Stock SMS versus Third Party On The Charge

[Stuball76]

I was wondering if anyone else out there is not pleased with the integration of the stock text service on the Charge.  I would have loved to be able to integrate things into that area that I wanted or perhaps change the file association with the text message to handle another application.

I much prefer the use of Handcent SMS over the stock one.  I figured this out when I apparently went over the text character limit for a message I sent.  On all phones I have had it either listed it as multiple messages or just one full message.  The stock one, if I wanted to read it again, I actually have to click it for the whole message to be brought up in a different screen.

Anyone know a way of customizing that icon to associate with another file or do I have to basically just ignore it and use the third party one?

Also, would the stock app settings, such as deleting messages, message limits, etc... affect a third party texting application once I have the notification portion turned off on the stock one?

[NoqturnalX]

I personally use GOSMS and one of my friends use handcent.

To the best of my knowledge all SMS messages are kept in a database within the Android OS. I believe it's a SQLite DB. So regardless of the app you choose to use the app will interact with your texts in that database. This being said it's perfectly safe & recommended to turn off the notifications in the standard stock SMS app. That way you don't receive double notifications. 

Now if you want to use Handcent or whatever third party SMS app you prefer as your default texting application, simply go into your settings -> Applications -> Manage applications and find the messaging app in the application list. In this case I believe what your looking for is simply "Messaging" You will have to click the "All" tab on the top to be able to see this because it's obviously not going to show up in "Third Party". It may or may not be in "Running" but to be safe just go look in "All" Once you've found this select it and in the settings screen click the button that say's "Clear defaults" this will clear the default association between your texts and this app. Now when you choose to send or receive text messages say for example by clicking the Send Message button in your contacts it should in theory open a window up that has both Handcent and Messaging in it or whatever third party text apps you have installed. You can then check the "use this as default" box and select the app you want such as Handcent.

Now in the launcher at the bottom you can swap out the messaging icon for the handcent icon that way you have quick access to handcent instead of the default messaging app. You can do this by opening you Applications launcher then once the App list pops up press the menu button and click Edit. This now makes the other 3 icons next to your application launcher button editable and can be dragged and swapped out with any of the icons in the application menu. In my case I swapped out Messaging for the GO SMS app.

Hope this helps