Background: I have a Google Sheet that automatically manages key organization event dates, but occasionally one has to be manually overridden. I have been duplicating those auto calc'd event dates using PHP on the organization's web page but that doesn't handle it when the event dates are manually changed back in the Sheets database.
Need Statement: I wish to grab the text content of the Google "DateCalc" Sheet, cell "A33" (which contains the corrected next Date) and embed it automatically in a web page sentence that states, "The next event is scheduled for ???." where "???" is whatever is needed for the HTML embed effort for the text content of cell A33.
All the embedding approaches I have tried using the publish to web feature of Sheets, just display a frame with the entire Sheets page content, and I have not been able to find a simple single text display approach, which is what I seek. All the solutions I have found so far are for much more complex situations. I believe I don't need any more code on the Sheet (source) end, just an appropriate "embed code snippet" at the destination end.
I can embed a complete sheet but haven't found a way to embed a simple text string in line with the surrounding text in the sentence.
This web script is the closest I have been able to come...
Our next meeting is on <object data="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQq6sXBel4SOW5U_XLnQ1xyyl4P-aK2v1R-5uofUvstMLV89_yCSqX3Lmsy4B7E21gojeG88efGFjZ0/pubhtml?gid=604484136&single=true&range=A29&chrome=false" type="text/html" width="171" height="15"></object>.
but, if the Code Snippet really ran (I changed the file ID to protect the innocent), you would see it doesn't produce an in-line text string but an isolated "block" with the text inside it, as shown below....
The text seems to be an image, not text, that is displaced above the text baseline and has a small gray blob following it that I just can't get rid of.
I'll assume that your server uses a combination of PHP and HTML, so one approach can be to use that PHP code to make a call to the Sheets API to retrieve the data. In the PHP Sheets API Quickstart you can find a example of how to set up a project to achieve a working connection between your server and the API. After you complete the tutorial, you can modify your script to include the following function so you can achieve your original request.
function getNextDate() {
$client = getClient();
$sheetsService = new Google_Service_Sheets($client);
$spreadsheetID = '{YOUR SPREADSHEET ID}';
$cellRange = 'DateCalc!A33';
$serverResponse = $sheetsService->spreadsheets_values->get($spreadsheetID, $cellRange);
$cellValue = $serverResponse->getValues();
if (empty($cellValue)) {
return "NO MEETINGS AHEAD!\n";
} else {
foreach ($cellValue as $value) {
return $value[0];
}
}
}
A totally different alternative is to use a webapp. You can use this tutorial to deploy a webapp that can be later embedded in your webpage to show the following meeting dates.
So there are two free alternatives to accomplish your objectives: using the Sheets API or a webapp; and in this anwser I provided a function for the API option. Please, don't hesitate to offer information for further clarifications or request for help.
Our next meeting is on
.
I built a free, open source, and easy to use service and badge generator called https://cellshield.info. It works out of the box for public Google spreadsheets. What you see above is a live Markdown output version of a badge that is synced from a spreadsheet with the value formatted as what was shown in your example with a formula of TODAY(). The Markdown just makes an image tag which I suppose you can do with anything else that can make an image tag as well.
If you want the yellow or any formatting to to go away, try this:
Our next meeting is on
.
This was done by adding &color=rgba%28255%2C255%2C255%2C0.0%29&style=flat-square to the arguments. The text doesn't match perfectly, it's servicable.
Anyway, I see you went with tabletop but if you or anyone else is just looking to do what you wanted to do, then my service should be sufficient.
For example, it is used for this Game Boy development contest to present the prize pool amount.
If a private spreadsheet solution is needed, one could fork my code, run it on Cloud Run in their Google Cloud Platform account and explicitly share the spreadsheet to the service account on their Google Cloud Platform instance.
Jacques-
Merci beaucoup !
It has been a challenging several days of non-stop effort but you put me on the right track.
Using less than 20 lines of JavaScript code, including one line for the free TableTop.js library call (see https://github.com/jsoma/tabletop#if-your-publish-to-web-url-doesnt-work) and inserting a string in the middle of my HTML sentence, yielded EXACTLY what I was seeking and the solution was INFINITELY SIMPLIER than virtually everything else I found that required multiple libraries, subscription fees, complex system calls, etc.
