What have YOU done with Tasker?

[beardedholmes]

Hi All,

I am trying to find some other cool uses for Tasker. Has anyone done
anything fun, cool or outrageous with Tasker that I could try?

Obviously there are 'Turn On WiFi at Home' step throughs and the
usual
'Power Saving' tasks but I wanted something new to try...

I currently have the following profiles setup on my HTC Desire:

- Turn on GPS for GPS Apps
(This auto turns on GPS when you open an App that requires it -
i.e.'GoogleMaps' or 'Zombie, Run')

- Music App Popup on Headphone Plugin
(This auto opens my music application when you insert headphones into
the phone)

- Anniversary SMS
(This automatically sends a text message to my girlfriend on our
Anniversary)

- Silent Mode at Work
(This automatically puts my phone on silent when I am within 200
metres of work and turns silent mode off when outside
of work)

- Airplane Mode at Night
(This turns off all mobile data between 23:00 and 7:00 - Saving
battery and keeping my sleep uninterrupted)

- WiFi On at Home
(This turns WiFi on when I am within 50m of home and my router signal
is detected)

- Facedown Powersave
(This auto turns screen brightness down, system volume to silent, wifi
off, bluetooth off and GPS off when I place my
phone face down)

- Low battery Powersave
(This turns off various power munchers when battery is 30% or less
helping it to last longer)

- Weekly Football SMS
(This sends an SMS every sunday to everyone who plays football with
us, checking if they can play that coming week) D


Does anyone have any other USEFUL or INTERESTING uses for Tasker
automation?

[BossMan]

I bet you can't beat this one in terms of usefulness: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tasker/j1sT-9o4w7w/b8pkavJMMBAJ ;-)

BR,

A.

[Calvin Lawrence]

I am completely lost and not sure how to get started... Beginners guide?

Calvin

[V Oz]

hmm what about ...

- run Grocery list app in usual shop

- open map in key points of usual route (if You by car) or points of new route (POI, traveling and so on)

- Notify with special text (context depended) when You are near some point. (Location Notify)

- Say messages or something else when screen is off

- .....

- PROFIT

all above must be power safe (I hope Your profiles are yet?) Power Usage

[beardedholmes]

This is brilliant! If only...

A volume down would work for this too.

[beardedholmes]

Ah yes, another practical, yet time saving use!

> all above must be power safe (I hope Your profiles are yet?) Power Usage<http://tasker.dinglisch.net/userguide/en/power.html>

[Adamx]

- Anniversary SMS
(This automatically sends a text message to my girlfriend on our
Anniversary)

Personally, I'd rather be genuinely forgetful than turn over my heartfelt messages for a computer to do the work. But if you lock Tasker so she can't ever dig into the guts of that profile to see you're not sending the message yourself, you're probably OK ;)

My two most-useful sets of Tasker profiles/tasks right now are: 

- Alarm clock - On all weekdays except those where there's an all-day calendar event called Vacation, Holiday, or Day Off, my phone says "Adam wake up" on a loop, getting louder after a few loops, adding in "It's Wednesday, time to wake up for work" in a nice computery british accent. I can snooze or acknowlege the alarm; if I acknowledge but don't unplug, my phone gives me ten minutes then warns me to wake up. I have a Zoom widget that lets me disable the alarm or add a note to read.

- Driving - If I'm driving at night, dim the display. If I receive a Google Talk, SMS or Google Voice notification, it speaks the message aloud. 

[Adam Lopresto]

In addition to all the standard ones (reading SMS and autoreplying
while driving, media menu, wifi on at work, etc), I've got a few that
I haven't seen others mention:

%LIGHT < 100 (used instead of a the Light Level condition, because on
my phone, that doesn't have enough granularity): display a permanent
notification that, when tapped, turns on TeslaLED. Makes it very easy
to use the phone as a flashlight, but only when it's actually in the
dark.

A whole set of reminder tasks tied to other profiles, so that I can
(from a task shortcut) set a message to be spoken to me the next time
I arrive at work, get near home (just in time to remind me that I need
to go by the grocery store first), leave driving mode (don't forget
the ice cream in the trunk!), etc. Basically, a way to set reminders
for myself that go off exactly when I need to be reminded.

[Max Hodgson]

My torch comes on if I shake my phone. Saves the hassle of entering
the pin(umber).

