It's often said that morse code revolutionized long-distance communication, if that's the case then was there any form of long-distance communication before morse code?
It wasn't Morse code as such that revolutionised long-distance communication - it was the electric telegraph. Without the electric telegraph, Morse code would have been a curiosity waiting for the heliograph or signal lamps (both of which typically use Morse code, communicated via flashes of light - sunlight reflected from a mirror in the case of the heliograph, and a shuttered lamp for the latter).
There were electric telegraph systems before and after Morse's, and they needed encoding systems in order transmit text. Some of them used mechanical dials to indicate a letter (Ronalds's system of 1816, and Wheatstone's "A.B.C. System" of 1840), or a sequence of needles (Baron Schilling von Canstatt's system of 1832 and Cooke and Wheatstone's system of 1837). Gauss and Weber developed a telegraph in 1833 and later developed a binary code of positive and negative pulses to encode text.
Thus, there were alternatives to Morse code as an encoding system. However, Morse's system was simple, and simple is often a great virtue. In a little over a decade after it's invention, Morse's system (telegraph and code, with suitable changes to the code for international use) was adopted as an international standard for electic telegraphy.
There were earlier systems. The highest-tech system in operation was the French semaphore network, using chains of signal towers to send information, the information being encoding in the position of two arms. The speed of semaphore systems was limited by the time needed to move the arms into position, and the time needed for the operators of the next tower to pass the signal down the chain. With towers about 10km apart, a signal could be sent at about 2 letters per minute, with the signal travelling down the chain at about 100km/minute. Needing relay towers every 10km meant that the system was expensive to build and operate, and the slow data rate restricted how much information could be sent. The French semaphore system started being built at the end of the 18th century (i.e., before the electric telegraph) and operated until the 1850s.
One disadvantage of semaphore is that bad weather would stop the system from working - if one tower couldn't see the next, so signal could be sent.
There were predecessors - earlier optical communication systems. Chains of beacon fires allowed a message to be transmitted. A major limitation of this kind of system was that complex encoding was very difficult, and they were typically used to send a predetermined signal (i.e., something like "event such-and-such has happened here"). Smoke signals provided an alternative to beacon fires.
Another older communication system is the talking drums of West Africa. The key to a talking drum is the ability to encode speech (thus, "talking drum"). They take advantage of the tonal languages of the region, and employ different tones to imitate the tone and rhythm of speech. Of course, there are many words that if reduced to simply tone and rhythm would sound the same, so single words are ambiguous. Thus, words are expanded to standard phrases using them, and short phrases are expanded to sentences. This allows the senders and listeners to disambiguate such soundalikes. The drummer and the listener both need to (a) know the language, and (b) know the standard phrases and sentences used to reduce ambiguity.
The compact version uses a single drum with variable tension of the drumskins. The variable tension is achieved by using a waisted body with cords connecting the front and back drumskins:
The drummer can hold the drum under their arm, and tighten the cords by squeezing the drum between arm and body, and thus lift the pitch. This kind of drum in action:
This kind of small drum isn't useful for long distance communication, but is used for short distance communication and musical performance. A larger system can use two drums for the tonal variation, one high-pitched and the other lower:
Some drum systems like this were quite large, with the drums about 3m long and over 1m across (these really large ones are usually wooden slit drums); drums like this were said to able to send messages about 30km. Messages are relayed if they must be sent further.
Finally, there are intermediate-range communications, not achieving the 10-30km of semaphore and large talking drums, but still managing a kilometre or few: yodelling and whistling languages.
For some further reading, mostly on talking drums but also noting whistling and yodelling languages in West Africa:
