Mastering Tasker - 3: Using external plugins

Welcome to part 3 of our feature, 'Mastering Tasker'. In this series of articles, we'll take you through getting the most out of the powerful, versatile but also scary-to-newcomers Tasker application. Today - Using external plugins.

If you are new to Tasker I recommend you work through the tutorials in order, part 1 is available in this post and part 2 is available in this post.

What today's article covers

Today we're going to talk about using external plugins. Although Tasker has a huge amount of functionality built in, there are a number of great 3rd party addons in the Play Store which let you take Tasker even further. We're going to use the 'Home' profile we created in part 2 and add some more cool stuff.

Downloading 3rd party plugins

To start today we need to download the third party plugins we're going to use. To have a browse around what's available you can obviously search for 'tasker plugin', but you can also search for 'locale plugin'. Locale is a similar context-based-functionality application to Tasker (it was actually around before Tasker) and Tasker can use it's plugins... giving you even more choice!

For this part i'm going to demonstrate configuring a number of 3rd party plugins, so you can go ahead and download the ones you like the look of!

The one's i'll talk about are...

• Locale Gtalk Plugin - use this to have your Gtalk status changed when you're home, e.g. to say 'around the house' or 'out and about'
  
• Locale Wake On Lan plug-in - use this to wake up your PC when you arrive home
  
• Locale Password Lock Plugin (99p) - use this to disable PIN lock when you are at home
  
• WiFi ADB - turn on ADB over WiFi when you are at home

Grabbed one or more? Then let's go!

Adding new plugin actions to your profiles

Let's start by opening up tasker and then clicking our 'Home' profile that we created in part 2. This reveals our entry and exit tasks, which we are going to edit. I'm going through each of the above plugins, just skip any that you don't want to try out.

Locale Gtalk Plugin

The Locale Gtalk Plugin lets you change your Gtalk status changed when you're home, e.g. to say 'around the house' or 'out and about'. Pretty cool!

To set it up, do the following:

• Press the box with the green triangle 'WiFi On' to open the entry task.
  
• Click the '+' icon to add a new action.
  
• From the list that appears, choose 'Plugin'.
  
• For the plugin action, choose 'Gtalk'.
  
• This is the standard plugin configuration screen. To configure the plugin specific options, you need to click the 'Edit' button.
  
• This box is where you enter your Google Talk details. Enter your username, password and the status you'd like displayed when you're at home. You can click the 'green blob' to toggle status between available, busy and invisible too.
  
• You can use the checkboxes to choose whether you see 'toasts' from the app (the little messages that pop up on screen).
  
• When you've finished setting up, you need to press the menu button and select 'Save'. This applies to any plugins you set up!
  
• Click the green tick at the next screen to save and you'll see your new GTalk setting in the list! You can test with the 'Play' button or press the tick again to save.
  
• Now you are back at the main profile screen. You probably want to set up a status for when you're not at home too, so you do that in the exist task, by clicking the red triangle and repeating the above steps.
  
• That's it - you're done! Easy eh?

Locale Wake On Lan plug-in

The Locale Wake on Lan plug-in lets you up your PC when you arrive home.

To set it up, do the following:

• Press the box with the green triangle 'WiFi On' to open the entry task.
  
• Click the '+' icon to add a new action.
  
• From the list that appears, choose 'Plugin'.
  
• For the plugin action, choose 'Wake On Lan'.
  
• This is the standard plugin configuration screen. To configure the plugin specific options, you need to click the 'Edit' button.
  
• This box is where you enter your PC details. Enter your PC MAC address and leave the other fields at their default settings.
  
• When you've finished setting up, you need to press the menu button and select 'Save'. This applies to any plugins you set up!
  
• Click the green tick at the next screen to save and you'll see your new Wake On Lan setting in the list! You can test with the 'Play' button or press the tick again to save.
  
• That's it - you're done! Easy eh?

Locale Password Lock plug-in

The Locale Password Lock plug-in lets you disable PIN lock when you are at home.

To set it up, do the following:

• Press the box with the green triangle 'WiFi On' to open the entry task.
  
• Click the '+' icon to add a new action.
  
• From the list that appears, choose 'Plugin'.
  
• For the plugin action, choose 'Password Lock'.
  
• This is the standard plugin configuration screen. To configure the plugin specific options, you need to click the 'Edit' button and approve the Device Administrator prompt that appears by pressing the 'Activate' button.
  
• This box is where you configure your lock settings for when you are at home. So, you are probably going to want to set the toggle button to 'OFF'.
  
• When you've done this, you need to press the menu button and select 'Save'. This applies to any plugins you set up!
  
• Click the green tick at the next screen to save and you'll see your new Password Lock setting in the list! You can test with the 'Play' button or press the tick again to save.
  
• Now you are back at the main profile screen. You probably want to set up a status for when you're not at home too, so you do that in the exist task, by clicking the red triangle and repeating the above steps. This time though you set the toggle button to 'ON', choose a password and also choose an activation delay.
  
• That's it - you're done! Easy eh?

WiFi ADB

The WiFi ADB tasker integration allows you to enable WiFi access to ADB on your device when you are at home.

To set it up, do the following:

• Press the box with the green triangle 'WiFi On' to open the entry task.
  
• Click the '+' icon to add a new action.
  
• From the list that appears, choose 'Plugin'.
  
• For the plugin action, choose 'WiFi ADB'.
  
• This is the standard plugin configuration screen. To configure the plugin specific options, you need to click the 'Edit' button.
  
• This box is where you configure your lock settings for when you are at home. So, you are probably going to want to set the toggle button to 'ON'.
  
• When you've done this, you need to press the menu button and select 'Save'. This applies to any plugins you set up!
  
• Click the green tick at the next screen to save and you'll see your new Password Lock setting in the list! You can test with the 'Play' button or press the tick again to save.
  
• Now you are back at the main profile screen. You probably want to set up a status for when you're not at home too, so you do that in the exist task, by clicking the red triangle and repeating the above steps. This time though you set the toggle button to 'OFF'.
  
• That's it - you're done! Easy eh?

Coming up next

In part 4 we're going to create a new profile for doing clever things in the car!

Please post your feedback in the comments, together with any requests / ideas for future parts!