[cruise]

I'd love to have a look at those reminder tasks - they doing amazingly useful. Here's a few things I've got so far:

I've got a generalised wifi-on, that automatically adds cell-id's while wifi is connected, so "learns" where hotspots are over time.

A set that send a text to my wife when I'm on the train home, telling her when and where to pick me up from, since it varies each day.

A notification each morning, which when clicked says my appointments for that day from google calendar.

A profile turns off mobile connection underground, and provides a notification that can be clicked to turn it back on.

Adam Lopresto <adamlo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>A whole set of reminder tasks tied to other profiles, so that I can
>(from a task shortcut) set a message to be spoken to me the next time
>I arrive at work, get near home (just in time to remind me that I need
>to go by the grocery store first), leave driving mode (don't forget
>the ice cream in the trunk!), etc. Basically, a way to set reminders
>for myself that go off exactly when I need to be reminded.

[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / wytedragon.net / quantum sufficit ]

[TomL]

How are you detecting the underground part? Or are you manually
triggering it?

Tom

On Oct 19, 8:24 pm, cruise <cru...@casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> A profile turns off mobile connection underground, and provides a notification that can be clicked to turn it back on.
>

[cruise]

If %CELLSRV doesn't match "service/emergency"

TomL <toml...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>How are you detecting the underground part? Or are you manually
>triggering it?
>
>Tom

[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / wytedragon.net / quantum sufficit ]

[TomL]

Ah! And I thought you were doing some altitude check, like if below
sea level or something. :)

Tom

On Oct 20, 8:50 am, cruise <cru...@casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> If %CELLSRV doesn't match "service/emergency"
>

[V Oz]

For ex. Moscow lies on 156 m ASL. :)

What about places with weak Cell coverage? High buildings, country area so on.

[Adam Lopresto]

Given the recent addition of parameters to tasks, I'd probably design
it differently now (though I haven't actually looked at the details),
but what I've got is a set of variables,

%Message (the message to remind myself of, when whatever happens later
happens)
%MsgAfternoon (shortly before I usually leave work)
%MsgNearHome (cell near home, which happens to trigger in time to
remind me to go by the grocery store instead of going home on
autopilot)
%MsgLunch (just before lunch)
%MsgMorning (right before leaving for work)
%MsgWork (arriving at work)
%MsgParking (exiting driving mode)
others would be easy

and a couple of tasks.

"Set Reminder" (usually called from a shortcut) first does a Variable
Query to set %Message (defaulting to the current value of %Message, if
I want to reuse that; this is also a convenient way to make the
reminder go off at different times, say both when I park and when I
connect to the wifi network at work), and then runs a menu task "Which
Reminder". "Which Reminder" is a menu task, with the scenarios as
labels ("Home", "Parking", etc) and each having an action to set the
proper variable (%MsgHome, %MsgParking) for when to remind me.

"Say Message" first checks whether %Message is set, and if not, skips
the rest. Then it pauses BeyondPod, does a Say on %Message, and
finally a Notify Vibrate (so I can see the message itself).

Then I added two actions to each of the profiles that I cared about.
So my Driving mode has in its exit task Perform Task "Say Message" if
%MsgParking is defined, then an action to clear %MsgParking
(unconditionally; if it wasn't set before, no harm in clearing it, and
if it was, then the message has been delivered now).

Some of the profiles also use the Astrid plugin to check if I have
todo list items tagged appropriately, but with that I can only get it
to read to me that I have tasks, not what they are.

On Oct 19, 7:24 pm, cruise <cru...@casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> I'd love to have a look at those reminder tasks - they doing amazingly useful. Here's a few things I've got so far:
>
> I've got a generalised wifi-on, that automatically adds cell-id's while wifi is connected, so "learns" where hotspots are over time.
>
> A set that send a text to my wife when I'm on the train home, telling her when and where to pick me up from, since it varies each day.
>
> A notification each morning, which when clicked says my appointments for that day from google calendar.
>
> A profile turns off mobile connection underground, and provides a notification that can be clicked to turn it back on.
>

[tessler]

* Tasker is my alarm clock and talks me awake at different times based on my Google calendar (weekend? special wakeup call set? on vacation?)  If I don't wake up fast enough and coherently enough to pull down the notification bar and tap the alarm to stop it, it gets really obnoxious.

