To correctly upload the new version:
- uncheck this item from the list
- remove from default Remove Programs
- make a soft-reset
- re-install the new one
Strange with the Settings dialog. It's not in all my devices already.
Certainly, "last reported..." displays Today's time, and the date if it was not today.

Extend the USSD code
Is it possible to set the program for a longer USSD code?.
Meteor IE is using *#100# for their credit balance USSD code. I have tried inputing the code but it kept cutting of the last #.
ps:- nice work btw

I will try to fix. Thanks for comments.

hmm... after rechecking the settings tab, it seems that sometimes when i open settings the top bar vanishes and the whole settings prog moves up and after a couple of seconds the top bar reapears... that's what happens in the above pic....
unfortunetly i can't test the version very much because, as i told you, at every check i also receive a second sms, showing me the remaining free minutes and it is very annoing to delete them from my sms inbox...
btw, will the next version have the ussd send message balloon hidden?
Thanks for all this great work!
le: seems that most forum folks don't have prepay cards... 3 downloads so far... 2 by me

Both PPC and SP versions are now.
I just updated installation files, PPC and SP versions are available from now.
Several fixes included, also about automaticaly updating.
I'm not sure 100% about SP version, because such devices are very sensive for background proccess while the screen is going black (suspend, not like in PPC turns off). Next days will give answers if I thought correctly.

[APP] [25/3/09] [0.9 Beta] Cell Broadcast as Operator Name (Manila+Dialer)

Hey guys, my first real contribution here. I was using the Cell Broadcast solution with a today plugin posted here.
I had two major issues:
1. With Manila, can not use another today plugin
2. Need to use S2U2 because waking up of device, otherwise device stays on for sometime and screen touches are registered.
I played a bit with the registry and found out that setting two keys will reliably set a string which would be used for the operator name hence changing the string in Manila, dialer, etc.
I intercepted the messages coming from "Network" and extracted the CB body, if the device has been on for less than 5 seconds, then I assume that the cause of wake up was the CB, hence I suspend the device, its working quite nicely for now, will need your feedback for a probable general working release this weekend.
To do / Known Issues:
- FIXED: One key is hard coded as 41006 (my operator code), need to get it from phone. Otherwise ask user for it.
- Configurable from field, "Network*" is hard coded for now.
- Autostart using Init registry
- Hide / Remove UI
- For now UI shows incoming CB messages, power events, time difference between power on and message incoming for deciding to suspend or not.

Hello. I did search on this topic too. but did not find anything else that you do. but exactly what does not work. I got a newer version? thanks

Strange Dialer thing

Is it only me?
I'm coming from WinMo only phones. I owned a lot of them, the last being the Touch HD. I was so used to press the "green" key to access the dialer and look for a contact using that mixed numbers/letters phone keyboard.
On Nexus One, I select "phone" shortcut on my homescreen and I get the dialer. But if you push buttons on that keyboard, you only get to dial that number (no contacts lookout, matching what you have pressed). So you have to go to Contacts or Favorites to select someone you want to call (too many operations to not get annoyed )
Is this a normal behavior on Nexus One? Or am I doing something bad?
I made a movie to see what I am talking about (not a native English speaker).
Movie 1
The second movie is made showing what I am talking about using a Market application I found: SuperDial. It works as expected, but still I am confused why Google didn't make this a default (I see this on every phone)
Movie 2
Thanks for any suggestions.
Alin.

On the N1, you can press the "search" button at any time and begin typing a contact's name, and they should pop up as a top result. Alternatively, you can hold the Search button, and simply speak your contact's name. I find this to be the easiest way.

Yes, I've seen this, but it gets more general results, not only contacts. Also, after you find a contact that way, you click on it and it won't dial directly. You still have to select what to do.. not that fast ...
I'm not an American/Englishman and nor my contacts are , so speaking names is useless. Last try was: "Alex Axon" and the phone undesrtood "alex sucks own" .. you got the idea
Thanks for answering anyway. Are there other methods?

You can install aContacts from the market. It does what you want and very configurable. Unfortunately android stock dialer doesn't support T9.

