Signal-android: Sending regular SMS to a Signal user

[davux]

I have:

• [x] searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• [x] read https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/wiki/Submitting-useful-bug-reports

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Bug description

I can't send a regular SMS to a contact with whom I normally use Signal. This is sometimes necessary if a contact exhausted their data plan for example.

The only workaround I've found is to make the regular SMS app the default app, send the message, then set the default back to Signal.

Steps to reproduce

• Make sure Signal is the default app for SMS
• Look up the contact in the address book
• Click in the message icon next to the number
• Compose a message

Actual result: Message is sent through the Signal protocok, and there is no way to change that behaviour. The contact doesn't get it if they don't have an internet connection on their device
Expected result: There would be a way to switch temporarily to regular messages for the contact. Not sure of the exact optimal behaviour in terms of UX, but it should be technically possible to send an SMS.

[mateoeh]

Long-press the send button and you can choose to send SMS messages

[davux]

Thanks for the tip, @mateoeh! Very useful when you know it.

I think of it as an easter egg, though. One of the reasons is that the send button doesn't appear until you entered some content in the "Send Signal message" box (which is what you don't want to do), so I didn't even reach the step of having the button visible. And if I had, I'm fairly confident that it would never have occurred to me to try long-pressing on it.

I realise the use case is not the general use case, but it is not extremely improbable either. The feature is so well hidden to most users that it's nearly the same as missing.

[2-4601]

You can also long-press the attachment button and it does the same thing.
And yes, switching to SMS is not the general use case :)

[davux]

The discussion is not about having to enter a text, but about the feature being impossible to discover. As a user, I would say the attachment button is even less intuitive than the send button to change the type of message. Wouldn't you?

As for the use case of sending an SMS, it is in fact the general use case as long as Signal will offer to act as the system's SMS app.

Please reopen. I'm fine with re-labelling the issue "Message type selection is hard to discover" or something along those lines.

[davux]

Also, I realise that in Western Europe and in the US many people have illimited data plans, but in poorer countries such as Peru for example (where I live), it's very common to run out of megas, and then you inevitably have to fall back to regular SMS. Please don't assume your normal user is wealthy.

Maybe an idea would be to detect whether there's an internet connection available as the time of composing the message and do something clever? (e.g. changing the default, a dialog... not sure).

[FeuRenard]

2285 also adresses the button. When it will be implemented, there could be an entry in the recipient preferences to activate SMS transport. That would improve discoverability.

[davux]

I agree, #2285 will most probably improve the UI. I'm fine with leaving this closed. Thanks @FeuRenard!