Embedding Links in SMS?

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John Puopolo - 19 Aug 2004 19:22 GMT

All:

I've seen SMS message (text messages) containing phone numbers and
URLs. Sometimes, these phone numbers and URLs are "active" - meaning
that the mobile user select/click/activate them and dial (in the case
of a phone #) or surf (in the case of a Web URL).

Is this a function of SMS, the particualr SMS reader or something
else? We would like to do this in an application we are writing, but
it is unclear how to proceed. Any ideas out there?

Thanks,
John

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John Henderson - 19 Aug 2004 21:49 GMT

> I've seen SMS message (text messages) containing phone numbers
> and URLs. Sometimes, these phone numbers and URLs are
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> are writing, but it is unclear how to proceed. Any ideas out
> there?

In all cases I've seen, it's been the handset displaying the SMS
that's recognised a potential number or link that's been just a
part of a plain text message. Nor do I recall reading anything
in GSM 03.40 or 23.040 which might single out some text as
"active" in the way you mention. An EMS message (GSM 23.040)
might specify some text as having special video attributes
(bold, underlined, etc) for display purposes however.

John

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John Henderson - 19 Aug 2004 22:26 GMT

Earlier, I wrote:

> Nor do I recall reading anything in GSM 03.40 or 23.040 which
> might single out some text as "active" in the way you mention.

You might want to do a google search for "User Prompt
Indicator". I'm not sure at this stage, but this EMS feature
might hold some potential for you.

John

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michael turner - 19 Aug 2004 22:35 GMT

> All:
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> Is this a function of SMS, the particualr SMS reader or something
> else?

It's a function of the SMS reader, rather than any special SMS
formatting. Most phones I've seen support this.

> We would like to do this in an application we are writing, but
> it is unclear how to proceed. Any ideas out there?

Quite easily. A phone number is well just a string of numbers e.g.
'0123456789' or may have a plus '+' in front of it for international
numbers e.g. '+44123456789', which is not too difficult for the phone's
SMS reader to read and extract as a phone number.

Similarly with URLs, they usually begin with 'http://' or 'www.', this
is what most newsreaders use to detect a URL.

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Michael Turner
Email (ROT13)
zvxr.gheare1963@ivetva.arg

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