How to Control your PC from your Android Device with Tasker [Part 3 – Apps Menu]

We know how to set up this framework from part one, we also set up the volume controls in part two. Time to open some apps and make our life easier. I will show you few examples I use to quickly enable the programs for streaming the content or just closing the google searches I don’t want others to see when my PC is on.

I will show you:

• How to open a program
• How to open a website
• How to open a specific website int the full screen
• How to close the browser

Of course feel free to modify/add more and tailor it to your needs. This is after all the beauty of Tasker. You are never stuck with just a template.

Tasker Apps Menu

EventGhost

The EventGhost side of things I will handle in a similar way. When an AutoRemote message is received, the PC will take the action accordingly. For each instance we are going to run  an application action:

Open a program

Add the run application task in EventGhost and navigate to the .exe file of your program. Select the desired window mode (minimized, maximized etc) and this is pretty much all you need. The same applies to the websites. To open the browser navigate to your browser’s installation folder and select the .exe file. If you want to run Plex server or open Steam for games, simply navigate to the file and copy the path into the action.

Open a website

Same as above but in the command line options – enter the website address. In my example, I have used the Amazon Prime website. If you want to run it in a full screen, the easiest option is to simply add the delayed keystroke F11 (add a plugin – keyboard, then add the action send keystroke and from the drop-down menu select F11 and press insert).

Closing the browser

There is an action Close we can use to close the Chrome (or other browsers) but before we can use this we have to find and bring that window(s) to the front. Use the Find action and in program type in chrome.exe (or your browser’s executable file); this will search through ALL windows and will close all the instances of your browser. A great panic button behavior.

Tasker

Open Sub-Menu Profile/ SubMenu Open

Create a new notification and link it to IF %ancomm ~ openbookmark. If the bookmark icon from the first row is pressed  – this action will be called.

Notification is configured as follows:

• Buttons – as per your liking, make sure the first row is consistent.
• Actions – the first row starts with open (see template) but the bookmark menu icon should have openclose action assigned instead. The second row has actions ending with ‘‘…pc”. I used amazonpc,chromepc,chromecpc,plexpc.
• Color – only a second color should be different.
• Prefix for actions – buttontwo

Submenu Actions/Send AR

Since the framework is already done, we don’t need to add anything else. All that hard work from the part one finally paid off.

PC Feedback/Notification

For this section, I have not used any feedback from the PC. If you want to receive a confirmation when the action is executed, you can add an AutoRemote message back in the Event Ghost. In my personal experience, the toast that the AutoRemote message has been sent successfully is enough of a confirmation. Please see the Volume Menu tutorial to see how to set it up, as the method is exactly the same.

In the last part (4) I will show you some screen timeout controls and some additional functionality that you can add to this project. I think by now you should understand how to add more menus and how the process works. Each time you add a submenu you only have to add a handful of supporting action to make the entire menu works.

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Download and Import

As always, I am providing a download link to the Tasker project file you can download and import. Download the below .prj.xml file and save it anywhere on your internal storage. Open Tasker and disable Beginner Mode in Preferences. Then, back at the main screen, long-press on the home icon in the bottom left corner. You should see a pop-up with an “import” option. Select that and look for the project file you just saved and select it to import. If successful, you should now see a new tab/icon at the bottom that contains all of the Profiles and Tasks that we mentioned in this article.

Download the PC Control Tasker Project from AndroidFileHost

In addition, you will need the Material Design Icons that I used in this project. Simply download the below zip file and unzip the folder to the root directory of your internal storage.

Download the Material Icons pack from AndroidFileHost

Finally, here is the configuration file for EventGhost that you can import.

Download the EventGhost configuration file

Please note that I’ve removed my AutoRemote API key from the configuration file. You’ll need to enter your own to make this work.

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