With Tasker’s relatively new ability to export creations as apps, users have discovered that certain features of the task creator are are missing and causing problems with exported apps. Tasker itelf has a file browser, for instance which is used whenever the user needs to browse for a file or folder he/she doesn’t know the path to. Exported apps may also need the user to select a file or folder, but there’s no way to call Tasker’s file browser from a scene!
The solution is to create your own file browser using scenes. The method to do this shown in the video is the method I’ve found to be most effective (after first going wrong with using arrays, and needing some assistance to get on the right track), and the basic concept requires only a handful of actions. You can expand on that as much as you want, but this at least provides a basic file browser that you can then implement in your creations, be it your own personal scenes or exported apps.
Sorry, I can’t see the video in my country. I think you’d better explain your main idea in your article before video. Thanks in advance!
Hi,
I checked on YouTube, and the video isn’t flagged in any way that would make it unavailable for those reasons. If YouTube in general is blocked in your country, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about that.
Interesting thing! I have recently built a scene for playing music. Do you see a possibility to use the browser scene for the selection of a directory that contains music?
Andreas, I copied your video instrction step by step. No matter what start directory I use: only one (explicitly: the first) of all subdirectories will be shown.
I checked my scene and the task over and over and I do not see any mistake I made.
Do you have any idea?
There have been updates to Tasker since this was relased, and I no longer update the app because of some changes that broke my existing creations. As such, I can’t answer why it won’t work, as we’re likely using different versions of the app :/
Thanks anyway!
Thanks this is what I needed. It works great. But I cannot seem to find how to make that go back button that restores the previous version of %Listedfiles. How do I do that?
You need to store the value in another variable and then use it in the back button
Hello thank you for your quick response.
Finally it works.
I was at first looking for a buildin variable, but now I created a new one. This is what I came up with:
In the Filebrowser Scene:
In the Menu Item Tap
add lines in task
like this:
1 List Files:
Dir: %tap_label, Variable: %files
2 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles4 to %Oldlistedfiles3
3 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles3 to %Oldlistedfiles2
4 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles2 to %Oldlistedfiles1
5 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles1 to %Oldlistedfiles
6 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles to %Listedfiles
7 Variable set:
Name %Listedfiles to %files()
Back Button:
Label: Back
Tap:
1 Variable Set
Name %Listedfiles to %Oldlistedfiles
2 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles to %Oldlistedfiles1
2 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles1 to %Oldlistedfiles2
2 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles2 to %Oldlistedfiles3
2 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles3 to %Oldlistedfiles4
2 Showschene
Name: File browser
Now I can browse more directories back. It ‘s a little slower but it works.
Is this is what you mean, or can it be done more efficient.
I see in my Back button list: number 2 before 4 Variable Set items. It has to be the number 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Back Button:
Label: Back
Tap:
1 Variable Set
Name %Listedfiles to %Oldlistedfiles
2 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles to %Oldlistedfiles1
3 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles1 to %Oldlistedfiles2
4 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles2 to %Oldlistedfiles3
5 Variable Set
Name %Oldlistedfiles3 to %Oldlistedfiles4
6 Showschene
Name: File browser
That looks about right. Using global variables slows down the process a lot, but I haven’t tinkered with this particular kind of Tasker creation in so long that I don’t remember if there’s a way around that