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We NEED a custom profile app like blackberry!!!!

greenjt

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Oct 2, 2010
4
0
I am an android convert on day 2 with a samsung fascinate.

Coming from blackberry i have to say i am very disappointed with the lack of Profile tools. I rely heavily on custom vibration patterns and duration to differentiate between different email accounts, IM, phone, sms etc because i spend a lot of time sitting in meetings and need to discretely differentiate between accounts.

Why oh why hasn't somebody developed an App like the profile manager in blackberry? I really need an app with custom vibration across all notifications, not just call or sms. i don't want to go back to boring blackberry but might need to.

Ideas? help!
 
I find your request quite interesting. I am interested in what these different indicators do for you. If for instance a particular email account or SMS, or a phone call were to come in during a meeting, do you excuse yourself to take the call or do you try to discretely (i.e. under the table) view and/or respond such as an SMS telling the caller you are in a meeting? There are programs that will auto-reply for such situations, allowing you to go silent for the period of the scheduled meeting (or to drive hands-off). I have used them and they work well.

Personally I do not like vibrate as it is disturbing to me. Any vibration becomes not painfully irritating, but certainly unpleasant and I rush to interrupt it, so for me any pattern would only add to the disturbance. Therefore I turn off vibration as a function completely due to this aversion to the sensation, and when one or another program installed turns it back on, I quickly reverse the process.

I may be hypersensitive and having a son diagnosed with Asperger's who has both sensory issues and social issues, it seems with this averse reaction to the "buzz on my belt", that I may have a touch of the sensory issues myself. I can see how a variety of vibration patterns could be used to differentiate between one or another account, service, etc., but for me all I would gain is the additional aggrivation of the various patterns.

I do know that some use very quick and pleasant "dings" and other short single or multi-tone indicators to identify one or another notification, and from what I have seen others in meetings I attend do not feel these quick signals to be a rude interruption to the meeting unlike a ringing phone. MP3 ringtones are the worst offenders of this type as often the song or other melody they choose is either very personal (a recording of a family member), or somewhere between inappropriate (religious or patriotic) and downright obnoxious (cop killer rap).

Where a speaker or chair may make an announcement asking people to "turn your phone's ringer off", if someone's phone happens to ring anyway, at the interruption they will raise the issue again. However with the quiet "dings" I mention, they are not likewise interrupted and haven't raised the issue of concern.
 
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I too am a Blackberry convert and found it TOTALLY amazing that as much as Android can do, the devs did not allow more flexibility in the default OS settings to allow the user to assign more options to more events. I mean seriously...2 options? Calls and mail/texts are all you can change notifications on? I will say however that is really the only thing that surprised/disappointed me with the phone.
 
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I find your request quite interesting. I am interested in what these different indicators do for you. If for instance a particular email account or SMS, or a phone call were to come in during a meeting, do you excuse yourself to take the call or do you try to discretely (i.e. under the table) view and/or respond such as an SMS telling the caller you are in a meeting? There are programs that will auto-reply for such situations, allowing you to go silent for the period of the scheduled meeting (or to drive hands-off). I have used them and they work well.

First of all i don't really use sms. I'm heavy email and IM. Second I use custom profiles for different situations. I don't holster, i pocket the phone and its important to be able to differentiate whats coming in without taking the phone out so i can decide to read/respond based on the situation. I have been managing my blackberry's for years this way and android really drops the ball on this.

and i always keep my handset on vibrate.
 
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let me make sure that tasker is the application that i need. here is what i am needing to do.

i am on a search and rescue team and all of our activations some by sms text, email and or phone call. when i had my blackberry tour i created a profile called sar and when an email came from a particular address i had a ring tone that would wake me up also on that profile when a phone call came from a particular person and only that person the phone would ring and wake me up. other than that, it stayed silent.

so based on the above information, can tasker be programmed to do the above.

thanks
 
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let me make sure that tasker is the application that i need. here is what i am needing to do.

i am on a search and rescue team and all of our activations some by sms text, email and or phone call. when i had my blackberry tour i created a profile called sar and when an email came from a particular address i had a ring tone that would wake me up also on that profile when a phone call came from a particular person and only that person the phone would ring and wake me up. other than that, it stayed silent.

so based on the above information, can tasker be programmed to do the above.

thanks

I know tasker can help you specify when the phone rings and when it doesn't, because I have it set that way for SMS and text for certain times/when I have certain applications open.

But the thing about email is I'm not sure it supports it from other email clients like k-9.

Maybe someone could clarify for me this too.
 
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Tasker doesn't directly support any email clients other than K9. However, it can react to notifications that appear from Gmail or other apps.

What you would have to do in Tasker is create multiple profiles to do what you want.

For SMS... upon receiving an SMS from a specified person (or possibly more than one), or an SMS containing specific text, you could turn off silent mode, set volume to maximum, and play a sound and/or vibrate the phone. Then return to the previous settings.

For email... the only way Tasker will know the sender of an email is if you use the K9 mail client. I don't use it, so I can't really say how it works or how quickly the mail would arrive on your phone.

For calls... have Tasker turn off silent mode and set the ringer volume to maximum what a specified caller (or more than one) calls, then return to previous settings. On some devices this has been reported to not work - the settings changes don't take effect until after the phone stops ringing.

I'm a big fan of Tasker, but for your purposes I think you may be better off looking elsewhere. You may want to take a look at some of the Apps by Andy.
 
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Tasker doesn't directly support any email clients other than K9. However, it can react to notifications that appear from Gmail or other apps.

What you would have to do in Tasker is create multiple profiles to do what you want.

For SMS... upon receiving an SMS from a specified person (or possibly more than one), or an SMS containing specific text, you could turn off silent mode, set volume to maximum, and play a sound and/or vibrate the phone. Then return to the previous settings.

For email... the only way Tasker will know the sender of an email is if you use the K9 mail client. I don't use it, so I can't really say how it works or how quickly the mail would arrive on your phone.

For calls... have Tasker turn off silent mode and set the ringer volume to maximum what a specified caller (or more than one) calls, then return to previous settings. On some devices this has been reported to not work - the settings changes don't take effect until after the phone stops ringing.

I'm a big fan of Tasker, but for your purposes I think you may be better off looking elsewhere. You may want to take a look at some of the Apps by Andy.

since i have purchased this tasker application and it is too late to get the refund from the developer and from the playing around that i have done with it so far, i have found that this software is way above my pay scale, is there an easy kinda-of step-by-step method of getting it programmed to do what i want it to do.
 
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I feel your pain brother.

Blackberry was amazing in that regard. My needs arent quite as complex as yours. I work in varying environments. In audio profiles, I need a profile where I can set the audio to high levels and use a piercing obnoxious notification. For a medium level environment, I need to use a less obnoxious notification array, but hear-able. in low level areas, I'd like a more soothing array of notifiers that doesn't jar me or scare the GF. She hates my notifiers as they are. I pretty much stay on vibrate.

I use audio manager pro for this, but I'm still stuck with the same notification sound for each function. Just am able to have several volume levels and turnoff whatever function alert as well. It can do some cool things, especially when combined with the GPS based "locale". Still not what we are seeking.

Android bummed me there as well. I'd pay a lot to have such a deep Blackberry style, simple menu driven audio profile manager in Android. Surprised some BB addict hasn't gone there. Seems to be the biggest issue for BB guys.
 
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I also am a BB convert and used to use the Toysoft Profile switching prog.

I've been using a profile program called Easy Profiles on my android. I think its very powerful. Allows you to launch and kill apps, trigger things upon calendar events, gps locations,ect.... alot more. They also have a trial you can use.

I found it slightly confusing to setup but its awesome when you get it going.
 
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Darn shame no Cyanogen for Droid X....

Not sure Tasker is it. Gonna have to see. Seemed more program oriented. Likely I'm wrong? It doesn't sound quite like it will be the ticket.

Looked at Easy Profiles, not sure of that per description.

Playing with "quick profiles" as the description seemed better... I may be quite wrong, not all that impressed.

Sad... As mentioned, doesn't seem like such a big thing. But, No one has done a Blackberry 8830 keypad justice and how it does stuff either. Thank the gods for Swype and Swiftkey. lol...
 
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Darn shame no Cyanogen for Droid X....

Not sure Tasker is it. Gonna have to see. Seemed more program oriented. Likely I'm wrong? It doesn't sound quite like it will be the ticket.

Looked at Easy Profiles, not sure of that per description.

Playing with "quick profiles" as the description seemed better... I may be quite wrong, not all that impressed.

Sad... As mentioned, doesn't seem like such a big thing. But, No one has done a Blackberry 8830 keypad justice and how it does stuff either. Thank the gods for Swype and Swiftkey. lol...


you can do just what you need with easy profiles. I use normal ear piercing sound during the weekend and after work until 9pm when I'm normally outside or farther away from my phone.

I use very quiet email notifications and ringer on lowest volume at work.

I then have it go to no email/text notification and ringer on lowest when sleeping.

And go to vibrate based on time and gps location for church....


Love that program!!!
 
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Appreciate the input fstbusa (nice bikes btw!).

So, easy profile will give me "different" notifications for each action (email, SMS, call) for each profile profile? And say, a call could be a siren on one profile and birds chirping on another? (examples lol)

They don't make it clear in the description, but you can only say so much there I realize :).

But is that's the case, yes, it is pretty much a huge help for "my" needs.Thanks!!!!!
 
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Appreciate the input fstbusa (nice bikes btw!).

So, easy profile will give me "different" notifications for each action (email, SMS, call) for each profile profile? And say, a call could be a siren on one profile and birds chirping on another? (examples lol)

They don't make it clear in the description, but you can only say so much there I realize :).

But is that's the case, yes, it is pretty much a huge help for "my" needs.Thanks!!!!!

I don't think you can change the email and text notifications to different ones using profiles in this program. I do know different emails and text can have different notifications tones but I don't believe they change when you change the profile. After talking with the developer I believe its a limitation of the android OS and the way the software is allowed to switch profiles.

I seriously think you should give it a try... I believe the Easy Profiles has a trial that you can use and try for free to see if does what you need.
 
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