How to turn off all notifications except for one app?

[Nate]

I made a profile to turn the notification volume down to 0 during the night, but I need to allow notifications from one particular app. The FAQ says:

"With Tasker versions from 1.0.10, you can try turning off all notifications (e.g. via Silent Mode or setting the Notification Volume to 0) and then using Tasker to do alerts for particular app notifications using the Notification event in the UI category. "

I did the first part, but I'm unsure of how to create an alert for the particular app. When I go to the tasks for a profile and choose Alert, there isn't any "UI category" or "Notofication event" shown as an option.

Could anyone elaborate on what the FAQ is saying to do?

Thanks.

[UncleMike]

The idea is that notifications are silenced, but they still appear.  It sounds like you've got that part.  Next is to create a profile that activates when the notification from your "priority app" appears.  When you're prompted for a context for this profile, select Event > UI > Notification.  There you can specify the app, and optionally the notification title.  For the task you want to do 3 things: 1) turn off silent mode and optionally set the notification volume, 2) use the Play Ringtone action (in the Media category, I think) to play a sound through the Notification stream, and 3) turn silent mode back on.  You may also need to add a Wait action before turning silent mode back on, to allow the sound time to play.  Another option is to play the sound through the Media stream, since it's not silenced by Silent Mode, but if you do I would recommend checking/setting the volume for that stream before using it.

[Nate]

Thanks for your help. I followed your instructions, but I think Tasker has a bug with regards to the sound. No matter how many times I choose for the sound to be of type Notification, set the sound, and set the Stream as Notification, it reverts to type Alarm, erases the sound I entered, and sets the Stream back to Alarm. It keeps my settings until the notification happens (and the profile becomes active) and then it reverts back to the defaults. Also, the alarm sound (which is incredibly annoying, IMHO) will not stop playing no matter what I do (press buttons, clear notifications, turn the volume down, etc..) and the only way to get it to stop is to restart the phone.

Is there a workaround for this?

[Nate]

As I mentioned, Play Ringtone doesn't seem to be working (it keeps reverting to Alarm), but I think Music Play does work. However, there's a minor problem with the setup: the event runs all the time, not just when the night time profile that disables sound is active. Is there any way to make this event profile active only when the other profile is active, or to manually set the time range when it should be active?

Thanks!

On Saturday, May 25, 2013 7:11:28 PM UTC-4, UncleMike wrote:

[JosDaBoss]

Read the Tasker guide.

[Nate]

That's not helpful, JosDaBoss. I have been reading the guide, along with forum posts (here and elsewhere), tutorials, etc. I've spent the past couple of hours trying to learn how to use Tasker and I need help.

[Nate]

Also, Tasker seems to be pretty buggy, unless I'm just doing stuff wrong.. Take my previous post regarding the Play Ringtone function as an example. Furthermore, I've been trying to enable the event profile in my time profile (that is active during the night), but whenever I try to use the Profile Status function Tasker says "No named profiles exist," even though I named both profiles.

On Saturday, May 25, 2013 8:50:43 PM UTC-4, JosDaBoss wrote:

[Bob Hansen]

I can't say Tasker is bug free, but I can say that quite often it seems like a bug by it is a misunderstanding of what tasker is doing relative to your expectations of what should happen.

I think it would help if you post a tasker description of your profile so that we can better understand what you are doing. 

To export a description, long press on the profile to select it; tap the menu icon; from the popup menu select Export; select Description To clipboard (not XML). Paste the clipboard contents into a post. 

[UncleMike]

I've got several tasks that use Play Ringtone, and I have never seen this problem (stream selection reverting to Alarm).

The last time I used the Alarm stream I was also unable to stop the sound.  I haven't tried it in a long time, but this may be a bug, or it may be just normal behavior for the Alarm stream.  Though if it's normal, I don't see it being very useful with no way to stop it.