SelectBox in Google Script? - google-apps-script

I am a little bit new to Google Script so apologies if my question is silly. I have the following user scenario:
- on a monthly basis I get standard file from on of my departments
- I save the file on Google Drive and automatically copy certain information to my Sheets that I use to analyse this information
- I finished the code that does the copy, selection, etc.
I am struggling with the first piece - some sort of SelectBox that I would use to select source file. I can write code that will search Google Drive and display potential files, display them in ListBox, but maybe there is other way (the simpler the better). What would you recommend here?
Google has nice Box that shows up when you try to copy sheet into other Sheets document, but it seems not to be avaialble for Script.
Any help is much appreciated.

Related

How to import Google Spreadsheet cells into a Google Document?

I would like to import (or better "link") data from a Google Spreadsheet (the Excel-like web app) into a Google Document (the Word-like web app).
I am not interested in manual procedures: I think copy-past would just work.
I need a table in Google Document to "import" data from a Google Spreadsheet.
And, as soon as I change the spreadsheet data and I later open the document, I would like to see the updated values automatically, if possible.
I think I could exploit Google Apps Script but am really new to this technology and hints or link to examples would be of great help. Of course any other working solution (if any) will be fine.
Sheets Service
Docs Service
There are many helpful snippets and tutorials within the google scripts documentation (dig around in the listings on the left pane, click on the classes to see short usage examples). You may even find something there that pretty much works 'out-of-the-box' for importing values from sheets into docs.
(Although, you may only be able to do things as 'automatically' as triggering an import function every minute or so, it won't be instantaneous).

Uploading an XLSX converting and replacing a current spreadsheet

Just a general question, I would like to create a user upload form that would convert an .xlsx to the corresponding Google Sheets version and then replace a currently existing sheet on my drive. The main question and aspect that I'm not sure is achievable is replacing a current google sheet. Is a project like this even achievable in a reasonable manner? The reason I want to replace it is because the KeyID for that sheet is used in a couple other app scripts for a website. Thanks for the suggestions and advice.
Yes, this is possible. About being "reasonable", well... I think it is, it's not a single line script, but this is not the most simple task either.
But from what I understood from your use-case (other app script for a website), I think it's better if you enhance your other scripts to either look for the newest sheet on a given folder or fetch the ID from somewhere that you can update from the "form upload" script. Also, by doing this, you'll avoid getting inconsistent data in the middle of an update.

How to share one Google Apps script between few documents?

I wrote short script for numbering of document sections. But every time when I want to use it in new document I must create new copy of that. I tryed to publish the script by option "Deploy as web app..." but it is not clear how to connect it in new document. Is it possible? I have few documents in Google Drive and few copies of same script for each of document. Can I connect every document to one script? Thanks a lot!
This is not possible for now, there is an open enhancement request that you could star to mark your interest and be informed if something new comes up...
I had a similar problem.
The leaner solution that I was able to imagine is to keep the function in a saparate, shared script file. In the spreadsheet script, you will use the shared script file as a library.
In this way, your logic remains in a single copy, the actual part of the logic that is copied several time is only a call to a shared function.

How can I add a Google apps script to a spreadsheet created using the API?