Thanks.. will try that also. As I mentioned, I already found some replacement for my issue.
The question was: is this normal behavior for the default dialer? Or am I doing something wrong?
It looks plain stupid to open an application (Phone in Nexus case) always on a tab that nobody uses (dialer with this behavior). How many times someone will dial a number directly instead of using a saved contact?!? At least the application should remember the last tabs it was in: Favorites, Call Log or Contacts... Dialer is plain useless most of the time with this implementation

alithenake said:
Thanks.. will try that also. As I mentioned, I already found some replacement for my issue.
The question was: is this normal behavior for the default dialer? Or am I doing something wrong?
It looks plain stupid to open an application (Phone in Nexus case) always on a tab that nobody uses (dialer with this behavior). How many times someone will dial a number directly instead of using a saved contact?!? At least the application should remember the last tabs it was in: Favorites, Call Log or Contacts... Dialer is plain useless most of the time with this implementation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is how mine reacts as well. There's another "application" called "Contacts" in my tray (it also started out on my desktop but I've removed it) which takes you to the same four-tab screen but starts on the "Contacts" tab. This sounds like it would be perfect for you if you used it instead of "Phone."

I also really miss the smart dailer (I think that's what they called it) on the Windows Mobile phones. I'm amazed that it wasn't implemented in one way or another in the stock dialer since it's been in the WinMo phones since forever.
I remember trying out some apps in the market that emulated the smart dialer. On is called SuperDial and the other was Star Contact. Both looked too ugly for me to use, though.

alithenake said:
On Nexus One, I select "phone" shortcut on my homescreen and I get the dialer. But if you push buttons on that keyboard, you only get to dial that number (no contacts lookout, matching what you have pressed). So you have to go to Contacts or Favorites to select someone you want to call (too many operations to not get annoyed )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also wanted to point out that at this screen, you can long press "Menu" to bring up the soft kb, which you can begin typing contacts with.

kozm0naut said:
I also wanted to point out that at this screen, you can long press "Menu" to bring up the soft kb, which you can begin typing contacts with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's something cool I never tried, but OP wants to dial immediately after tapping on the contact's name. Doing it this way would be the same as hitting the magnifying glass while in the dailer/contacts app, which brings you to the contacts page where you'd have to then tap on the number you wish to dial. On Windows Mobile, after you T9 the contacts name into the dialer, you can select them and it'll automatically dial the contacts default number, which was very useful.

if you say "call" before the contact's name when using voice input, it will default to dialing them.

aContacts actually do the job really, but really well. It replaced my Phone application from this moment on.
SuperDial was good also, but ugly looking.

kozm0naut said:
if you type or say "call" before the contact's name, it will default to dialing them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where do you type "call"? OP can't use voice dial because he's not from an English speaking country.

you type call on the keyboard as far as I understood, just before entering contact name.. but the process is long in my opinion...
I'm a bit lazy myself
EDIT: tried to enter contact using keyboard on Dialer.. and nothing happens, contact is not found, and dialer just starts dialing the corresponding key number

alithenake said:
you type call on the keyboard as far as I understood, just before entering contact name.. but the process is long in my opinion...
I'm a bit lazy myself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't do anything... I type "call John" in the search box and my contacts don't come up.

Yeah, I edited my original post. I only had the misinfo in there for about 30 sec. Jeeze, you guys are fast

ICE Contacts

I've looked around in the forums, and haven't found a good discussion about this for the Epic.
On many phones, there are In Case of Emergency (ICE) numbers that can be defined. These numbers are helpful in many situations, such as medical (idea from here) or even if the phone was lost/found.
This brings me to two streams of thought:
1) Is there a setting in the contacts list to set a number as a ICE? If not, is there a way to differentiate the numbers to be this status? I've spent some time looking, and did not find anything in particular. For now, I have to have a contact called "911/ICE" (so it's first in the list) with numbers listed from there.
2) Given that #1 works, can the "Emergency Call" on the lockscreen be modified to show these contacts?

I don't think that the Android contact list has any such "checkboxes" for something like that.
I use ICE from the market and then place a widget on my home screen. If you use a lockscreen like Widget Locker then it could be put on your lock screen as well.