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How to send text messages to my phone with VFP 3
- Thread starter dkean4
- Start date
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Yo can't do this using native VFP. You will need to sign up to a gateway or an API - which will usually involve some cost. You will probably also have to purchase a dedicated phone number to use for the service (for the outgoing SMS, not for the phone that receives the messages).
There are several providers and gateways offering this service. I am not able to recommend any one in particular, but here is an uo-to-date list with some reviews and tutorials: List of Top SMS APIs to Send Text Messages.
Once you are up and running with this, you should be able to send messages to any phone, anywhere in the world. However, there might be some restrictions on the countries from which you can send the messages.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
There are several providers and gateways offering this service. I am not able to recommend any one in particular, but here is an uo-to-date list with some reviews and tutorials: List of Top SMS APIs to Send Text Messages.
Once you are up and running with this, you should be able to send messages to any phone, anywhere in the world. However, there might be some restrictions on the countries from which you can send the messages.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
Chilkat has sample code for using Twilio.
Need to purchase Chilkat and sign up with Twilio.
I have not tried it.
Bill Chambers
Chambers & Associates
Need to purchase Chilkat and sign up with Twilio.
I have not tried it.
Bill Chambers
Chambers & Associates
Mike Gagnon
Programmer
You can use Outlook to send an sms message (sorry to disagree with you Mike)
If you know the provider you can send an e-mail for example phone number of the cell phone you want to reach and the provider's extension like 5553331212@fido.ca and if the recipient's phone allows this type of message it will reach the recipient.
Each phone owners the provider creates an email address with the phone number as the first part of the address.
The link above shows you how to use most of Microsoft office's products to send emails or SMS messages.
Of course you would need to automate Outlook to make this work the way you want.
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
If you know the provider you can send an e-mail for example phone number of the cell phone you want to reach and the provider's extension like 5553331212@fido.ca and if the recipient's phone allows this type of message it will reach the recipient.
Each phone owners the provider creates an email address with the phone number as the first part of the address.
The link above shows you how to use most of Microsoft office's products to send emails or SMS messages.
Of course you would need to automate Outlook to make this work the way you want.
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
Mike Lewis
Programmer
On the contrary, Mike, I'm delighted to learn something new.
In your Atoutfox article, you said, « Il s'agit seulement de connaitre le fournisseur du téléphone mobile que vous voulez rejoindre. » I assume that's what you place after the @ in the email address? So, in your example, fido is the name of your provider (located in Canada, of course)?
But how would you know what to place after the @ for any other provider?
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
Mike Gagnon
Programmer
Mike
I did a search on 'rogers email extension' for example (my provider) it returns me this
'Your email address will be your 10-digit Rogers wireless phone number followed by @pcs.rogers.com. Example: [area code and phone number]@pcs.rogers.com " most provider will give you this information
They are not all the same format as you can see.
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
I did a search on 'rogers email extension' for example (my provider) it returns me this
'Your email address will be your 10-digit Rogers wireless phone number followed by @pcs.rogers.com. Example: [area code and phone number]@pcs.rogers.com " most provider will give you this information
They are not all the same format as you can see.
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Thanks, Mike. I tried your suggestion, only to find several sources stating that my provider (which is called Three) doesn't provide this facility and probably never will, although most other UK providers do.
I'm not bothered. I just wanted to try it out, more out of curiosity.
I did, however find this:
List Of Email-To-SMS Addresses
which seems to be what Dennis will need.
In fact - as you mentioned in your article - you don't have to use Outlook Automation to send the message. Any method of automatically sending email should work, even something as simple as ShellExecute() a mailto: link. Contrary to my first post, above, it should be fairly easy.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
I'm not bothered. I just wanted to try it out, more out of curiosity.
I did, however find this:
List Of Email-To-SMS Addresses
which seems to be what Dennis will need.
In fact - as you mentioned in your article - you don't have to use Outlook Automation to send the message. Any method of automatically sending email should work, even something as simple as ShellExecute() a mailto: link. Contrary to my first post, above, it should be fairly easy.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
Mike Gagnon
Programmer
There is also Blat, CDOSYS etc.
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
- Thread starter
- #9
Hi, again guys. I tried many things from your suggestions.
I took Mike Gagnon's suggestion
&& Solution #1 Avec Microsoft Word
&& Deux lignes de code !
o = CREATEOBJECT('word.application')
o.Documents.Add("Normal",.f.,1)
o.visible = .T.
Alors, ca ne marche pas Monsieur... I speak French, Mike...![[peace]](/data/assets/smilies/peace.gif "[peace] [peace]")
That did not do much for me, although I liked that idea before trying anything else.