After reading up a lot on the Google Spreadsheet API I have come to the conclusion that formatting (such as merging cells, changing fonts etc) is only available throught the Apps scripts.
Since we need to create and fill the spreadsheets with data programatically using Java on the back-end I guess I need to somehow either;
link the new sheet to a Apps script that trigger on-load or
create a Apps script that creates the spreadsheet for me.
Anyone knows?
If you want to just "create" the spreadsheet, you don't need a script to load whenever it spreadsheet is opened. It's probably easier to develop a script that runs once and create the spreadsheet for you.
Another tip is to have a template file that you can copy with most of the formatting (if not all) already there. Possibly pending just little things that are related to the real data the new spreadsheet will have.
Edit to answer the question in the title.
No, you can not add a script to an existing spreadsheet programatically, only manually. What you can do is previously set up a template spreadsheet with a script in it and create new spreadsheets by copying this template.
(answering the comment)
You can run a script programatically, but not upload it. To run a script you can deploy it as a web-app and call its url with either a http get or post (will call its doGet or doPost functions, that you must have declared). Also, you could set this script to run on form submit of any spreadsheet-form and just submit a set of answers to this form. At last (that I can think of now) you could just add the script as a library in another Apps Script and call it directly.
(Aug 2016) There is no way programmatic way to link a Google Sheet and Apps Script code other than manually. Based on what it seems you want ("create and fill the spreadsheets with data programatically using Java"), you can now do it without Apps Script.
TL;DR: Above, #Henrique has answered multiple questions and even questions that weren't asked! The good news is that today, we have more answers representing alternate possible solutions to what you're seeking.
It's now possible to "upload" Apps Script code programmatically with the
import/export system, say with Eclipse since you're a Java developer (2013 announcement).
I agree with Henrique's suggestion that if you create a spreadsheet
template, i.e., Excel file, you can use the Google Drive API to
programmatically import/create identical Google Sheets with all your
desired formatting.
"Formatting (such as merging cells, changing
fonts etc)" can now be done outside of Apps Script, as there is a
"new" Google Sheets API v4 (not GData).
In order to use the new API, you need to get the Google APIs Client Library for Java and use the latest Sheets API, which is much more powerful and flexible than any previous API. Here's one code sample to help get you started. If you're not "allergic" to Python, I also made a video with a different, slightly longer example introducing the new API and gave a deeper dive into its code via a blogpost that you can learn from.
Note the v4 API allows you to create spreadsheets & sheets, upload & download data, as well as, in the general sense, programmatically access a Sheet as if you were using the user interface (create frozen rows, perform cell formatting, resizing rows/columns, adding pivot tables, creating charts, etc.), but to perform file-level access such as uploads & downloads, imports & exports (same as uploads & downloads but conversion to/from Google Apps formats), you would use the Drive API instead.

Use a Google Docs Spreadsheet as a datasource for a dynamic Google Sites webpage

I have a Google Form that feeds a Google Docs Spreadsheet. I'd like to--in turn--have that Google Docs Spreadsheet feed a webpage.
In plainer English, babysitters fill out the form to sign up to be in our community's Babysitter Directory. The spreadsheet houses all of the data. I'd like to code a webpage to pull selected bits of the data for the online directory.
I've tried doing a separate sheet in the spreadsheet, using a QUERY to select the columns that I want to include (and the order in which I want to include them), publishing that sheet to the web, then embedding that sheet into the webpage in an iFrame. And that works.
But even with the QUERY, there are SO many columns that users need to scroll WAY over to the right to see all the data for each babysitter. It's unwieldy.
What would be way better would be if I could break the data for each entry over multiple lines and do some nice formatting for a directory, rather than just a linear spreadsheet. So that, essentially, each babysitter's "entry" in the directory is more than 1 line long. Does that make sense?
If I was working in Office, I would know exactly what to do: use the Excel spreadsheet as the datasource for a Word Mail Merge and I would put move the fields around on the page to make it all look good.
And, to be sure, if I can do this in a Google Doc, then embed the Doc into the webpage, that's fine, too. But I would think there's some way I can do it directly in the Google Site?
Can I?
If anybody has even just a reference page for me to take a look at, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks!
Are you trying to do this in Google Sites? If so, you can embed the entire spreadsheet on the page, but if you only want certain columns, you can try inserting an Apps Script widget on the page.
You need to know how to write a Google Apps Script that will run JS functions and render HTML, here is a tutorial
To create the Script that can run on your page, go to:
More > Manage site > Apps Script > Add new script
Here's also a link to how to interact with Spreadsheet data.
What you want to do is more or less a database interface that uses a spreadsheet as 'data holder', depending on your programming skills it can be quite easy or very hard...
Here is an example of such a webapp, its has probably too many fields and features but the general idea is the same (a quick search tool and a window to show results).
It that what you had in mind ?
If so I can share the code to help you to get started but if you are not familiar with javascript it will probably need too much effort to get through.