Automate by Llamalabs

[Wibbly]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... b.automate

Spotted the above. Looks like someone trying to create a hybrid of Llama and Automagic. I think it's less mature than Automagic and I've no reason to change, but it seems to have a nice UI. In particular:

- Use of colour in the flow diagrams
- Basic log integrated in the Flow detail
- Material design

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, and regardless of who may have tried to copy who, are their any plans for similar Automagic 'versions' of these features?

flowcolours.JPG (50.8 KiB) Viewed 35455 times

log.JPG (67.55 KiB) Viewed 35455 times

[Martin]

Hi,

I have also seen this app. Even the inline expressions in text fields of the actions look almost exactly the same

The log is already available in menu->Log. The log is shown filtered for a particular flow when opened from the flow in question (menu->Log). You can also open the log from the flow list to see the log across all flows and type in any filter you like (pencil icon).
What kind of colors do you find most helpful? I'm somewhat conservative when adding colors but different look for connections of a condition is something I could add. Personally I prefer different patterns for different types of connections (see Exception-connection), maybe a long dash-pattern for the False-connections of conditions would be good.
Automate does not use material design in the screenshot, it's just a classical light Holo theme. I will probably update Automagic to Material design at some point but I'm not in a hurry since it requires quite a lot of work and I prefer to add new features in the short term.

Regards,
Martin

[Wibbly]

I'd not spotted that about the Aiutomagic logs, so that's great

I think the coloured lines for Yes/No or True/False are helpful, but might be problematic when they overlap. And there is also the colour blindness issue when thin red lines are on a dark backgroud.

With more complex flows I sometimes get confused with the direction of the flow and if I'm following a True or False branch. I also sometimes see True and False overlapping on the screen, which leads to confusion. So maybe having different True/False exit positions from a box each marked True/False in some way would help?

[MURTUMA]

So maybe having different True/False exit positions from a box each marked True/False in some way would help?

You can already select to which side the connection line connects. Select the line and yellow dots should appear around the boxes. These allow you to select the connection placement.

[Wibbly]

You can already select to which side the connection line connects. Select the line and yellow dots should appear around the boxes. These allow you to select the connection placement.

Indeed I can! Thanks. That helps a lot.

Now I'm feeling kinda sorry I asked!

[Pendrokar]

Giving my review when comparing the app to Automagic as it is still more popular than Automagic:

Pros:

• Has the free trial available on the Play Store, unlike Automagic.
• Separation of permissions - This might be what is helping Automate as one has to fully trust the automation app developers. While the process of adding permissions is slow, it is at least something. (resolved for Automagic with Android 6+)
• Scripts and expressions have autocomplete functionality for variables and functions.
• Expressions can use a single equal sign (=), whereas Automagic does not allow that. "==" is the kind of symbol that is mostly known to programmers, as we know that this is an expression then Automate did this right.

edit:

• Has visual scrollbars for flows.

Cons:

• Automate Blocks include events, conditions and actions, so there is no way to filter them and it does not feel user-friendly.
• Automate Block structure can give nightmares. OK IN YES NO naming of edges don't make much sence. Sometimes there are very complex blocks like "Fork" or that after the camera takes a picture, you have to make a new block for storing it, perhaps because that part requires Storage permissions.
• Flows are saved as binary FLO files. Doesn't seem that I am the only one that dislikes this(user review).
• Flow execution can only be viewed in logs, unlike Automagic.

Conclusion:
It is so far behind Automagic, yet it has been downloaded around 5 times more than that of Automagic, while still having a lower overall rating. Either LlamaLabs have had advertisement campaign, or the lack of Play Store trial and granting full permissions really sway people away from Automagic.

Later I will give my thoughts on the flow sharing community of Automate.

[mbirth]

I found out about Automate a few months ago and it made me consider the switch from Tasker. However, a bit research also made me find Automagic so I evaluated both. And to add to those Cons:

• Triggers are flow-blocking blocks in Automate. So to enable a flow, you have to start the flow. But to test said flow, you have to add a second starting point below the trigger block and from that moment, you'll get asked which starting point you want to use EVERY SINGLE TIME.
• For the flow to be able to get triggered again, you have to return to the starting point after your flow is finished (from each and every ending point you might have)
• This also means, while a flow is running, it can't be triggered a second time, so you might miss events
• No global variables and inter-flow communication is just awful to implement
• No scripting blocks, every single instruction HAS TO BE one block. This gets really messy when you have to swap around a few variables. (also see here and here for a visual comparison)
• No option to hide the "Automate is running" notification
• It's easily confused with AutoMate

With Android Marshmallow, the permissions aren't much of a problem anymore. You can perfectly control them with Android measures - no need for 15 separate APKs (which also have to be uninstalled separately when uninstalling Automate!).

[bogdyro]

Hi. I've been watching the progress of Automate and while it usually has the ability to do the same things as AutoMagic, the program itself is far less intuitive and harder to use. Anyway, there is one thing that it does better than Automagic in my opinion. In Automagic all conditions need to be checked at any one point in time. On the other hand, in Automate, after you start a flow, it waits for the conditions to become true and continues with flow execution. Say for example I want to trigger a flow when I pass by a wifi network. The flow is paused until another condition is being met, like a bluetooth device being available. And the flow continues from there, and so on. It automagic this could be implemented only by having multiple flows that trigger each other.
Would it be possible to implement such a thing in Automagic? Is there any interest to do so ?Thanks Martin.

[mbirth]

Say for example I want to trigger a flow when I pass by a wifi network. The flow is paused until another condition is being met, like a bluetooth device being available. And the flow continues from there, and so on.

Just a heads up: In this case, the first "trigger" isn't evaluated again when the second one fires. So you might want to have WiFi and Bluetooth available, but once the WiFi block triggered, it'll just wait for Bluetooth - whether you're still receiving that WiFi or not.

[MURTUMA]

You can make loops in Automagic. You can do that to keep polling reachable networks or other things. When doing this manually, you have much more freedom to do anything within the loop and have different conditions to terminate it. Simply by having a checkbox to have the condition wait, is not configurable enough. Also, it's been discussed before why conditions only catches states as opposed to triggers catching events. It is because of performance and battery life.