Loosing character count when entereing sms message

[Béèm]

When I enter accented characters like ô the indication of characters left go from 159 to 68 (ô being the first being entered)

If I enter more of such characters I rapidly am in the second or third sms part. I didn't dare to send such messages as I don't know how many characters are being sent.

In other words, is only the characters left indication wrong or is the sms really that long.

I never reported it before, but it is already quite some time I have this issue.

[FJ]

Its not a bug - the phone does it in the same way.
SMS-Messages are normally sent in the GSM-Charset. If you type chars which cannot be encoded in the GSM-Charset then MyPhoneExplorer converts the message to UCS2 (similar unicode).

[Khosrow]

The maximum character as 1 sms for UCS2 is 70 instead of 160 because of compiling the special characters.

Dear FJ,
Is it possible to switch from UCS2 to UTF-16 or UTF-8 ? They are more strong and if so then we are supported for more languages like Persian and Urdu and some of south Asian languages.

Regards,
Khosrow

[FJ]

UTF-8 and UTF-16 are no valid formats for SMS

[Khosrow]

Thanks,
But is there any way to write Persian sms by UCS-2 in winXP or Vista.
This coding is not available in encoding list.
We usualy use UTF-8 or "Arabic (Windows)" or "codepage 1256"

[FJ]

UCS-2 is a GSM-Charset. It does not have to do with the windows charsets. In UCS-2 every char needs 16 bit so you have a chartable about 65.000 chars. MPE should detect if there is a UCS2 char in it automatically. Why it does not work in persian ?

[Khosrow]

Thanks Franz,
I changed the "Language for non-Unicode programs" from English US to Persian and now it works.

Hope you get well soon and get rid of illness.

Regards,
Khosrow

[Béèm]

Its not a bug - the phone does it in the same way.
SMS-Messages are normally sent in the GSM-Charset. If you type chars which cannot be encoded in the GSM-Charset then MyPhoneExplorer converts the message to UCS2 (similar unicode).

I am still puzzled at what will happen.

If I type such an sms with a couple of those characters and MPE is indicating I am at sms 4, while in reality I only have typed 100 real characters, how many sms's go out, or in other words for how many sms's do I pay?

[FJ]

Unicode = 70 chars per SMS and GSM-Charset = 160 chars per SMS.
If you have 100 characters and MPE shows SMS 4 then something is going wrong. Can you please post an example-text so i can reproduce it ?

[Béèm]

I did a more thorough count and took the character ê.
When at 135 MPE shows 0 chars left in sms 2 (I saw indeed the indication UCS2) and as soon as the 136th is typed I get sms 3 66 characters left in message.

This is what I typed

Code: Alles auswählen

êêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêê

I took a screen shot, but realize I can't upload a picture directly.
I am used to forums with this facility, so I have to find a way to make the picture available here.
I'll come back for this.

Thanks for the attention.

EDIT
Here goes.
First time I use tiny pics.
Hope it is as it should be.

[Béèm]

Is this enough information to see what happens?

[FJ]

Sorry for the delay. I just had to veryfy it on my PC. there are two charsetmodes or SMS.
- The GSM-Charset: 7 bit, 127 diffrent chars, 160 chars per message
- UCS2 (Unicode): 16 bit, 65000 diffrent chars, 70 chars per message

If MyPhoneExplorer detects a char which cannot be represented in the GSM-Charset the the message gets converted into unicode.

If you send a "long message" then there are a few bytes which are used as flags for the targetdevice.

So its not a bug - its a feature, the phone itself does it also in this way.

If you have 100 characters and MPE shows SMS 4 then something is going wrong.

You have 135 chars and MPE changes to SMS 3 - thats normal in UCS-Mode

[Béèm]

I have been away for quite some time and without internet connection.
Thanks for the explanation.