Problem with AutoInput Scroll Forward

[Dan Muller]

I have seven playlists in the Samsung Music app and want to be able to launch them through Tasker. The general structure of the task I use is:

• Launch Samsung Music
• Scroll Forward to the playlist, keying on the text that is its name
• Tap the list to open it, again keying on the name of the playlist to identify what to tap
• Tap the shuffle button

This works perfectly for the first six, but for the last one, the scroll forward doesn't work. It doesn't scroll at all and then it can't open the list because it's not on the screen, so it can't find the specified element to tap.

I know the task is correct because I can reorder the playlists and whichever list I place at the bottom fails, while the other six will work.

I read somewhere that Scroll Forward will work only if the text it's looking for is on the screen, but that does not seem to be the case. Only the first four lists are visible initially, and it will scroll to the (off-screen) fifth and sixth lists.

Any idea what's going on?

[João Dias]

You can try scrolling forward on a previous item and then when the scroll is done tap on the actual item you want. Does that maybe work for you?

Thank you for your contact.

   Join: connect multiple devices (send pushes, remote SMS, notifications) on Android, Windows, Mac, Linux

   Tasker: customize/automate anything on your phone!

   AutoApps: add advanced functionality to Tasker via plugins

     

João Dias

[Dan Muller]

That works--if I scroll to the sixth item, the seventh is brought into view and I can then click on it. But that makes the task dependent on the number and order of the lists; the list I'm scrolling to must be in that sixth position, and I was trying to avoid that. And if I were to add an eighth list, it probably wouldn't show after that scroll, and then would fail.

I switched to using a swipe gesture to scroll to the bottom. As it happens, that puts all seven playlists on the screen and I can pick from there. That makes it order-independent. I think I could even fit an eighth list. If I ever create a ninth, this will probably fail, but I'll deal with that if it ever happens.

But I'm still curious: Is it true that Scroll Forward should only work if the target item is visible? I ask because I was able to scroll to the fifth and sixth playlists, which were not visible. Not sure what the real limitation is.

Thanks!

[João Dias]

It's complicated 😅 The Android accessibility system sometimes makes stuff available that's barely off screen and sometimes it doesn't. It's easier just to assume that only on-screen stuff works. I'm glad you found a workaround that works!