AUTOMATIC BACKUP/RESTORE
Locale has automatic backup and restore using the cloud-based backup mechanism in Android 2.2 or later. There are no configuration options within Locale—it just works!

To use this feature, simply make sure that backup/restore is enabled by going to the Android Settings and verifying that Backup and Restore is enabled. (This option might be in a different place on different devices. With Android 2.2, it can be found under Android settings → Privacy. With Android 4.0, it can be found under Android settings → Backup & reset). Whenever Locale is uninstalled and reinstalled, the device is factory reset, or you upgrade to a new device, your Locale situations will be automatically restored. If there are no options for backup and restore under the Android Settings, then the device does not support automatic backup and restore.

Since backups are tried to a Google account, be sure to always use the same Google account when setting up your Android devices.

If you’ve ever previously installed a pirated copy of Locale, automatic backup and restore will not work correctly.

MANUAL BACKUP/RESTORE USING ADB
For Android 4.0 and later, the Android developer tools can perform a backup to a desktop computer:

1. Install the Android developer tools http://developer.android.com/sdk/tools-notes.html
2. Enable USB debugging on your device
3. Create a backup called locale.apk in your computer terminal’s current working directory: adb backup -f locale.bak com.twofortyfouram.locale
4. Restore a backup from your computer terminal’s current working directory: adb restore locale.bak

MANUAL BACKUP/RESTORE TO EXTERNAL STORAGE
Locale contains a beta manual backup/restore feature to create a manual backup to external storage. (“External storage” does not necessarily mean the SD card. The definition of external storage varies from device to device.) Because Locale already has cloud-based backup and restore, most users should have no reason to worry about manual backup and restore.

Locale’s manual backup and restore is primarily meant for support and diagnostic purposes and is disabled by default. To enable manual backups, please follow the instructions below.

1. Allow installing apps outside of the Android Market
a. From the Home screen, go to the “Settings” app
b. For Android 1.5 through Android 3.2: Choose “Applications” and make sure that “Unknown sources” is checked. For Android 4.0: Choose “Security” and make sure that “Unknown sources” is checked

2. Install Backup Enabler
a. Open the web browser on your phone
b. Go to this address: www.twofortyfouram.com/backup.apk
c. Once the download completes, tap on the download
d. Follow the instructions to install

After manual backups are enabled, a new Backup menu item will appear under the menu of the Locale situation list screen. From that menu item, you can create a backup to external storage. When Locale is re-installed, it will automatically detect any existing backups and ask whether you’d like to restore them. Manual backups are an unsupported beta feature.

The original request here was for a logical NOT operator, although it doesn’t make sense to create a logical NOT operator in Locale. Most of the time, NOT isn’t the right way of thinking about a Condition. For example, NOT 9 am to 5 pm could be redefined as 5pm to 9am. NOT at work would simply be the Default situation. For the other conditions built-in to Locale, thinking about the problem in a different way usually means that NOT isn’t needed. If a Condition truly needs NOT logic, then that should probably be put into the individual Condition’s UI itself rather than as part of the Edit Situation screen in Locale.

Although this request is for a NOT operator, I believe the underlying request here is a way of detecting the transition between situations. The strongest use case would be detecting when you’ve left a particular Location. While Locale can easily detect the transition between situations, providing a UI to allow the user to do something with that transition is extremely complex.

Today, Locale treats situations as a continuous event. When Locale determines that a situation is active, it applies that situation’s settings. When leaving a situation, a lower priority situation’s settings take precedence (usually the Defaults). This provides a single, consistent behavior that makes Locale easy to understand.

One suggested implementation is to have “On Enter” and “On Exit” settings within a situation. On Enter settings would work like the current settings within Locale, while On Exit would be applied when leaving a situation. But what if the On Exit settings of a situation are in conflict with the On Enter settings of a higher-priority situation? The number of arrangements that the user must think about has just doubled.

We’re still evaluating ways to solve the underlying requeste of “leaving a location”, without making the UI too complicated…