Tasker 3.0 April 20, 2020
It has been a while since Tasker was released. Tasker was a quick attempt at making a replacement for the Task Manager application that has been around for more than a decade, starting on the Series 3.
Ample time has now been taken to create a fully capable application that will be every bit as functional as Task Manager but offer the benefits of a rewrite, using configuration files and the latest web technology.
Some of the changes and new features are as follows:
- Faster– The tasks are executed much faster and the triggers and schedule are monitored in real-time instead of once every 5 – 10 seconds.
- Workspaces – Separate configuration logic into multiple workspaces. Then multiple workspaces can be loaded on the JNIOR at the same time.
- Tasks are now separate from triggers. In Task Manager a Task was created and a Trigger was configured to get the Task to execute. In Tasker 3.0 Tasks are a separate entity that can be executed several different way including manual execution from the configuration page and being requested via an ASCII TCP connection.
- Tasks can now send data via an Ethernet connection. To do this, a Device must be created so that the action can specify which device to send the data to. Multiple devices can be configured.
- New Actions – We implemented actions that were previously available in Task Manager but are introducing many new actions like external module control, TCP communication and control structures.
- Drag n Drop – Drag and Drop functionality makes it easier to design your Task logic.
- Signals are now created to assign a specific property of a I/O point or sensor a name. The name can then be used in Tasks, Triggers or Loggers.
- Loggers can be created to define the file name and schema or what data should be logged to that file. Each line in a Logger will be prepended with a timestamp followed by a comma. Loggers also allow you to define the number of files that should be kept with the given naming pattern. Name patterns can include date patterns. This will help you create a file per day for example.
- Schedule – The schedule has additional options.
- JSON Configuration files are used now instead of registry keys. Registry keys were limiting in size. The Series 3 could only store 255 characters in a registry key. It is much easier to upload configuration files to other JNIORs to replicate setups.
- User Interface – The User Interface is now a native HTML application that uses the latest web technology. The latest web technology uses native HTML controls and Web-sockets to communicate with the JNIOR from your browser. This will allow accessibility over remote connections as long as port 80 is available. This is now consistent with the communication method used by the DCP. Task Manager had always used Java Applets. The Java Applets have not been able to launch in browsers for several years as they became frowned upon as security vulnerabilities.
This was just a short list of changes and new features. The documentation for Tasker should explain these topics as well as many others. If there is anything you don’t understand please reach out to us for help. Additionally, if you have any suggestions or need the JNIOR to do something specific for you, please let us know.
For more information go to the Tasker Page