* I have a "Driving mode" icon that I tap whenever I get behind the wheel.  It puts apps I might need to access while in the car in my notification bar for fast access (acar, GasBuddy), sets up an "I'm currently driving" autoreply to any SMS message I receive from friends or family and reads aloud any SMS message I receive, turns off the keyguard/PIN, and starts BeyondPod where I left off.  When I arrive, I stop BeyondPod, pull down the notification bar and tap the "Driving mode" icon to cancel and return my phone to normal operations.

* I have an egg timer set up for me and a separate egg timer for my husband (because he likes runny yolks and I don't even like thinking about that).  It verbally counts down as well as updates the notification bar for how much time is left.

* I have a "Shopping mode" icon that I tap whenever I get to the store.  It changes my display timeout to 10 minutes, puts my Fooducate app in the notification bar, and launches ColorNote so I can open my shopping list(s).  When I'm done shopping, I tap the icon in the notification bar and everything goes back to normal.

* I have a "Meeting mode" and an "Appointment mode" set up that function similarly but look for different calendar entries in different Google calendars.  Display timeout goes to 10 minutes so I can take notes in ColorNote, phone goes into silent mode.  When my meeting or appointment is over, I pull down the notification bar and tap the icon to return my phone to normal.  I set it up this way because my meetings and appointments are so unpredictable in length that I wanted to control when my phone came out of silent mode.

* I have an icon that presents a selection menu for various location options and when I choose one, texts my husband that I'm leaving ____ and headed home.

* Tasker automatically triggers a wakeup call for my husband based on a calendar entry.

* I have a class timer that vibrates at different times through my 30 minute class so when I'm teaching and not wearing a watch I can tell how much time is left and when I need to start wrapping it up to be done on time.  It is icon-based as well, so I trigger it when I start the class and it vibrates once at 15 minutes, pulses at 25 minutes, and goes berserk at 30 minutes.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but I can't imagine my life without Tasker any more and it will always be the FIRST app loaded on every android phone I get.

[Hagure]

Here's a few things I haven't seen people talk about:

I used to run a whole bunch of tasks that would pop up notifications/
sounds reminding me to log in something. When pressed, they would take
in an input and write to a log file. At the end of the week was
another task that would rsync these logs to my computer (wish dropbox
had a tasker hook!) so I could go over them during a gtd style weekly
review.

I had an activity log that popped up every half hour (I freelance so
it helps with time tracking/staying on task), with a menu of
predefined activities (a menu of "variable sets"), as well as an
option to input something else. Upon choosing an activity it would log
the time, pop up another notification that when clicked, would end the
time, do the necessary math for time spent and log it, and would
repeat by asking me what I was doing next.

A simple, hourly, "Are you being productive?" Yes/No prompt that would
+1/-1 to a %DAILYPRODUCTIVITY variable that would get written out at
the end of the day (I always try to strive for at least a +5).

A food log that popped up 3 times a day.

A "Go to sleep!" notification that on click would open up my alarm
clock, log the time and set a new notification to be pressed when I
awoke to log my wake time (freelancer. irregular sleep patterns.)

I also had a Task that on click (using folder organizer), would take
in a comma separated list and create a markdown-style list in a
minimalist text widget. I used this for all sorts of things, daily
todos, shopping lists, etc etc

Now that Tasker has arrays, I plan on someday making an Exercise Log
that will easily log in what exercises I did/ reps & times & stuff (I
tried making this before, but it was getting nightmarishly long).

Unfortunately, my OG Droid isn't really able to keep up with all that
constant Tasker activity, so I currently only use the food & sleep
logs. I can't wait to get a new phone so I can start Time Tracking
again, and create new ways to gather more (useless? overkill?) data!
One day, I'll better integrate this with something on my computer (in
"a more common hades" fashion;) using growl, that one remote
notification app, and who knows what other technologies!


PS: Oh, I also can control my computer's iTunes/Spotify, & even rate
my songs too! Basically anything that can be done with bashscript/
applescript on the computer can be done by Tasker through ssh. That
knowledge opened a lot of doors into my Tasker hacking back in the
early days.

[cruise]

What uses have people found for the new param/return syntax?

I've got a couple that compare dates and times, returning the difference (in days and minutes respectively) between them.

