How do you automate with Tasker?

I figured there are a few Android users here and Tasker has come up a few times... How do you use it and automate your cell?
For those of you who don know
Tasker is an application for Android which performs Tasks (sets of Actions) based on Contexts (application, time, date, location, event, gesture) in user-defined Profiles, or in clickable or timer home screen widgets.

This may spur a few more users or more thoughts on application useage.


I do the following

• control wifi ON/OFF
• control GPS ON/OFF
• Turn Airplane Mode while at work or my battery dies in a few hours
• start a few applications depending on gps location
• control volume at night

Turns on BT when docked. (turns off when undocked)
If car dock, it auto replies to sms messages saying I an driving and will reply when I can, also reads the sms to me.
If home docked it turns off sound (only home docked when I go to bed)
It replies to sms from 11pm to 6am saying I am sleeping.

Possibilites are pretty unlimited.

• Announce SMS notifications (TTS) if they are from important people (mostly use it for system alerts)
• Adjust various options when battery is low
• Adjust ring volume based on time of the day
• Show important e-mails/messages on screen, even when locked/turned off
• Turn sync off at night
• Pop up menu asking me what software I want to run when I plug in my headphones
• Turn Wi-Fi on if I am at home/work, based on GPS and Tower location

Do have a few more things to add once I have more time, but it definitely is a must-have tool.

• Turn on Wi-Fi when I'm at home based on Tower triangulation (no GPS used). Turn off when leaving area or docked in cardock.
• Turn media volume down to almost nothing when playing certain games (where music is just in the background and annoying). Then turn media volume back to normal when exiting out of the game
• Automatically start Pandora when it is in the car dock AND I plug in headphones (don't have equipment to connect via bluetooth).
• Automatically start GPS when cardocked and turn off when removed

I've just purchased the program a couple of days ago, but it is certainly worth the money.

• Pop-up Menu for Squeezebox Radio Stations when I arrive home (menu also in notification bar while at home)
• Silent mode while at home and sleeping
• Vibrate mode while at work
• Pop-up Menu for Slacker Radio, MortPlayer (audiobook app), and GMaps when I get in car (menu also in notification bar while in car)
• GPS off unless in car or using GPS-enabled app
• Read incoming SMS out loud while in car

I'm loving Tasker!

Here is the path I followed with tasker to automate my Android tablet to run CQC on by automatically launching an RDP client,

Buy tablet on Woot
Research RDP clients for android and automation solutions
Download every RDP app out there and tasker
Select the only two RDP clients that work, buy them and tasker.
Try to configure Tasker to launch them at startup
Find out that apps have to have some special hooks to launch an RDP session at startup
Write authors of RDP apps for info on those hooks
Post on tasker forum to find out how to automate using those hooks
Get cryptic and unworkable responses from author
Download android SDK and reverse compile the RDP apps to try and figure out what is going on
Put away tablet for a few months
Come back to it to find all of my tasker tasks stopped working for some reason...

Start looking for an IPad on EBay...

llama is an alternative to tasker and free http://goo.gl/gK2bl - looks good so far. also check out android scripting http://goo.gl/qpCjI for the more hardcore user

Looks like a very interesting alternative, thanks!

android-scripting (aka sl4a) with llama is very cool. i just installed python for android (available from the android scripting link above) and set up an event in llama to execute one of the sample python scripts to TTS the time. sl4a api http://goo.gl/mZYyK

Has anyone been successful at setting up actions to occur based on the light sensor?
I have not been able to get actions to be triggered when the room gets dark.

The light sensor on many models is flaky to begin with, so I would be surprised if you could get this working reliably.

Strange. You would think that it would be fine on a Sumsung Galaxy II S.

Anyone do anything else with Tasker?
 
How long did it take to learn, BTW? I bought it, but man this thing is hard to understand.

I believe there is a Wiki where you can copy code snippets.

IVB said:

Anyone do anything else with Tasker?
 
How long did it take to learn, BTW? I bought it, but man this thing is hard to understand.

Click to expand...

There is a learning curve for sure but once you learn his terminology it kinda comes together.
What would you like it to do? Probably easier to help you if we start there.