The hardest part was inserting the JavaScript code into WordPress which my web site is constructed with, as you can essentially only insert plain text into a WordPress page, but with the an added WordPress plugin (Insert Header and Footers) you can put code into a WordPress page.
Many thanks for getting me headed in the right direction, and having a great learning experience along the way. :-)
Related
I have managed to incorporate an app into a Google sheet I was able to copy from a tutorial video. The app provides a Custom Menu in the sheet that allows a user to conduct a search of content across the sheet.
The sheet, with editor access and Custom Menu showing, is available here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fl2B9yrZA75Vm5KwVsLsZ4K2_GUYO35LQLYxDcSoauY/edit?usp=share_link
and it works fine even if I may do some more formatting.
The sheet is available via the Search Test button near bottom right on this page:
https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/resources/records.html
but, as you will see, I am unable to set authorizations in the back end so that any user on the front end can access the sheet with the custom menu showing so they can search the data. The link above shows the sheet, but without the Custom Menu.(The custom Menu appears to work if I prove Editor access, but obviously I do not wish to do that)
The use of Apps Script is totally new to me, and I have searched widely for help, but obviously have found no solution. I read what I think are the relevant Google documents but I simply do not have the depth of understanding to interpret them.
In summary, I wish any user of the website to be able to access a linked google sheet and be able to search that sheet using the Apps Script created Custom Menu .
I am functional with HTML and CSS and just beginning to try and learn some JavaScript. In other words you are corresponding with a relative novice.
I have tried different file access levels as indicated above, I have looked through Apps Script authorization process but frankly I have trouble understanding how and where the Script links to the sheet.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Richard
When editing a Google form manually, you can usually click on an item, and on the side appears a menu, which includes the button "import questions". This button is very useful for me as it allows me to collect questions from past Google forms and import them to new Google forms.
But I'm looking through the Forms documentation, and I can't figure out how to do this via Google apps script programatically.
Here is the documentation:
https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/forms/form
The closest thing to what I want is the .moveItem() method, which moves an item from one spot in a form to another. But it only works within the same form. I want to know if I could do it across forms. And ideally, instead of moving the item, it would make a copy of the item in the new form.
I considered the .getItems() method, but there doesn't seem to be a general .addItem() method I could use on the new form. Would I have to go through the painstaking process of having to identify each item type, and specify how the details of each one should be copied to the new form, including things like point values of a question and whether or not the question is required?
I want to import from forms that have all kinds of content: video, images, multiple choice questions, grid questions, number scale questions, etc. I feel that if I have to specify the details of each item type, it would take too long, and I would be bound to miss something or run into an error that may be impossible to solve. Is there not an easier way?
And if specifying each item type is what I have to do to import everything properly, has someone else created that code already that I can re-use?
Issue:
In the current stage, unfortunately, it seems that Forms Service cannot copy all items. Ref1, Ref2 Ref3. And, unfortunately, moveItem can be used for the same Google Form as you say.
Workaround:
In your situation, as a workaround, how about copying the source Google Form? And, when there are some items you want to remove, you can remove them. I thought that this process can be achieved by Google Apps Script.
But, I'm not sure about your actual Google Form. So I'm not sure whether this is a suitable method.
Future:
Recently, Google Forms API was announced. Ref When this API got to be able to be used, your goal might be able to be achieved by retrieving the object from Google Form. Unfortunately, I'm still not sure about the detail of it.
I wrote a script that takes some data from a google spreadsheet and writes it in several separate tables in a google document.
Since I need to physically cut these tables from the printed document, I'd like to add horizontal lines between them.
I guess I can insert an image of a line, via
var cutline = UrlFetchApp.fetch("SOME URL");
body.appendInlineImage(resp.getBlob());
where "SOME URL" is the url for the image.
Another way I can think of would be creating a one-column table and add my tables in its cells. The horizontal lines for the table would be my cutting guides.
However, from the user interface I a horizontal line can be easily added via "Insert>Horizontal Line". I was not able to do find a way to do that from Google Apps Script.
Is this unsupported?
Can someone confirm that and/or possibly suggest method that is less cumbersome than those I thought of?
EDIT: I have also found the HorizontalRule class, which I do not understand entirely. However I don't think it's what I'm looking for.