One that adjusts the media volume a given amount gradually over time to create a nice fade in/out effect.

The most useful currently takes some text to be spoken. If a global variable is set appropriately it will say the text (over call stream or alarm depending on headphone plugged or not) after lowering the media volume with the previous task and then re-raise the volume.

If the second parameter is set, it gets voice, using %par2 as the timeout, and passes anything understood back to the calling task.

This allows me to make my tasks quite "chatty", and easily receive spoken replies if necessary.

Who needs Siri? :p

[tessler]

On Thursday, October 20, 2011 7:07:22 PM UTC-5, Hagure wrote:

(wish dropbox
had a tasker hook!)

It kinda does.  Search Dropspace in the market and see if that does what you need (you need the app AND the Tasker plugin).

[Forest Troll]

My "masterpiece" is a Minimalistic Text widget paired with Tasker and
Screen Filter.

Tapping it toggles screen filter between off, 33 % (key lights on),
and 25 % (key lights off), and the Minimalistic Text widget says
"Screen Filter" and the current Screen Filter percentage..

[Oon-Ee Ng]

Dropsync also does, and its 'true' sync rather than dropspace's
"one-and-a-half way" sync.

[tessler]

Depends on what you want it to do.  I only wanted to go from my phone up to Dropbox, and not do anything with the file in Dropbox if it wasn't on my phone any more.  (Perfect for syncing photos and file backups off my phone.)  Dropspace was perfect for me because it is set to only sync one way, ignore the file if it is there, and also ignore the file if it has been removed from either the phone or Dropbox.

[Adamx]

My torch comes on if I shake my phone. Saves the hassle of entering
the pin(umber).

Thanks! I've implemented this idea. I find myself using my phone as a flashlight all the time, so this is really handy. 

[V Oz]

On my stereo BT headset there is no double click on play/pause button.

Here is Couple of profiles which are grabs clicks and simply flashes. But You can use it for advanced stuff in BeyondPod etc. Delays are too long, but functional and can be reduced.

Profile: OneClick (137)
Event: Variable Set [ Variable:%DOUBLE_CLICK Value:* ]
Enter: Anon (149)
A1: Wait [MS:0 Seconds:3 Minutes:0 Hours:0 Days:0]
A2: Flash [Text:one Long:Off] Flash [ %DOUBLE_CLICK Is Set ]
A3: Variable Clear [Name:%DOUBLE_CLICK Pattern Matching:Off]

Profile: DblClick (73)
Priority: 9 CoolDown: 0
State: Media Button [ Button:Play Held Down:Off Grab:On Stop Event:Off ]
Enter: Anon (103)
A1: Variable Set [Name:%time To:%TIMES Do Maths:Off Append:Off]
A2: If [ %DOUBLE_CLICK ! Set ]
A3: Variable Set [Name:%DOUBLE_CLICK To:%time Do Maths:Off Append:Off]
A4: Else
A5: Variable Set [Name:%diff To:%time-%DOUBLE_CLICK Do Maths:On Append:Off]
A6: Flash [Text:diff is %diff secs Long:On]
A7: Variable Clear [Name:%DOUBLE_CLICK Pattern Matching:Off]
A8: End If

[DouglasCaixeta]

You really have amazing profiles. Can you share them with us?

How can you turn wifi on when you are near home if, if the wifi is off
your phone won't be able to detect that the router signal is detect ?
Do you leave GPS on all the time?

On 18 out, 18:26, beardedholmes <beardedhol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am trying to find some other cool uses for Tasker.  Has anyonedone
> anything fun, cool or outrageous with Tasker that I could try?
>
> Obviously there are 'Turn On WiFi at Home' step throughs and the
> usual
> 'Power Saving' tasks but I wanted something new to try...
>

> I currentlyhavethe following profiles setup on my HTC Desire:

>
> - Turn on GPS for GPS Apps

> (This auto turns on GPS whenyouopen an App that requires it -

> i.e.'GoogleMaps' or 'Zombie, Run')
>
> - Music App Popup on Headphone Plugin

> (This auto opens my music application whenyouinsert headphones into

> the phone)
>
> - Anniversary SMS
> (This automatically sends a text message to my girlfriend on our
> Anniversary)
>
> - Silent Mode at Work
> (This automatically puts my phone on silent when I am within 200
> metres of work and turns silent mode off when outside
> of work)
>
> - Airplane Mode at Night
> (This turns off all mobile data between 23:00 and 7:00 - Saving
> battery and keeping my sleep uninterrupted)
>
> - WiFi On at Home
> (This turns WiFi on when I am within 50m of home and my router signal
> is detected)
>
> - Facedown Powersave
> (This auto turns screen brightness down, system volume to silent, wifi
> off, bluetooth off and GPS off when I place my
> phone face down)
>
> - Low battery Powersave
> (This turns off various power munchers when battery is 30% or less
> helping it to last longer)
>
> - Weekly Football SMS
> (This sends an SMS every sunday to everyone who plays football with
> us, checking if they can play that coming week) D
>

> Does anyonehaveany other USEFUL or INTERESTING uses for Tasker
> automation?

[BossMan]

Use Wifi Near context with Wifi Toggle option checked. This will turn on wifi periodically and scan to check if desired networks are available.

BR,
A.

[Paul Jaekel]

I have spent many hours setting up my Tasker to do all shorts of crazy
things. Profiles I have set up are:

1.) At Midnight everyday Tasker will check my location and then use
that to look up on the internet my local sunrise, and sunset times.
After that it will create a google calendar entry with the start time
being the sunrise time and the ending time being the sunset time.
Using this calendar entry I'm able to have Tasker set auto-brightness
on in the morning at the right moment it needs to be on, and then if
I'm driving when the sunsets it will set the auto-brightness off and
dims the screen so I'm not distracted with a bright screen when my
phone is in car mode.

2a.) The standard Day mode and Night mode, during the day Silent if
off, notifications are loud. Night mode turns off the auto-brightness
and dims the screen while also silents the phone. I work odd hours so
these times don't match up with the profile I set up for sunrise/set
profile. The screen only dims if I'm driving at night between the
sunset time and 3am, otherwise Tasker will wait until 1am to dim the
screen.

2b.) Auto Reply in Night Mode. If my phone is in Night Mode and I
receive a call or text between 1am - 11am (like I said odd hours) it
will send a text message back to the person telling them like
"ZZZZzzzzzzz.... My phone is currently in sleep mode. I will respond
back to you when I wake up in the morning."

3a.) Home made Car Mode. I don't have the money to spend on a desktop
dock, or a car dock, so I have Tasker to set up these modes for me
using other means. If I have my cell phone plugged into the stereo of
my car and also the charger is plugged in it will turn car mode on and
load up a car app I downloaded from the Market, it will also use the
data Tasker collected from sunrise/set to see if it is light or dark
outside and adjust brightness of the screen depending on the time of
the day it is. Auto-Brightness on if it is light out, screen dimmed at
night. It will also automatically start playing the last music track
that was played on Google Music, or resumes play on a podcast I was
listening to earlier with Pocket Cast. It will turn WiFi off, and
Bluetooth on, though I hardly use the bluetooth anyways because my
phone works pretty well plugged into the stereo of the car.

3b.) Auto reply to text while driving. If my car is in car mode and I
receive a text Tasker will check if I am currently moving and if I am
going more then 10 MPH it will reply back with a text message saying
something like "[Auto Reply] I'm currently driving right now at
%SPEEDMPH. I will reply back when it is safe for me to do so."
%SPEEDMPH is replaced with the actual speed I'm going.

4.) Movie Toggle. When I'm in a movie I press a widget on my phone and
it will dim the screen so it isn't bright in the theater to bother
others watching the movie, silents the phone, and uses some of the
same settings used in 2b, and 3b to reject calls and reply back to
people who call or text while I'm in the theater telling them I'm
watching a movie, respond back in a couple of hours.

5.) Location Modes. If I'm at home - wifi on. At work - Silent mode is
set to vibrate.

6.) Quick Button. If I hold down the search button at the bottom of
the phone for a couple of seconds by default it will turn the LED on
for use as a flash light, otherwise if it is in car mode it will pause/
play the podcast or music I have currently playing. If the phone app
is loaded and I'm in a call it will start recording the call.

7.) Turn WiFi on/off when some apps are open like Hulu, YouTube,
Netflix, etc.

