TextMagic Messenger

TextMagic Messenger is a new client application program from TextMagic, abbreviated in this article to TMM.

TMM comes in two variants, one for Microsoft Windows operating systems and the other for Mac operating systems. It is designed to replace MagicMessage and has many enhancements, which this article explains. Click here to download the latest version.

NOTE: The rest of this article is written assuming you are using the windows version.

Main features

The main features of TMM are highlighted below:

Sent message folder

All text messages you send are held in a sent message folder along with the delivery status. When you first send a text they will show as "accepted" but when you click on the "check status" button, the latest delivery status will be retrieved for all messages until the status changes either to "delivered" or "failed".

Outbox

When you first send a message they are transferred to the outbox and if you are connected to the TextMagic server, they will be sent immediately, but if you are working off-line or there is a temporary connection problem the message will remain in the outbox to be automatically sent as soon as possible or whenever you are connected again.

Inbox

Any text message replies you receive will be placed in your inbox. To make sure you that you have received all replies press the send/receive button on the menu bar. You can also press the short cut key control + K .

NOTE: Replies will only appear in your inbox if you have set this option for your account.If you want to check this click on "Tools" and select reply options. This will take you to the correct page on the TextMagic website.

Importing contacts

If you have been using our previous product, Magic Message, the first time you run TMM it will automatically find your MagicMessage phonebook, and import all your contacts. Otherwise you can import your contacts from many other places. Click on the import button to run the import wizard and discover the options available.

Sending a text message

To send a text message, either click on "New Message" just above Inbox in the folder view, or alternatively click on "New" in the toolbar.

Selecting a contact

There are several ways to select who you want to send the text to:

Perhaps the quickest way is to start typing the name in the "To:" box. As you type TMM will search your contacts and display all matches. For example if you type the letter "j", it will show you all contacts whose name begins with the letter "j". If the list is long you can type the next character of the name to reduce the size of the list. At any point you can select a contact from the list with down arrow or by clicking with the mouse.

Another way to select a name is to click on the down arrow on the right of the "To:" box. This will show you a list of all your contacts in alphabetic order, again you can select by using the up and down arrow keys plus enter to select or simply by clicking with the mouse.

If you want to send to more than one person, then you should click on the contacts box. This opens up the contacts window allowing you to choose any number of people. You must select the right people then click on the add button which copies them to the right hand pane. You can selectively add and remove until only those people you want appear on the right hand side.

NOTE: It is possible to choose your first contact by any of the above methods. It is also possible to select the first person and then click on the contact button and add further contacts.

You can always double check your selection by clicking on the "show recipients" link which will show you a list of those you have selected.

Sending to a group

To select a group (or groups), you can use any of the ways already described above for selecting a contact (or contacts).

You can type the first few letters of the group name into the "To:" box and the program will display the groups which match. Use down arrow and enter (or tab) or alternatively click with the mouse to select a group.

NOTE: One of the differences between MagicMessage and TMM is that groups are always listed at the start of the list of contacts in the drop down list so that you don't have hunt down the list. Nevertheless there is some merit in making all your group names begin with a special character e.g. $ and in this way only groups will be displayed if this is the first character you type in the "To" box.

If you want to send to more than one group at the same time then click on "Groups" and add those groups you need. It does not matter if the same contact is in both groups, they will be sent only one text.

Another tip, if you want to send to most but not all of the people in a group, you can remove individuals. Having selected the group or groups, you can click on "select recipients" and remove those few not required.