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FR-AI / ANALYSIS

Why it is worth attention

It solves a previously unsupported task—extracting and interacting with widget content—by using clever workarounds like an invisible overlay window and polling, making widget-only data accessible to automation.

Who it is for

Tasker power users who automate their phone
Android automation enthusiasts seeking widget data
Developers who want to integrate widget content into their apps or workflows

Use cases

Read unread counts, sensor readings, or next departure times that only appear in a widget
Poll a widget on a schedule and trigger actions when its value changes
Press a widget’s refresh, play/pause, or toggle button from a Tasker task

Strengths

Provides four dedicated Tasker plugin actions (get data, get JSON, click by path, click by text)
Implements robust workarounds for Android’s lack of widget reading API, including invisible overlay windows and smart polling
Open-source under GPLv3, allowing community review and customization

Considerations

Background activity launch restrictions may block some widget buttons that open activities
Timing: widgets taking longer than 8 seconds to load time out; JSON capture may miss late-arriving list rows
Paths are brittle if widget layout changes; text-based clicking is more reliable but not always available

README quick start

WidgetRelay

Read and click Android home screen widgets from Tasker.

Lots of apps show information in a widget that they expose nowhere else — no API, no notification, no content provider. WidgetRelay hosts those widgets invisibly in the background, extracts their contents, and hands them to Tasker as plain text or JSON. It can also click elements inside them, so a widget button becomes something a task can trigger.

Typical uses:

Read a value that only exists in a widget (unread counts, a sensor reading, the next departure, a balance, "now playing")
Poll a widget on a schedule and act when the value changes
Press a widget's button from a task (refresh, play/pause, toggle)

Actions

WidgetRelay registers four Tasker plugin actions. All of them are configured the same way: pick an app and widget, choose a size, and — for all but the JSON action — tap the element you want in the extracted-data list.

Action	Input	Output
Get Widget Data	element path	`%widget_value` — the element's text, content description or resource id
Get Widget JSON	—	`%widget_json` — the whole widget as a JSON tree
Click Widget Path	element path	—
Click Widget Text	element text	—

Addressing elements

Elements are addressed by their path in the widget's view tree: /root is the widget itself, /root/0/2 is the third child of the first child, and so on. The configuration screen shows every extracted element with its path, so you normally never type one by hand — you tap the element and the path is filled in.

Paths are stable as long as the widget's layout doesn't change. If a widget rearranges itself (many do, depending on state or size), prefer Click Widget Text, which searches by the visible text or content description instead. Both input fields accept Tasker variables, so %par1 or %text work too.

JSON output

Get Widget JSON returns the widget as a nested tree. type is the view class, children is only present when a node ha

Description

Read and click Android home screen widgets from Tasker.

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