That is just some of the stuff I have Tasker set up to do. Really the
things you can do with Tasker is limitless and like most people I was
really dumb when I first started using Tasker. In fact it put me off
when i first played around with it because it was really confusing to
use. I actually uninstalled it and went ahead to use PhoneWeaver for
several months until I was getting tired of the limits PhoneWeaver had
and tried Tasker one more time. I'm glad I did. Tasker is amazing.
Best paid app I have ever downloaded.

[Wes Stacey]

> How can you turn wifi on when you are near home if, if the wifi is off
> your phone won't be able to detect that the router signal is detect ?
> Do you leave GPS on all the time?

I have one that does this for me as well. Here is how i did it.

There is an option on the location context to use "Network" location
instead of GPS location. This just gets your location from your
network provider who triangulates your position based on your signal
strength to multiple towers. This has it's drawbacks in that it isn't
nearly as accurate and varies in accuracy depending on how many towers
you have in your area. So you'll probably want to put in a range of
1-2 KM from your house in order for it to turn on WiFI when your in
the area instead of just when you walk through the door. But if your
driving then it's usually only a few minutes between when it turns on
wifi and you pull into your drive way.

anyway the details.

Context: Location context - (make sure you disable "GPS" toggle
leaving only the "Net" toggle on) Then change the range to about 1-2
KM In time you may find you can decrease the value or may have to
increase it depending on your area, you'll have to experiment with
it.

Tasks: Enter Task - turn on wifi
exit Task - turn off wifi.

Note: Taasker can only update your location while the phone is awake.
So if you leave it asleep in your pocket it won't activate until you
pull it out. i usually have mine on a car charger with a "car mode" on
that turns off the screen timeout, so i don't usually run into that
problem.

[Sturge]

Hi

Can you tell me more about how you set up the sunset sunrise profiles?  Had a play with them using earthtools.org and can get the data, but having problems going from there. 

Cheers

Chris

[Paul Jaekel]

http://tasker.wikidot.com/sunrise-and-sunset-times

Downloadable profiles can be found on that page and then you can
changed them up if you want to.

[Chris Berry]

Thanks.  Had forgotten to look there.

[wkd2639]

My Tasks are (this is a HTC Desire with AMOLED display):

1) When connected to WiFi:

- Say "Wireless Network Connected"

- Switch off Auto Brightness and set Brightness to 0% // This gets me 2 days out of my battery

Exit Task:

- Say "Wireless Network Disconnected"

- Turn up brightness to 100% and then switch on Auto Brightness

2) When receiving a phone call:

- Check if there is a caller name in the contacts - if so - speak the name - end

- Check if there is a caller number present - if so say "unknown caller" - end

- If no caller name or caller number - REJECT CALL - say "anonymous caller"

3) When a calendar event is active and the word "silentmode" appears somewhere in the description of the current event:

- if a call comes in, reject it and send the caller an SMS apologising that I am currently busy or in a meeting.

....and finally....

When the alarm goes off - wait 5 seconds - mute the alarm - and then do this: (youtube wD7n-ZHnLUY)

[thsandman]

I just recently set up a modular system for controlling different conditions triggering different states of being for my phone. I tried to name things as close to what they actually do as possible. Here's an overview:

I first have a few condition profiles that add to counters that later determine the state of my phone:

in_class: IF: calendar entry with "class" as description (I just add that to any google calendar entry involving class), THEN: adds to WIFI_COUNTER and QUIET_COUNTER. EXIT: subtracts from WIFI_COUNTER and QUIET_COUNTER

in_home: IF: near my home as indicated by cellular tower, THEN: add to WIFI_COUNTER. EXIT: subtract from WIFI_COUNTER

at_night: IF: between 2-8AM, THEN: add to QUIET_COUNTER. EXIT: subtracts from QUIET_COUNTER