So I added another line and the new Doc came up, inside of MS WORD. I was not able to weed out a complementary line of code for that, other than perhaps insert _cliptext into the New doc.
Next, I tried this and I was excited, for a while. This invokes OUTLOOK and I tried to install a Google account into it, but for some reason it simply will not work with IMAP in google, even though Google says that it will install easily...
DECLARE INTEGER ShellExecute IN shell32.dll ;
INTEGER hndWin, STRING cAction, STRING cFileName, ;
STRING cParams, STRING cDir, INTEGER nShowWin
lcMail = "mailto:zzzzzz@gmail.com"+ ;
"?CC= zzzzzz@gmail.com&Subject= Rencontre"+ ;
"&Body= Veuillez me rejoindre pour diner."
ShellExecute(0,"open",lcMail,"","",1)
Everything worked like a charm except setting up a Google account in Outlook.
Finally, I found a way to load Google's Voice feature for Calling phone numbers and Sending Messages. That works great,
But trying to navigate inside of Google Voice is kludgey! Of course, you can send images, videos, smileys, long texts etc... It supports MMS.
However, you have to load the parameters by hand every time you send a message.
- Initiate a new message
- Select user from list
- Enter the message
- Press Send >
But Google says that it will stop message sending this way, soon. In fact, the date they set was August 1 this month... But it is still working. So, that is a bust too... But it is very easy to set the code to access the Google Voice page.
A hearty thanks to all participants. Mike Lewis, Mike Gagnon, and Bilch.
The only thing that has a chance left is Mike Gagnon's code for Word if I could get the rest of the code. Maybe some Macro could be set up or is there code that I did not see in that long list of variant code...???
Dennis Kean
Simplicity is the extreme degree of sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
I took Mike Gagnon's suggestion
&& Solution #1 Avec Microsoft Word
&& Deux lignes de code !
o = CREATEOBJECT('word.application')
o.Documents.Add("Normal",.f.,1)
o.visible = .T.
Alors, ca ne marche pas Monsieur... I speak French, Mike...
That did not do much for me, although I liked that idea before trying anything else.
So I added another line and the new Doc came up, inside of MS WORD. I was not able to weed out a complementary line of code for that, other than perhaps insert _cliptext into the New doc.
Next, I tried this and I was excited, for a while. This invokes OUTLOOK and I tried to install a Google account into it, but for some reason it simply will not work with IMAP in google, even though Google says that it will install easily...
DECLARE INTEGER ShellExecute IN shell32.dll ;
INTEGER hndWin, STRING cAction, STRING cFileName, ;
STRING cParams, STRING cDir, INTEGER nShowWin
lcMail = "mailto:zzzzzz@gmail.com"+ ;
"?CC= zzzzzz@gmail.com&Subject= Rencontre"+ ;
"&Body= Veuillez me rejoindre pour diner."
ShellExecute(0,"open",lcMail,"","",1)
Everything worked like a charm except setting up a Google account in Outlook.
Finally, I found a way to load Google's Voice feature for Calling phone numbers and Sending Messages. That works great,
But trying to navigate inside of Google Voice is kludgey! Of course, you can send images, videos, smileys, long texts etc... It supports MMS.
However, you have to load the parameters by hand every time you send a message.
- Initiate a new message
- Select user from list
- Enter the message
- Press Send >
But Google says that it will stop message sending this way, soon. In fact, the date they set was August 1 this month... But it is still working. So, that is a bust too... But it is very easy to set the code to access the Google Voice page.
Code:
lcURL = "[URL unfurl="true"]https://voice.google.com/u/0/messages?itemId=draft-9F5D1ED8-59BD-4D2A-B0FA-AD073C0DFDB3"[/URL]
ShellExecute(0,'open','chrome.exe',m.lcURL,'',1)A hearty thanks to all participants. Mike Lewis, Mike Gagnon, and Bilch.
The only thing that has a chance left is Mike Gagnon's code for Word if I could get the rest of the code. Maybe some Macro could be set up or is there code that I did not see in that long list of variant code...???
Dennis Kean
Simplicity is the extreme degree of sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Dennis,
Essentially, what Mike G. is saying is that you can use the standard email system to send SMS messages to mobile phones (on most, but not all, networks). You just need to know the email address to send to.
There are many ways of programmatically sending emails from VFP. Using ShellExecute() with a mailto: link is one of them, but it might not be ideal, as basically all it does is to open an email composing window in your default email client. My preference is to use CDO, as described (by Mike G) in faq184-4969. This is independent of the email client and the email provider. There are other methods as well.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
Essentially, what Mike G. is saying is that you can use the standard email system to send SMS messages to mobile phones (on most, but not all, networks). You just need to know the email address to send to.
