The routine is written once. Each run fills in its own value.
Putting a value in
- Press the step's name, on its page or on the run's card.
- Press the ⊕ that appears beside it while you type.
- Choose a value, or A value by name… for one the routine does not have yet.
The value goes in as a chip. The description takes values the same way.
Besides values, a name can say the run's name, the routine's name and when the run started. A name cannot say the time of day. It would go stale on a Lock Screen that nobody redraws.
Where the value comes from
The nearest one wins:
- What this run was told at this step.
- What this run was told.
- What the routine's step says.
- What the routine says.
A value set on the run reaches every step that names it. A value kept at one step fills that step only.
A value can be set:
- by hand, under Add or see… on the run's page;
- from Shortcuts, with Set Value;
- by a step's own action, Change a value;
- by another app through a connection. See Connections.
What you see while you write
With the caret in the name, you see the words as written, with the value as a chip. With the caret out, you see them filled in.
On the routine's page there is no run yet, so a value nobody has given reads as its own name in grey.
Keep and the band
Filling in a value is not a change to the step. The orange band does not count it, and Keep never writes "window 7" into the routine. The value itself is the run's own, like any value, and the band counts that as it always has. See Keep or Only here.
Renaming the step inside a run is a change. Keep then writes the new name into the routine with its chips, so every later run fills them in for itself.
When something goes wrong
- It still says "…". The value has not reached the run, or it was written under another name. Names are matched exactly, capitals and spaces included. Open the run's values and check the spelling.
- It shows braces, like {time}. That word cannot go in a name. Take it out, or move it to the step's message.
- A finished run says an old value. That is what it said then. A finished run keeps its words as they were.