How exactly does %FOTO work?

[Ian Strascina]

I want to write a task that emails me a photo (using SL4A script sendemailA.py) as soon as I take it.  Docs say that %FOTO is "The filesystem path to the last photo taken by Tasker or the standard system camera application."  However, if I do something as simple as a Flash alert to show %FOTO, it just shows the text "%FOTO", not the path to the file.

My system camera save photos to my SD card at /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd/DCIM/100MEDIA/.  Even if I change the alert to show /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd/DCIM/100MEDIA/%FOTO, it still just display the text verbatim.

The emailing works fine if I hard code an actual photo( /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd/DCIM/100MEDIA/whatever.jpg), so I know the email config isn't the problem.  I just don't know how to access the most recent photo, and the docs aren't much help.  How am I supposed to do this?

Bonus:  Does %FOTO also work for videos recorded from the camera, or is it strictly images?

[CazMaz]

Hi Ian,

%FOTO is a variable that is set when you use the Tasker "Take Photo" task to take a picture. It's the last photo taken. Use the "Take Photo" task as a step to set up the naming convention, delay time and so forth of the image. The system camera does not set or use the %FOTO variable in any way that I know of, you must use Tasker.

+, media, take photo
then, you can setup the camera and photo taking process, file naming convention, whether or not to use the gallery, etc.

Hope this helps,
Mark

[Ian Strascina]

Well, as I posted directly from the documentation, %FOTO is "The filesystem path to the last photo taken by Tasker or the standard system camera application".  So I expect that the system camera can interact with that variable.  If it truly doesn't, they need to change the wording in the documentation, because that's very misleading.

I suppose I can always try to find the most recent file in the directory instead, but I was hoping it would be simple and straightforward.

[nanobrain]

It shows the last photo taken with my system camera app on my phone which is a Nexus 5 running stock 4.4.2. I would assume that it is highly dependent on the phone/ROM you are using. You could try another camera app and hope that it will do whatever the system camera app is supposed to be doing. 

[Stathis Efstathiou]

I just did a test now on my HTC One X and it shows correctly the path. I tried with stock sense camera and facebook camera. Both paths showed correctly

[Pent]

My system camera save photos to my SD card at /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd/DCIM/100MEDIA/.  Even if I change the alert to show /mnt/sdcard/ext_sd/DCIM/100MEDIA/%FOTO, it still just display the text verbatim.

Tasker looks in sdroot/DCIM in order to set %FOTO to a value. Probably your ROM is reporting your sdroot as being somewhere else.
Unfortunately Android only officially supports one 'external storage' directory.

I guess you have a Samsung.

Pent

[Pent]

I'll arrange to check common alternative sdroots for next version.

Pent

[Pent]

I'll arrange to check common alternative sdroots for next version.

Oops. A problem with that is that %FOTO returns the API-reported-storage-relative dir like

DCIM/Camera/bob.jpg

If it finds it in a non-API-reported-storage dir, then anywhere you use %FOTO in Tasker, it's not
going to find the file because relative dirs are assumed to be relative to the API-reported storage
dir i.e. you would have to prefix what you know to be the external root to %FOTO to use it.

I think that would cause a lot of confusion, so I'm going to leave it as is for now.
When Google get round to implementing an API for multiple external storage locations,
I'll revisit this.

Pent

[Ian Strascina]

No, I have an HTC Incredible 4G.  I have my stock Sense camera app saving to my actual SD card (/mnt/sdcard/ext_sd) instead of the "internal storage" (/mnt/sdcard).

[Pent]

No, I have an HTC Incredible 4G.  I have my stock Sense camera app saving to my actual SD card (/mnt/sdcard/ext_sd) instead of the "internal storage" (/mnt/sdcard).

That's the problem then.

I'm sure they have their reasons, but I can't fathom why the manufacturers chose to put their internal
storage at a path which previously had been used by all devices for external storage (/mnt/sdcard)
and then have Android return that value when the app asks 'where is external storage ?' Even though
it's internal storage.

Pent

[Pent]

p.s. a workaround should be to use a File Changed event on the directory where fotos are saved, then
do List Files and get the most recent file by testing each with Misc / Test (File Modification Date)

Pent

[Ian Strascina]

Meh, I ended up using SL4A and just writing my own python script.

[Pent]

Meh, I ended up using SL4A and just writing my own python script.

It only takes an event with a 3 action task, but OK.

Pent