SMS Enabled Elgg

I am looking into sms-enabling Elgg sites..

This will address

  • SMS messaging out from Elgg
  • Elgg message receiving ( involves setting up an SMS server -- more code work)

Marcus Povey has already described Elgg's ability to do this.. but I do not intend to "compete" with CurveRider's services.

When I am finished the SMS PlugIn will be available for free to non-profit Elgg-sites.

  • Messaging out is easy, most providers have email gateways. I have a php script for sending SMS messages via about 80+ providers. Hooking it into Elgg as a notification method would be pretty simple.

    Inbound SMS is another story.

  • And for some of you in the UK....

    uk T-Mobile 0n@t-mobile.uk.net (Mobile owner had to dial 191 for info & Activate via website).
  • You want a list of providers, email domains, required prefixes and activation requirements?

    http://www.mutube.com/downloads/mobile-networks.ini

  • re: InBound -- so correct... ;-)

    re: that ini file, got it (last year), just not enuff tyme to code ;-( I've also got numerous other lists which will need collating into that ini format to make those usable.. pity there's not enuff real interest for people to offer their to cap off my 16 hours / day ;-) If you read from the beginning - you will see that many have wanted SMS in/out, but very few will actually want to fund any developers' time or offer contribute much effort to help with their time ;-( InBound can be handled my using a mail proc daemon as I mentioned much earlier.

  • I heard it was made for elgg 1.5. We just need to port that to 1.7 which I don't know how hard that would be.

  • LOLZ ;-)

    ***Nobody has released **any SMS enabling code nor PlugIns for freebies so far..;- ( you musta heard heard wrong.

  • Lol. Must have. So we would need a module in probably under the users setting to add in that number, but then the coding would need to know which service it sent to and wouldn't the site need it's own number like facebook so the user could text back with like status messages which then creates a whole other problem.

  • ( This is reprinted from my earlier comments far, far above... wish people were to read more details before commenting on some localized details.. )

    Sending a message out to a mobile phone is not too much effort. I coded the basics for this years ago and played around having fun sending SMS to my friends from mickeymouse@disney.com, etc.. Also had hooked up SMS targetting IBM mainframe JOBs which would send SMS ( via email ) to a support programmer for after-hours abend fixes.

    ...

    The ability for Elgg to receive SMS is the meaner trick.

    As Marcus points out SMS - this can be achieved by using commercial SMS Gateways-- at a $price. I have found some SMS Server Open Source pkgs that pupport to handle both out & in.. just haven't got around to studying this thoroughly.

    Another way to handle incoming "SMS" would be send email from a mobile phone to e.g. ElggBot@MySite.Com -- where "ElggBot" emails are forwared a mail daemon/handler (ProcMail!!) which takes the message and redirects it for processing thru a shell script which invokes an elgg api php cli script --> to post the reply back to the Elgg Wire, Groups, Pages and so on...

     

     

  • @Dhrup

    Yep. Played with it myself, but had problems with my mail server rejecting incoming text replies. Haven't figured it out yet. The server says it isn't finding the mail account, but it is a working mail account on that server. One of these days I'll have a bit of extra time to sort out what the issue is.

    On the open source SMS Gateway servers, while I haven't looked into them seriously, my bet is you will still have to pay fees to the mobile carriers, though likely at a much lower per message cost (though the minimum buy might be much higher). Those servers tend to work directly with the mobile carrier's systems. Then again, I could be dead wrong... :)

     

  • I just checked the ProcMail man -- " You could forward your mail through any arbitrary program with a .forward that consisted of a line like: "|$HOME/bin/your.program -and some arguments" Note the quotes and the "pipe" character. They are required. "Your.program" could be a Bourne shell script,...

    That is the tech reference I was making.. ProcMail and .forwards should work. I wonder what kinda server you've got ? that might be a possible cause of problem. My ex-shared-$8/mnth Host even had mail processing facilities available thru the CPanel..;-) sad but on the new Host, I am the solo sysadmin and so gotta code all that stuff myself.. oh for more than 24x7 time avail ;-D