From Newsgroup: comp.mobile.android
Tutorial: How to create your first automation script on Android
This is perhaps the simplest task I can think of for us to automate.
The reason I'm writing this is I'm trying to automate something far more complicated, but I need to ensure that Automate works before I do that.
1. Google Play Store
<
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.llamalab.automate>
2. LlamaLab official site
<
https://llamalab.com/automate/>
3. APKPure mirror (for sideloading if Play Store not available)
<
https://apkpure.com/automate/com.llamalab.automate>
Note: Automate by LlamaLab is not available on F-Droid partly because
Automate is not open source. If you search F-Droid, you will find other automation apps like "Automation" or "Easer" but they are different
projects. Tasker, which is the gold standard, is not free.
Here is a simple toast test flow using Automate (v1.47.0) on Android 13.
1. Open Automate
It will open to the blue bar saying "Flows".
You will see a white canvas and a blue plus sign at the bottom right.
Tap + (bottom right)
This will put a "Flow beginning" block in the middle of your canvas.
It will also name the flow "<Untitled>" as seen in the top bar.
2. Long press on the "<Untitled>" in the top blue bar
A box comes up with three fields
Title = blank <-- change it to "Test Toast" (or whatever)
Description = blank
Notification channel = Flow
Press [Save]
3. Press the plus button again
This time an alphabetical cascaded pullout block picker will show up.
Click to the Interface section.
Scroll down the alphabetical list until you can select Toast show
Select it.
A second block will show up below the first block on your canvas
4. Tap that second block named "Toast show" by default.
A box comes up with three fields
Options = {Immediately,When shown,When hidden}
Input arguments = blank
Duration (_)Short (_)Long
Note: Configuring it with 'When hidden' ensures the flow doesn't
continue until the toast has actually been displayed & dismissed.
That's a good habit when we want predictable sequencing.
5. Set the Options to When hidden
Set the "Input arguments" to "Hello World"
Set the Duration to Long)
Press the "SAVE" button at the top right in the blue bar.
6. You should be back to your canvas, with two blocks.
Draw a connection line straight down from the bottom blue dot
of the Flow beginning block to the top blue dot of the
Toast show block below it.
7. (Optional) Add a graceful "Stop flow" Block
Block picker -> Flow -> Flow stop
If you performed the optional step 7, then draw a connection
line straight down from the bottom blue dot of the previous
block to the top blue dot of the block below it.
8. This next step is unintuitive.
You have to back out of this flow diagram.
Press the back arrow at the top of the screen in the blue area.
9. You should see a big blue [Start] button at the top right.
When you tap that button, the flow will run.
10. At the bottom of your screen, for a few seconds, you should see:
Hello World
Voila!
You've just performed your very first automation with Automate on Android.
Here is a copy of the log file in my tests of this tutorial just now.
11-01 20:37:18.737 I 94@1: Flow beginning
11-01 20:37:18.740 I 94@2: Toast show
11-01 20:37:22.633 I 94@3: Flow stop
11-01 20:37:22.637 I 94@3: Stopped by block
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