Symbols Message
For Android
Patent Pending
Who is it for?
Anyone who needs a quick way to send a short message. That includes pretty much everyone!
In addition to that, you may find it even more useful if –
· You are busy in a meeting, conference call, watching TV, in a party etc. and looking for the easiest, quickest way in the world to send a message
· You don’t feel like typing on keyboard just for sending a quick message
· You are vision impaired or have troubles typing or reading text
· You have troubles reading or typing in the language of your messaging partner
· You just want to have some fun composing message solely with icons and images!
What is it?
A messaging application allowing the communicating parties to exchange images instead of words – thus avoiding the need for either typing or reading when sending and receiving messages. Here is how you write "coming home in 5 minutes" just by clicking 4 icons:
The images are divided into images families, such as people images, animal images, action images, emotion images etc. allowing you to quickly find and compose the images sequence you want to send.
As well, pre-configured images on the first selection line of the app, each providing a complete one-liner sentence, such as flashing-lights ambulance image standing for “emergency! help!”
For each image you select a text describing the image is added to the text line, which is sent together with your image sequence. You can always edit this text before sending - add, delete or modify it as you please.
How to use it?
Login to the service
Using this app is really easy! If you start it for first time you will need to pick username, and then chose an online parent to talk to. If you are an existing user, chose online partner to begin the session - see below.
For first time users – before you provide valid username, the login button on the top right side of the screen will be red and will say LOGIN. To provide a username, select menu->setup:
Then fill in the desired username and click “try this username”. If it’s available you are good to go, click back and start using the app. If this name is not available, you will be prompted to try another name. Note that you can always chose a different username, if a name is available:
If the username selected is valid click OK, and restart the app. Note that the app will automatically login with the username you selected, and the LOGIN button on the top right of the screen will turn green.
Choose partner
For existing users – just start the app. Click the choose messaging partner button - the question mark button on top, and select from the list of online users. Once selected, you are in session with that user.
Start composing a message, by clicking on one of the images. You can scroll either up/down to find an image family you need - such as people, places, actions etc – or you can scroll left/right within one image family – for example see all available places in the places image set.
Each time you click an image, the image will added to the composed image sequence – that’s the line at the bottom of the screen. Under that line you will see the textual translation line. Note that you can edit both the text line, and the image sequence line. To do that, just click on the line.
Composing and sending a message
To compose a new message just click the images you want to send in the order you like. Each time you click an image it will be added to the bottom line of the screen, to the images sequence line. Below this line the text translation of each image will be added, to the textual translation line. For example -
Now let's say you want to change "breakfast" to "dinner". To do that, just click on the images sequence line -
Then click "Delete" button to remove the last image. You can click "Delete" again until you are done, then click "OK" button, and add the image you want, in this case "dinner" image -
You can also edit the text line - just click on it and add/delete/change as you please -
When you are done composing a message, and you have your partner selected - i.e. the top line shows the partner's name instead of "no active session" - just click on the envelope icon on the top of the screen and the message is sent.
Allow/Deny partner
If the partner is talking with you for the first time via this app, they will get the following message, they will be asked to approve you:
New message arrives
One approved, they will get your message and will be able to reply to you. For example, CookieMonster may say
Reply to message
You can either reply to this partner, which will make him/her your active session, or you can cancel to continue with the current session. The current session goes on between the two partners until you chose a different patrer or exit the app. To reply, just click the reply button, compose a message and click the send icon - that's the envelope button at the top of the screen.
View incoming/outgoing messages
You can also view all the incoming and outgoing messages history. The app will save the messages also when you exit, though you will be able to delete each or all of them if you chose. To see all incoming messages, click menu->setup and then click the "show incoming messages" button:
You can now click any message to see the content:
At this point you can click OK and menu->delete to remove, or click back twice to go back to the main session screen.
Get in touch!
We'd love to hear from you! As we are working on the next stepping stones in this fascinating journey, we are happy to get feedback and incorporate in our next version, help you out with technical issues, or just share experience. Please write us at maildover@gmail.com