Nested Context Behavior

[jhnielson]

I have a set of Contexts that are nested like this:

• Home
  • At Desk
  • Running Presentation

The Rules for each of these are as such

• Home -- If at WiFi SSID "CBX" (Confidence, 100%)
  • At Desk -- if Power Adapter is connected (Confidence, 100%)
  • Running Presentation -- If GoToWebinar is Active Application (Confidence, 100%)

However, the match behavior is odd, when I have just a connection to the WiFi SSID, the Match numbers look like this:

• Home -- 100%
  • At Desk -- 97%
  • Running Presentation -- 96% Even though the other parameters aren't met for the sub-Contexts (e.g. it's running on battery and GoToWebinar is closed)

However, if I un-nest the contexts the match looks like this:

• Home -- 100%
• At Desk -- 0%
• Running Presentation -- 0%

Am I missing something or using nested contexts wrong?

Thanks for any help possible, JHN

[jhnielson]

Is there somewhere that describes how Nested Contexts work?

[dustinrue]

I actually don't recommend that people use nested contexts in favor of multiple active contexts. In almost every case where nested contexts are in use multiple active contexts are easier and a better fit.

Try it out by visiting advanced settings and enabling the option. Then just create specific rules for each context and they can be active independent of each other.

[sgade]

I fully understand the model of how (sub-)contexts work stems from the far past (I found this post). However, with the way it is communicated within the application, I've seen many people - including myself - believe that subcontexts only activate, if the parent context may become active. This seems far more logical and easy to understand to me.

---

As you are proposing to use multiple active contexts, I guess I then need to apply all the rules of the parent context to the subcontexts, right?

[wedi]

To do this it would be cool to have a tree view of contexts and the roles and actions underneath. Even more important would be a feature to duplicate contexts/rules/actionsinstead of having to enter everything multiple times. As an alternative it would help to be able to apply rules/actions to multiple contexts.