#vgmms

vgtk-based SMS+MMS client

#motivation

The existing messaging stacks for linux are lacking in support for MMS, from unimplemented features to antiquated frameworks.

vgmms exists to do only SMS+MMS and to have feature parity with messaging clients for Android and iOS.

#status

• sending/receiving MMS and SMS works
  • both group chats and media attachments work
• logs are persisted to disk (in $XDG_DATA_HOME/vgmms/vgmms.db)
• supports both oFono and ModemManager, and upstream MMSd (with oFono) as well as mmsd-tng (with either modem daemon)
• lots of work to do still (see below)
• contributions welcome!

#installation

1. install a modem daemon and MMS daemon
   • option 1 (preferred): ModemManager and mmsd-tng
     • install ModemManager with as many as possible of the patches available from Manjaro-ARM; on Manjaro this is the modemmanager-pp package.
     • install mmsd-tng from git
       • set AutoProcessSMSWAP=true and configure your MMSC and APN in .mms/modemmanager/mms.
   • option 2 (legacy): oFono and MMSd
     • your best bet with this stack is to use the following patched versions:
       • patched ofono fixes dual-stack IPv6 connectivity (needed for MMS at least with T-Mobile)
       • patched MMSd fixes MMS parsing. whether you need this depends on your network's MMS implementation (again, at least T-Mobile seems to need this)
     • alternatively, install them from upstream or your package manager and please report if SMS and MMS work!
       • upstream ofono
       • upstream MMSd
2. make sure you have a Rust compilation toolchain, e.g. pacman -S rust or curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
3. download the source: git clone https://git.sr.ht/~anteater/vgmms
4. cd vgmms
5. cargo build --release
   • the gtk and lalrpop crates take a lot of RAM to build. if you run out of RAM on a PinePhone or other RAM-limited system, try the following:
     • enable zram and/or swap
     • pass -j 1 to cargo build

#running

1. run modemmanager or ofonod as root and mmsd-tng or mmsd (as your user). be able to watch their logs for error messages (e.g. run with -n -d).
2. while the services are running, run vgmms
3. if you have trouble (or don't), please submit a bug (or success) report!

#DBus interface

vgmms exposes a GtkAction DBus interface, which can communicate with a running instance:

• list available operations

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.List
  

• send a message

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.Activate \
  send-message '[<(["12345"], "hi friend", @aay [])>]' []
  

• send a message (to a group chat, with attachments)

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.Activate \
  send-message '[<(["12345", "54321"], "hi everyone", @aay [b"/tmp/horse.png", b"/tmp/info.pdf"])>]' []
  

• open the new tab dialog

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.Activate new-tab [] []
  

• open a chat with a given list of numbers

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.Activate open-chat '[<(["12345", "54321"],)>]' []
  

• close the current tab

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.Activate close-tab [] []
  

• exit vgmms

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.Activate exit [] []
  

• save an attachment given its (vgmms internal) id

  $ gdbus call -e -d org.vgmms -o /org/vgmms -m org.gtk.Actions.Activate save-attachment-dialog '[<uint64 1>]' []
  

#known bugs

• lots, since things are still in-development
• see the bug tracker