Make it Easy to Access Telltail on Your Android
While there is an upper limit on the things we can achieve on iOS, there isn't that much on Android. For example, in both Android and iOS, looking for clipboard changes in the background isn't allowed. But you can topple this restriction on Android if you could root your device or have ADB access. There are many options to do automation as well: Tasker, Automate by LlamaLab, MacroDroid. You could use any of them with the APIs that Center provides to store and retrieve text on any motion or gesture you make, or button or icon you press.
As such, I can't document all of them here. I leave it to you guys — open a ticket and tell me about a neat and intuitive way you found to trigger copy/paste. And I'll finalize and put them here.
Using Tasker
Tasker support requires at least Telltail v0.3.0. You can see what your Telltail version is by typing
./telltail --version. At the time of writing, v0.3.0 hasn't been released. If you need this feature, you can request it here so an early release can be made.
Tasker is a paid app which can be bought from Play Store or from their website.
Prerequisites
A computer
Know-how of Tasker
Tailscale enabled on your phone
Disable Battery Optimisations
You have to disable any battery optimisation for Tailscale and Tasker. You can find instructions for some of the devices here.
Setting Up Permissions
Download Tasker Permissions app and open it. The Permissions app will display instructions in its bottom half. Follow them.
If you see a popup like this on your phone during the setup process, you should enable "Always allow from this computer" and then click Allow:
Once the screen changes, we land on configuration. There are two things we need to do here:
Setup Permissions
To enable the following permissions, click on the red boxes so they turn green.
Enable ADB WiFi
Click Confirm for "Enable ADB Wifi in Tasker with port". This option usually appears right below "Reload Devices/Permissions", positioned at the left of the window.
Alternatively, if you know ADB you can run this on CLI instead:
You can disconnect your phone from your computer now.
Initialising Tasker
Keep your tailnet name handy.
Open this link on your phone. Tap on Import. Select Yes whenever it asks you a Yes/No question. You can keep 'android' as your device name if you don't have multiple Android devices. Otherwise, specify a different name for each of your device.
Tell Telltail About Your Android Device
Open Tailscale's admin console to find out what the machine name is for your Android device. Keep the name handy.
In the computer you have installed Telltail Center, run this command:
It will ask you to enter a URL. Use http://<android-machine-name>:1821 as the URL wherein you would replace <android-machine-name> with the name you saw on admin's console.
Once this is setup, Telltail should be working. You can copy and paste as usual and the copied text will appear on other devices where Telltail is installed.
About Restarts
When you would restart your phone, you may see notifications from Tasker about missing permissions. Unfortunately there's no set-and-forget workaround. You have to do these steps whenever you restart your phone:
Revoke and then re-grant "Read System Logs" permission
Removing Tasker Support
In the machine you have installed Telltail Center, run this command:
When it asks you to enter a URL, use a dash -.
Open Tasker on your phone. Hold your tap on "Telltail" profile written at the bottom till a context menu appears. Tap on Delete › Delete Contents. Then tap on the checkmark that appears at the top of the screen.
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