Every time I open this app to play with it, I'm amazed at what it can do. Below are a few of the things I've done with it, and how to do them yourself. Feel free to add any other useful profiles you've created.
1. Random Ringtones!
This one is (relatively) simple if you have any programming chops, and should be pretty easy to follow even if you don't. The gist is that every time you get a phone call (or text, or even an alarm) you can change what the next ringtone will be. This can save you the aggravation of hearing the same ringtone 50 times in a 5 minute period (yes, so could vibrate, but I'm stubborn), and if you've downloaded a number of ringtones, now you get to hear them all! Hooray!
I’ll be walking you through how to set up Notification tones, as I haven’t bothered with ringtones yet.
First, you need to open up Tasker and hit the "New" button at the bottom. Your first context will be:
Event> Phone> Received SMS
Leave both fields blank. This means that any actions you set in this profile will occur whenever you receive an SMS message, no matter who it’s from or what the message says.
Next, you’ll see an empty screen. We want to fill this up with actions for the phone to take, so that something actually happens. To add a new action, click the blue “+” sign at the bottom of your screen. This brings up the Action Category screen. For this, you’ll want to click the following:
Media> Ringtone
The dropdown menu here defaults to “Alarm” – click here and change to “Notification”. Then you’ll long-click the field marked “Sound” – here, select whatever ringtone you wish. Next, check the “If” box. In the field that has a “%” symbol already in it, you’ll want to type “TEXT”. It should now say “%TEXT” in this box – DO NOT DELETE THE %. Next, click the box that has the “~” in between the two text boxes. Set this to “Maths: Equals”. In the last text box, enter a value of 0.
Now, you’re going to repeat this for every ringtone you have, step for step – except for that last text box. Every time you add a new ringtone, add one to that value – the first ringtone will be 0, the second will be 1, the third 2, and so on. For example, if you have 15 ringtones, your final value will be 14.
Now that you’ve got all of your ringtones set, you’ll want to make it so that the system knows to switch randomly between them. You’ll create a new action, so click the blue “+” sign. Here, we will select the following:
Variable> Variable Randomize
Here, we’ll see the familiar “%” sign – we’ll continue to use “%TEXT”. For the minimum value, we’ll type in 0, and for the maximum, use the last number you used for a ringtone. As in our previous example, if you have 15 ringtones, you’ll type 14 into the maximum field.
Next, we need to make sure that Tasker is the program that is notifying you of your incoming SMS message – we want all our hard work to pay off. Create a new action, and click through the following:
Alert> Notify Vibrate
Leave all the fields (except the title) blank. I just titled the notification SMS – seemed easiest. Next, so that we can hear ringtones, create a new action as so:
Alert> Notify Sound
Again, leave all the fields blank. Now Tasker will notify you of incoming SMS messages – but you’ll want to disable notifications in your other messaging apps, to make sure that there’s no conflict.
When you click done, you’ll have a profile set up that will randomly select one of your ringtones and play it when you receive an SMS.
If you’re the tl;dr type…
Context > Received SMS
Media > %RINGTONE1% if %VARIABLE = 0
Media > %RINGTONE2% if %VARIABLE = 1
Media > %RINGTONE3% if %VARIABLE = 2
…etc.
Variable > Variable Randomize > %VARIABLE from 0 to MAX
Alert > Notify Vibrate
Alert > Notify Sound
Disable Messaging apps notifications
1. Random Ringtones!
This one is (relatively) simple if you have any programming chops, and should be pretty easy to follow even if you don't. The gist is that every time you get a phone call (or text, or even an alarm) you can change what the next ringtone will be. This can save you the aggravation of hearing the same ringtone 50 times in a 5 minute period (yes, so could vibrate, but I'm stubborn), and if you've downloaded a number of ringtones, now you get to hear them all! Hooray!
I’ll be walking you through how to set up Notification tones, as I haven’t bothered with ringtones yet.
First, you need to open up Tasker and hit the "New" button at the bottom. Your first context will be:
Event> Phone> Received SMS
Leave both fields blank. This means that any actions you set in this profile will occur whenever you receive an SMS message, no matter who it’s from or what the message says.
Next, you’ll see an empty screen. We want to fill this up with actions for the phone to take, so that something actually happens. To add a new action, click the blue “+” sign at the bottom of your screen. This brings up the Action Category screen. For this, you’ll want to click the following:
Media> Ringtone
The dropdown menu here defaults to “Alarm” – click here and change to “Notification”. Then you’ll long-click the field marked “Sound” – here, select whatever ringtone you wish. Next, check the “If” box. In the field that has a “%” symbol already in it, you’ll want to type “TEXT”. It should now say “%TEXT” in this box – DO NOT DELETE THE %. Next, click the box that has the “~” in between the two text boxes. Set this to “Maths: Equals”. In the last text box, enter a value of 0.
Now, you’re going to repeat this for every ringtone you have, step for step – except for that last text box. Every time you add a new ringtone, add one to that value – the first ringtone will be 0, the second will be 1, the third 2, and so on. For example, if you have 15 ringtones, your final value will be 14.
Now that you’ve got all of your ringtones set, you’ll want to make it so that the system knows to switch randomly between them. You’ll create a new action, so click the blue “+” sign. Here, we will select the following:
Variable> Variable Randomize
Here, we’ll see the familiar “%” sign – we’ll continue to use “%TEXT”. For the minimum value, we’ll type in 0, and for the maximum, use the last number you used for a ringtone. As in our previous example, if you have 15 ringtones, you’ll type 14 into the maximum field.
Next, we need to make sure that Tasker is the program that is notifying you of your incoming SMS message – we want all our hard work to pay off. Create a new action, and click through the following:
Alert> Notify Vibrate
Leave all the fields (except the title) blank. I just titled the notification SMS – seemed easiest. Next, so that we can hear ringtones, create a new action as so:
Alert> Notify Sound
Again, leave all the fields blank. Now Tasker will notify you of incoming SMS messages – but you’ll want to disable notifications in your other messaging apps, to make sure that there’s no conflict.
When you click done, you’ll have a profile set up that will randomly select one of your ringtones and play it when you receive an SMS.
If you’re the tl;dr type…
Context > Received SMS
Media > %RINGTONE1% if %VARIABLE = 0
Media > %RINGTONE2% if %VARIABLE = 1
Media > %RINGTONE3% if %VARIABLE = 2
…etc.
Variable > Variable Randomize > %VARIABLE from 0 to MAX
Alert > Notify Vibrate
Alert > Notify Sound
Disable Messaging apps notifications
. really wish i could get this to work. looks awesome!