There are certain key features that make Android so much more powerful than other mobile operating systems on the market. Having these 3rd-party applications (such as Tasker) being able to do so much with our phones does come at a cost (sometimes performance, sometimes battery life), but most Android fans will agree that having the option is much better than having things locked down. Tasker has been one of the most popular automation applications for years, but it's infamously difficult to learn how to use. With the release of Tasker 5.5, developer João Dias has made it incredibly easy to import new projects.
Developers may have been able to look at Tasker, go through its documentation, and begin using it without any type of hassle. Average users, on the other hand, have had difficulty not only learning how it works but also creating their own tasks. We have had a member-lead forum dedicated to Tasker which allowed the community to ask/answer questions and share their latest creations. This was great for some but the application itself still lacked when it came to exporting and sharing these tasks.
Beta 5.2.bf6 of Tasker started to change this with the ability to export a new task to a URL so that others could import said feature via that shared URL. We covered the new feature back in July of this year, but since then it has evolved and has allowed João Dias to make importing shared tasks incredibly easy with version 5.5. The new hub for this feature is being called TaskerNet and we have a short video showing just how easy it is to import a task that adds an adaptive brightness toggle to your quick settings panel.
Not only that, but you can also use this new system to import the XML files that used to be used to share Tasker projects as shown here.
Version 5.5 of Tasker isn't just about improving the user experience of sharing projects though. Tasker now has the ability to upload projects to Google Drive, you can automatically backup your Tasker data to Google Drive, and using the new Custom Setting Monitoring feature you can react to any setting changes on your device. This means you can link settings together and, for example, you can set the screen brightness lower and turn down the media volume when you enable Do Not Disturb.
The update also comes with the following new actions. . .
- Google Drive Upload: upload a file to a folder on your Google Drive and optionally share it.
- Display Size: change the size of your display dynamically.
- NFC: Toggle NFC on or off
- Status Bar Icons: Hide icons on your status bar.
- Force Rotation: Make your display rotate and stay rotated in a certain direction.
- Data Backup: Backup Tasker data with optional Google Drive backup.
- Ping: Check the connectivity and latency to a remote network host
- Ask Permissions: Mainly for users that share tasker data with others or exported Apps
For anyone who is curious about all of these new changes, João has put together a full video showing all of the new features of this new update.