Another alternative could be an InlineDrawing. However, from this guide, I gather that an InlineDrawing can only be manipulated, but not added programmatically.
HorizontalRule should do the magic.
This code worked for me:
DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody().appendHorizontalRule();
More info:
https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/document/horizontal-rule#copy()
DocumentApp.getActiveDocument()..getBody().insertHorizontalRule(0)
I have a google apps script that I need to output text to the screen.
I know this can be accomplished with
return HtmlService.createHtmlOutput("blah blah");
But I need to have text written to the screen as soon as my script starts processing not when it returns...
How can can I do it?
It depends on what services your script is using, and what container (if any) houses it. In a spreadsheet, for instance, you could pop up a "toast" message. However, it appears that you're using HtmlService, most likely as a deployed web app.
One option would be to replace the text content of an element on the html page. See this answer for an example of that.
OK, I'm tired of searching for specific questions to help with a project, finding answers, changing my implementation which just adds more questions, realizing there's a better way to do things, etc. So allow me to ask for general assistance, I will then do my best to research how to do it and ask further questions if needed.
I'm writing a script to be used as a Gadget in a Google Site page
(I'm more than willing to share this if anyone wants to take a look
at it); right now I'm doing this just for me, but I want to write
this to be easily used by others.
This will list all user's Google Docs in a specified folder; when
selecting the document from the list, the contents will be displayed
for editing in another field.
The user will be able to define certain lines, starting wit a period,
to "mark" as chords that can be automatically transposed with the
push of a button; that is to say, the user clicks a button and all
A's go to A#, B to C, C to C# and so on, but only on the specified
"Chord" lines.
The user can then save this document back to the Google Docs for
printing if needed.
I've got the layout mostly. Some problems I'm coming across:
Doing a .find apparently finds all documents that have the given string in the name and
the contents. The fix would be to put the document IDs in a Hidden, but it doesn't seem
that a List returns the numbered item you clicked on, so how can I also get the ID
that's stored somewhere else?
I'd like the TextArea to be rich text for bolding and what-not; does
Google Apps have a text editor (it'd be awesome if I could just put
the Google Docs editor in a panel)? RichTextArea has been
deprecated, is there a replacement?
To do the transposing, I was planning on just putting every character
of the text area into an array, stepping through the array, when it
sees a "\n" followed by a "." to flip a var "on", then changing any
following characters, then if it sees another "\n" to turn the var
"off"; is there a better way to do this?
Or, is there way to add a script to a Google Document that would do
the transposing (I know you can do macros for spreadsheets, but there
doesn't really seem to be an equivalent for documents)? That way I can
just give out this macro and tell people to use on their existing document.
Since you asked, yes, separate questions would be appropriate, because the combination of questions is very specialized, while the individual problems might be more general, and of use to more people. But let me take a stab at it anyway...
[With the result of find()]... how can I also get the ID that's stored somewhere else?
DocsList.find() returns a list of File objects. Class File has a getId() method that returns the document ID you are used to seeing in Google Drive. To get the IDs of all your files:
var files = DocsList.getAllFiles();
for (var i in files) {
Logger.log(files[i].getId());
}
You should also look at DocsListDialog for creating a file picker that works on Google Drive.
RichTextArea has been deprecated, is there a replacement?
No, not in apps-script. You've just got TextArea. However, you may be able to embed a third-party rich text editor in your UI.
To do the transposing, ... is there a better way to do this?
Change the TextArea.value into an array of lines, then manipulate those, without needing to manage an on/off state. See How do I get information out of TextArea in Google App Script on the button click? and Javascript: Convert textarea into an array.
// aTextArea contains user's input. Probably a Johnny Cash song.
var inputText = e.parameter.aTextArea;
var inputLines = inputText.split('\n');
for (var i in inputLines) {
if (inputLines[i].charAt(0) == '.') {
// Transpose
}
}
// Put lines back together, if you wish
var outputText = inputLines.join('\n');
..is there way to add a script to a Google Document that would do the transposing...
Yes (capability extended to Docs and Forms since question was originally asked). No, Spreadsheets are the only document type that can be a container for scripts at this time.
Alternatively, you could employ a stand-alone script to operate directly on Docs! Perhaps with a script deployed as a Web App that lets users pick the target music to transpose from documents on their Google Drive, and that then writes a new copy of the document, transposed?