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The recently released version 1.2.2 of Pomodroido Pro has an additional major feature: Tasker integration. This is the first version of Pomodroido which differentiates the free and formerly-donate version, hence the name change. All Donate users should receive the free upgrade to Pro.

Tasker is a very useful application that allows users to configure certain Tasks to be activated based on context, such as the current location, time of day, gesture, etc. Today, you can add 'during a pomodoro' to that list.

This update will allow users that have both Pomodroido and Tasker installed to activate profiles based on the state of Pomodroido. This can be tremendously helpful when you often get distracted by your phone; simply disable phone calls/email/text messages during the pomodoro and you won't be disturbed again.

However, the configuration of Tasker can be difficult. Therefor I will walk through a common use-case which will allow you to set up some basic Profiles and Contexts for using this new feature. Of course, this is just an example and you can use any kind of Tasks you'd like. I particularly like the combination with the Call Filter Plugin, which allows me to block all callers except my manager.

Setting up your profiles

The first step is to configure your profiles. For the current implementation you will need two profiles: one to activate once you start a pomodoro, and one to restore the settings once you either abort or finish a pomodoro.

Pomodoro profile

Let's start with the pomodoro profile. Within Tasker, create a New Profile with the Profile Name set to 'Pomodroido'. This will open the 'First Context' screen. In this menu, click on 'Event', then '3rd party'. You will now see a screen with some 3rd party apps, including Pomodroido. Click on 'Pomodroido'. In the next screen, the event 'Started' should be selected by default (if not, select it) and press Done. We have now created a profile that will activate when a pomodoro is started.

Now it is time to associate some tasks that will execute when a pomodoro has been started. In this example, I would want to minimize completely disable my distractions from phone calls and text messages; so let's disable the Radio (responsible for the mobile network connection) when I'm running a pomodoro. To do this, I first click 'New Task' and name it 'During Pomodoro'. Add an action by clicking the plus on the bottom left side, and select 'Phone', then 'Radio', then 'Off'. You can add more actions if you like, and press 'Done' when it's to your liking.

Done. Every time I start a pomodoro, the radio is turned off and I'm my phone is blissfully silent. However, it does not turn on the radio once the pomodoro has ended. Next step: setup the default profile, which should restore the default settings.

The default/restore profile

Let's create another profile. This time set the name to 'Default' (or 'Restore'), and go through the event list again; 'Event', '3rd Party', 'Pomodroido', and this time change the event to 'Stopped'. This will trigger whenever a pomodoro has ended.

The Task we need to associate with this profile is the exact opposite of any actions that we enabled in the Pomodroido profile. So, in my case, I create a new Task called 'Restore from Pomodroido'. In this Task I create an action 'Phone', 'Radio', 'On' and click Done.

That's it.

Now, the radio turns off whenever I'm on a pomodoro, and on again once a pomodoro has been completed. Mission accomplished.

If you could use additional help, please let me know on menno@pomodroido.com. Additionally, there are a lot more options than I have explained above. For example: add a 'App' -> 'Calendar Insert' action to do rudimentary pomodoro bookkeeping in Google Calendar. If you have another interesting use-case, please leave a comment.

Let me end with a huge thanks to Pent from Tasker! Great app!

PS: More exhaustive bookkeeping is underway with pomodoro uploads to pomodroido.com. Check out my pomodroido.com profile for a work-in-progress preview (don't mind the lack of pomodoros, I promise that I get more done on my non-test Pomodroido client ;-)).