Tasker is the Swiss Army knife of Android power user apps. In fact, that comparison hardly does Tasker justice: it's like the software offspring of a Swiss Army knife and a Tricorder, with an optional Sonic Screwdriver attachment. The much-loved automation and scripting engine got a huge update today to version 4.3, with a list of new features, bugfixes, and small changes that's far too long for us to cover in total.

Here are some of the highlights:

• state Humidity (where supported by hardware, untested)
• action Say: parameter Use Network: improves speech synthesis with some engines (API 15+)
• action Alert / Beep
• action Alert / Morse
• action List Files: added Use Root parameter (requires rooted device to use)
• permission RECEIVE_SMS for new Android 4.4+ SMS support
• action Scan Card: specifying a directory will recursively scan it
• state Wifi Near: support for 'Scan always available' (Android wifi setting)
• action Phone / Set SMS App (change default, Android 4.4+)
• Run Log: log monitor and exe service start/restart/stop
• action Set Tasker Pref: humidity sensor entry
• app creation: kid app launch data is available in %intent_data in the launch task
• App Context: App button
• state: Ethernet Connected
• action Load Image: parameter Max Width Or Height
• action Set Timer (system timer) (KitKat+))
• action MIDI Play, userguide section on MIDI
• action edit: search menu option
• state Variable Value: multi conditions
• multiple If conditions in actions
• search: search names of installed plugins and show as features
• Prefs / Misc: Reduce Memory Usage option
• Prefs / Monitor / Use New Cell API

There's nothing earth-shattering in there, though I dare say that dedicated Tasker users could find lots of interesting uses for an alert played out in Morse code.