Help Tasker contexts I'm having trouble with

[Dead_Droid]

I've come to love Tasker. It's horribly unintuitive, but every new thing which I learn how to make it do, once I have it down, opens up whole new dimensions of possibilities which once required multiple apps and commercial widgets. But now there are a couple of contexts which I had not tried until recently, thinking they should be relatively easy, but what seems the most likely solution isn't working for me.

There's the State context for when your phone is placed in the dock (there are the options for "car dock", "desk", or "any", and how it would know the difference is a mystery to me, but I selected "any". The action I chose was to open "Desk Clock", and when it failed to do that, I tried other apps which I'm familiar with. The context was State->Docked->Any, and the action was App->Load App->(app). I have Froyo, if that makes any difference, otherwise, why would this context fail when my phone is plugged into any charging dock?

EDIT:
The following question really comes down to this: Is there any way to make Tasker, with the action Media->Ringtone, and "Sound" dialogue change your ringtone when you punch in the path to wherever you have a track stored? I would rather choose my ringtones this way than the Long-Press which takes you to a menu which ignores all but one folder. I have tried this without success, and am wondering if it is at all possible, perhaps with some syntactical framing which I may have overlooked (tried quotes, which didn't work). Otherwise, is there no other way to open up your Ringtones options than to copy each track to your /system/media/audio/ringtones folder (or to a duplicate file structure on your sdcard if you don't have root)? This would be more than an annoying task, it would be a storage burden. Is there another trick which I haven't tried?

Thanks to all who try to help.
END EDIT

Another idea which I tried this morning was to use Tasker for changing my ringtone. I selected State->Incoming Call, and then Media->Ringtone->Ringer. It seemed pretty straightforward up to this point, but then I was confronted with the Android ringtone menu. I hate few things more than the system policy which would force you to bulk up your SD card with full copies of every song which you may ever want to use as a ringtone just to see it appear on this menu. I decided that I didn't need to deal with this obnoxious menu, when I could make Tasker play a song as directed from my folder path instead. I used ES File Explorer to verify the path which I wanted to give Tasker, and then punched /sdcard/MUSIC/Led Zeppelin/Communication Breakdown.mp3 (an attempt at humor, hee hee) into the Sound box of the Ringtone dialogue. This song didn't play when I got a call later, so where (other than my musical taste) did I go wrong with this?

 

[superchaos]

Not sure you will get an answer here. Your best bet is to post your question in the Tasker forum. Make sure you list each task of your current setup even if it is not working. It will let others see if you are missing a step or have them out of order.

Tasker | Google Groups

 

[Rob.G]

I am thinking that what you are trying to do is set your ringtone to a specified mp3, right? There is a few things that you may need to remember. The ringtone is getting changed, just not for the current call. When Android tells the system there is a call coming in and Tasker picks up on this, it is too late. The event has already occurred and Tasker changes the sound, but the first sound has already started. As mentioned above, it would be helpful if you post your profiles if you need specific guidance.

Regarding your dock problem, what kind of dock do you have? Is it the official car dock or desk dock, or is it a generic dock? Sometimes they are listed as dock stands and are just glorified usb holders. If that is the case, then it would only be seen as being connected to a power source.

 

[Dead_Droid]

I am thinking that what you are trying to do is set your ringtone to a specified mp3, right?

Yup.

There is a few things that you may need to remember. The ringtone is getting changed, just not for the current call. When Android tells the system there is a call coming in and Tasker picks up on this, it is too late. The event has already occurred and Tasker changes the sound, but the first sound has already started. As mentioned above, it would be helpful if you post your profiles if you need specific guidance.

Actually, I'm getting an error message when my phone rings with the ringtone which was set in the Android menu system. I made triple certain that my path contained no typos, although I wonder if there should be any syntactical qualifiers, but since I cannot paste to this box it's probably not the way to accomplish what I want to. The menu which the Long Press takes you to leaves no option to search other folders, and is loaded with crap tones - nobody should be subjected to this annoyance! This part of Android doesn't want to know that other folders exist, so the only way to get it on board with your tones is to copy them into the /system/media/Ringtones folder (or to a duplicate folder structure on your SD when you don't have root). This is both an onerous chore, and a waste of storage. So, what I am trying to do is find a way to make Android follow a path which I give it to a track in my sdcard/MUSIC folder, and make it play that right where it sits (just like my Alarm Klock app does so well for it's job, although with a nice menu system). Can't see why it should have a problem with this. Anyway, here is how I attempted to get around it:

State->Incoming Call
Media->Ringtone

Do you know a working way to do this?

Regarding your dock problem, what kind of dock do you have? Is it the official car dock or desk dock, or is it a generic dock? Sometimes they are listed as dock stands and are just glorified usb holders. If that is the case, then it would only be seen as being connected to a power source.

Well, guess mine is the latter, and then I wondered if the official dock had any more than a couple of usb cables, all made the same in the same Chinese sweatshop. I wondered this only when I saw Tasker specify options between a "car dock", "desk", or "any" but does Android or Tasker really need any brains in the dock to know when it's just been plugged in? When I selected "any", then why shouldn't that have been sufficient for Tasker, just knowing that the phone was plugged in? For you it may make a difference, so you may select "desk", but not all of us care one way or the other right now, and just want to tell it to run the clock when it's plugged in!

Anyway, my context for this was:
State->Docked->Any
App->Desk Clock