Then I have, on a separate page for easy distinction , a list of different states of being that are activated due to certain things. The idea here is to keep this part as separated from the conditions part as possible, so that, in case it is ever necessary, I can add or remove conditions without having to mess with states of being, and vice versa:

sound profiles:

be_normal: this just means set volume to normal, in-pocket settings. if no other sound setting is active, this is. IF: SOUND_COUNTER matches 0, THEN: sets volume to normal mode. EXIT: do nothing (hopefully whatever is causing the volume to no longer be normal will change the volume to whatever it needs to be)

be_headphones: while this is technically a condition, I felt like it really better fit as a state of being because it trumps all other sound conditions. IF: plug in headphones, THEN: set volume to headphones mode, sets HEADPHONES_IN to 1, adds to SOUND_COUNTER (no longer normal mode). EXIT: sets HEADPHONES_IN to 0, subtracts from SOUND_COUNTER

be_quiet: IF: HEADPHONES_IN matches 0 (if I'm not in class at the exact moment it starts, and am listening to music, I don't want the music to go silent all of a sudden) AND QUIET_COUNTER greater than 0, THEN: set volume to silent mode, add to SOUND_COUNTER (no longer normal mode). EXIT: subtract from SOUND_COUNTER (this controls normal mode)

There is a 4th one for being in the car, triggered by a button press. so as follows: IF: button press, THEN: set IN_CAR to 1.

Which then follows: be_car: IF: IN_CAR matches 1, THEN: set volume to car mode. it should be noted that exiting car mode occurs when I've unplugged my phone from the stereo of my car. so it is actually part of the EXIT for be_headphones, but only triggers if IN_CAR is already 1. EXIT: set sound to normal mode IF QUIET_COUNTER matches 0 (just in case I get out of the car and another condition(s) say(s) my phone should be silent right then)

Then I've got 2 wifi states of being. One is for when a condition is met that enables wifi (automated), the other is when I want wifi and no conditions are met (forced). Only one can be active at any given time.

I'll start with the "I want wifi but it's not automatically on right now" one first:

triggered by button press, such that: IF: button press, THEN: set FORCE_WIFI to 1. 

be_forced_wifi: IF: FORCE_WIFI matches 1 AND WIFI_COUNTER matches 0 (remember WIFI_COUNTER is the automated counter): wifi on. I can leave this profile by two means: one is by disabling the forced wifi myself, with another button press. that would set FORCE_WIFI to 0. another would be if I enter a condition in which wifi would automatically be turned on. this would set WIFI_COUNTER greater than 0. at any rate, EXIT: wifi off. set FORCE_WIFI to 0 if WIFI_COUNTER greater than 0 (in other words, if I entered a condition of automatic wifi, make sure FORCE_WIFI is 0 so I can start over next time I leave automatic wifi)

be_wifi: IF: WIFI_COUNTER greater than 0 AND IN_CAR matches 0 (just in case I skip class to go joyriding and wifi really doesnt need to be on in the car), THEN: wifi on, disable button that sets FORCE_WIFI to 1. The second part means when wifi is already on as part of a scripted event I don't even see the button that would force wifi because, well, it's already on! This makes it really easy for me to tell if I need to force my wifi on. Do I see the button? yes? press it. EXIT: wifi off. enable force wifi button.

 

So yeah that's basically how I've got mine set up. What I really like about this is, even when more than one event triggers, the phone can handle it like a champ. For instance, if I've got my headphones in (add to SOUND_COUNTER and HEADPHONES_IN) and it's class time (add to SOUND_COUNTER and QUIET_COUNTER), then SOUND_COUNTER = 2, but be_normal doesnt care either way because it's not 0. then, when I unplug the headphones to actually listen to class, SOUND_COUNTER is reduced to 1, and be_normal still doesnt care because SOUND_COUNTER isn't 0 yet. also, its very modular, meaning I can add something to it very easily. For instance, if I want to add a custom silent button to the phone, I just need to have a button that runs: IF: button press, THEN: add to SILENT_COUNTER and SOUND_COUNTER. so if my phone is running on be_normal and Im about to enter a movie theater, I press this button and it kicks off be_normal (SOUND_COUNTER greater than 0) and puts on be_silent (SILENT_COUNTER greater than 0). let's say the movie's a long one and Im skipping class to see it, in_class will activate (add to SILENT_COUNTER and SOUND_COUNTER), so both those values are now 2, but the phone doesnt act any differently. Modular!

[TomSr]

Hi. In #3, how do you know the caller is not on a landline and cannot receive SMS messages?

Tom

[wkd2639]

In the UK all mobile phones begin with 07 so the task begins with:

IF %CNUM ~ 07*

Hope this helps.

(In any case it doesn't matter in the UK anymore as we can send SMS to landlines and BT phones the number and reads out the text using text to speech)