There are many ways of programmatically sending emails from VFP. Using ShellExecute() with a mailto: link is one of them, but it might not be ideal, as basically all it does is to open an email composing window in your default email client. My preference is to use CDO, as described (by Mike G) in faq184-4969. This is independent of the email client and the email provider. There are other methods as well.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
-
1
- #11
Mike Gagnon
Programmer
Dennis
[pre]o = CREATEOBJECT('word.application')
lodoc=o.Documents.Add("Normal",.f.,1)
lodoc.sendmail()
o.visible = .T.
[/pre]
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
[pre]o = CREATEOBJECT('word.application')
lodoc=o.Documents.Add("Normal",.f.,1)
lodoc.sendmail()
o.visible = .T.
[/pre]
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.
-
1
- #12
This is what I used to send text messages through our outlook server. It worked like a charm.
Code:
lto=[1234567890@vtext.com;1234567890@vtext.com] && USA Verizon text
o=Createobject([outlook.application])
oitem=o.createitem(0)
oitem.subject=[This PO's will need to be looked at]
oitem.Importance=2
oitem.To=lto
oitem.Attachments.Add(lcfile)
TEXT TO lbody NOSHOW
These Po's need to be looked at.
ENDTEXT
oitem.body=lbody+Chr(13)+Chr(10)+Chr(13)+Chr(10)+Sys(16)
oitem.Send
o=.Null.Mike Lewis
Programmer
One point to keep in mind with all these techniques is that you need to know your recipient's phone provider. That's not the sort of information that would normally be collected from a client, employee, etc.
I assume that the sort of gateway that I mentioned at the start of this thread is intended to overcome that problem.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
I assume that the sort of gateway that I mentioned at the start of this thread is intended to overcome that problem.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
I would agree with you Mike. The only people receiving these texts were my boss and I.
We did use this site to figure out the address would be to send the texts. Hopefully this helps with the carrier concern.
We did use this site to figure out the address would be to send the texts. Hopefully this helps with the carrier concern.
- Thread starter
- #15
Mike Lewis
Do I need to contact my phone telephone service supplier? Or is there a list of their URL somewhere on the WEB? The list you supplied does not have Consumer Cellular...
Dennis Kean
Simplicity is the extreme degree of sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
Do I need to contact my phone telephone service supplier? Or is there a list of their URL somewhere on the WEB? The list you supplied does not have Consumer Cellular...
Dennis Kean
Simplicity is the extreme degree of sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
-
1
- #16
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Dennis,
If you can't find the address anywhere by searching for it, then maybe contacting your provider will be the best bet. But there is no guarantee that they provide this service. My own provider doesn't.
I appreaciate that for now you just want to try sending a message to your own phone. But keep in mind that, if you are sending messages more generally, you will need to know the addresses of all your recipients' providers, which might be a tall order.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
If you can't find the address anywhere by searching for it, then maybe contacting your provider will be the best bet. But there is no guarantee that they provide this service. My own provider doesn't.
I appreaciate that for now you just want to try sending a message to your own phone. But keep in mind that, if you are sending messages more generally, you will need to know the addresses of all your recipients' providers, which might be a tall order.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
- Thread starter
- #17
Mike Lewis,
I appreciate your thoroughness immensely, Mike. You guys are a veritable asset when I need help. The purpose of trying to implement this is to be able to convey alarm messages from my home alarm and controllers so I can know what is taking place when I am away. This way I can send back commands to override automation which is already working on a bunch of processes, like watering different parts of my garden, sending soil humidity feedback, etc...
So, I am not trying to send messages to a bunch of other folks. Once I get Consumer Cellular's address it will be great...
Really appreciate your advice...
Regards,
Dennis Kean
Simplicity is the extreme degree of sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
I appreciate your thoroughness immensely, Mike. You guys are a veritable asset when I need help. The purpose of trying to implement this is to be able to convey alarm messages from my home alarm and controllers so I can know what is taking place when I am away. This way I can send back commands to override automation which is already working on a bunch of processes, like watering different parts of my garden, sending soil humidity feedback, etc...
So, I am not trying to send messages to a bunch of other folks. Once I get Consumer Cellular's address it will be great...
Really appreciate your advice...
Regards,
Dennis Kean
Simplicity is the extreme degree of sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Glqd to have been able to help, Dennis. It sounds like an interesting project.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
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