Task Builder General Options

Task Builder contains general options that enables control over a variety of interactive aspects. You can choose whether double-clicking an action/activity from the Actions panel should add it to the beginning or end of the task. Also, you can dictate what task should appear the next time the Task Builder is open, whether it be a new task, all tasks from the previous session or selected task from the previous session.

The Task Builder General Options page can be accessed by navigating to File > Options > General. General options is a subset of Task Builder Options.

Parameters

The following table describes Task Builder's available General options:

Property	Default	Description
On startup, open	New task	Dictates the Task Builder's startup behavior. This option is relevant only when the Task Builder is started manually from Windows Start menu or by the executable file by way of Program Files directory (for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\Automate Desktop2023\AMTB.exe). The previous task is never opened when Task Builder is started for a managed task through Task Administrator. New task - A new task will open. Previously opened tasks are ignored. Selected task from last session - Automatically re-opens the task that was last open in the Task Builder. If multiple tasks were previously open, the active/selected task is the one that will re-open. All tasks from last session - Automatically re-opens all tasks that were previously open.
When an action is selected	Add step to end of task	When double-clicking an action from the Actions panel, determines where that action is inserted in the Steps panel. The available options are: Add step to end of task - The action is automatically inserted in the Steps as the last step. Insert step at current selection - The action is automatically inserted in the Steps panel directly where the currently selected (highlighted) step is positioned. The current step and all others below it are moved a single step downward. NOTE: In either case, a new step can be inserted at the desired position by dragging the action from the Actions panel onto the desired position in the Steps panel instead of double-clicking it.
Include error descriptions in Visual view	Only when different from default	Controls when the Visual view (as opposed to AML view) in the Steps panel displays descriptive text about each step's error handling along with descriptive text about the step itself. Every Automate Desktop step performs default error handling if the step fails. Select from the following: Always - Always appends the error handling description to each step. This can cause extra, redundant text to be displayed in the Steps pane. Only when different from default - Appends descriptive text about the step's error handling only when an error handling option has been set that is different from the default. This will cause the error description to be omitted in the majority of cases because the default error handling is sufficient for most steps (selected by default). Never - Never appends the error handling description. The error handling can only be viewed by opening the properties dialog for the step.
Task Builder auto save options	Disabled	If selected, the Automatically save task(s) every 2 minutes option will automatically save tasks with an associated file every 2 minutes. NOTE: After selecting or clearing this setting, Task Builder must be restarted before changes will take effect.
Default task file location	C:\Users\<user.name>\Documents\Automate Desktop2023 Tasks	By default, unmanaged tasks are saved to a location accessible by the user that initially installed the program. This location is different from the default managed task location and may vary depending on the operating system. To indicate the default location to which an unmanaged task should be saved, click the folder icon to browse available folders to select from or enter the full path to the folder in the provided text box. NOTE: If specifying a network location as the default task location, it is critical that mapped drive letters not be used. Folders should always be specified using UNC (Universal Naming Convention) paths. For example: X:\pathname\ should be \\servername\pathname\. This is because mapped drives are available only when a user logs on and this does not occur for LocalSystem services.