I would like to write a GoogleApps script that accesses a website, logins using my credentials, makes a selection from a drop down menu and copies the displayed values to paste them on my active spreadsheet.
Is this possible or should I go about it a different way?
Directly, that is not possible. However if the website offers an API or if the website makes use of URL parameters to pass information about what you've selected, it might be possible if the website also uses HTTP authentication.
Absolutely possible. Capture what you need to do for authentication. Repeat it with Google Apps script.
Capture what you need to do with the drop downs. Repeat it with Google Apps script.
Quite generic instructions, but you didn't give any more specificity to your problem. Use something like TamperData addon for Firefox to capture/see what Google Apps Script needs to pass back and forth to the server.
Related
My current site (Golf League) uses several scripts to allow players to schedule whether they are playing, display various results pages etc. It seems as though the New Google Sites implementation does not allow a parameter to be passed in the page url and get picked up by an embedded Google Web App (published from my script)
This link shows an example https://sites.google.com/site/kitchenergaffers/home/general-gaffers-information/publish/directory-of-results?display=directory
There is my webapp (built from a GAS) that does a doGet(e). The "display" parameter tells this script which page to format and display which it gets by extracting the e.queryString. I use a similar approach for players scheduling their absences. Another url parameter identifies the player who may be changing their availability.
It seems as though this ability is not going to be supported in the New Google Sites, so I am looking for an alternative (and free) web building facility where I can launch GAS web apps and access the page url parameters the same (or similar) way. Wordpress, Wix etc may be candidates, but it is difficult to tell from their introductory info whether it can be done. If someone has already found a site facility and methodology I would appreciate the guidance.
Just in case anyone finds this in a search, I have found a workaround.
What I had missed is that a script can be the target of a URL and will execute in a browser on its own. It does not need a "hosting" page. So to achieve what I need to do, instead of sending the link with the Google sites page, I can send a link with the script directly and it will happily execute in its own browser environment. In some cases, I may need to add a bit of text to the html returned by the script to replace that which was on the Sites page
So this link (below) achieves what I needed. Be aware that the links displayed by the script, are currently still to the original sites page.
https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbxichdoGrHbImuudkJbuhhD00GpHvVvc-Ph_BTpSI4863pMevVx/exec?display=directory
After opening Gmail or Google Drive you see the google bar (containing the Google logo, a searchbox and clickable button for apps, notification of unread messages, sharing and about) on top of the window.
I want to put a put a button for starting my UiApp (build with GAS) there as well.
Is this possible (and how) ?
Several users will have read access to the google drive. I want those users to be able to start my UiApp from a button in google bar as well. What should I do (and what should they do) to make that possible?
If this is not possible, where can I put my UiApp best so users can start it easy?
My application is NOT intended to be accessible by other people except the ones I provided access to my Google Drive.
I believe you can accomplish this by leveraging the Gadgets section of the Gmail API to accomplish this as detailed here. I've seen this type of Gadget added by a Chrome Extension before but not directly from Google Apps Script.
I think you would need to use the "New" button, and publish a script to the Chrome Web Store. Then your app would be in the drop down list of the "New" button. The problem with that, is that the general public could see the app. I'm assuming you don't want that.
If you want an easily accessible central location for users, you could create a website with Google App Engine. You can get a free domain name of
www.mySiteName.appspot.com
It would be easier for users to get there than the URL of your Apps Script.
I think this is the same as my question: http://code.google.com/p/google-apps-script-issues/issues/detail?id=852
But just to be clear: Google apps scripts won't run on a Google Site without a google/gmail user being signed in?
...are there other google products where GAS can be deployed for non-google accounts?
Thanks,
Nathan
False. You can embed an Apps Script in a Google Site using Insert > Script Gadget. Just be sure that the publishing setting is set to "Anyone, even anonymous".
You've got two different levels of user identity at work here, if not three or more. I will try to pull them apart for you in a clear way.
Google Sites can work for users of Google and non users. It depends entirely on the sharing settings for that site. If you share it with the world, it will be shared and indexed by search engines. If you share with anyone with link, search engines won't index it but no user will have to sign in to use the site.
What you are embedding in a Google site may have it's own user identity issues. The easiest way to manage these is to go into 'Publish' menu, and 'deploy as Webapp'. You will then see a menu that asks which account the script should be run under, essentially you or the user. And then which people to allow access, which you would select 'Anyone, even anonymous'.
This will run that app as your account, but allow anyone to call it. Works great for allowing the public access to a form created in GAS.
Now the other problems. It may be possible for you to have code in your GAS that specifically calls for a user. In that case all of the prior settings don't matter. When the script looks for a user and finds nothing valid it will error. These call are pretty obvious though and are more rarely used. (At least in my experience.)
But, in short, yes! You can certainly embed GAS into Google sites to be called by anonymous users.
Example of mine: https://sites.google.com/site/greenmountainretreat/sign-up
The issue you are referring to is about inserting i-frame gadgets into non-Google sites... please don't confuse things... and read the issue report thoroughly.
If you want another example...
I have a web app that data is submitted from a Ui embedded in a Google Site and saved in a spreadsheet. I am thinking about switching to scriptDB instead, but I am unsure about querying and displaying data dynamically. The last time I checked it was not possible to refresh a sites page from within a script, so as a work around I wrote a .html page with javascript that accesses the spreadsheet via the key and uses the Visualization DataTables to produce a quick and nicely formatted query. I would like to retain this functionality if possible. Could anyone make some possible suggestions?
Regards,
Shawn
This is doable today via UiApp (see the Charts api, and note that you can add a Chart to a UiApp).
To auto refresh:
You can use CheckBox.setValue(value, fireEvents) - but you may hit quota issues (there is an example somewhere around). If you hit quota issues, then I suspect HTML service is your best option. It also gives you better control.
Here is an open item requesting expanded Charts service integration with Gviz.
Although, there is limited integration at present, it needs to be expanded to group variables in tables to facilitate basic count and sum operations.
I suggest you “star” the issue to vote for it and to be notified of new developments.
I would like to (programmatically) convert a text file with questions to a Google form. I want to specify the questions and the questiontypes and their options. Example: the questiontype scale should go from 1 to 7 and should have the label 'not important' for 1 and 'very important' for 7.
I was looking into the Google Spreadsheet API but did not see a solution.
(The Google form API at http://code.lancepollard.com/introducing-the-google-form-api is not an answer to this question)
Google released API for this: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/forms/
This service allows scripts to create, access, and modify Google Forms.
Until Google satisfies this feature request (star the feature on Google's site if you want to vote for it), you could try a non-API approach.
iMacros allows you to record, modify and play back macros that control your web browser. My experiments with Google Drive showed that the basic version (without DirectScreen technology) doesn't record macros properly. I tried it with both the plugin for IE (basic and advanced click mode) and Chrome (the latter has limited iMacro support). FYI, I was able to get iMacros IE plug-in to create questions on mentimeter.com, but the macro recorder gets some input fields wrong (which requires hacking of the macro, double-checking the ATTR= of the TAG commands with the 'Inspect element' feature of Chrome, for example).
Assuming that you can get the TAG commands to produce clicks in the right places in Google Drive, the approach is that you basically write (ideally record) a macro, going through the steps you need to create the form as you would using a browser. Then the macro can be edited (you can use variables in iMacros, get the question/questiontype data from a CSV or user-input dialogs, etc.). Looping in iMacros is crude, however. There's no EOF for a CSV (you basically have to know how many lines are in the file and hard-code the loop in your macro).
There's a way to integrate iMacro calls with VB, etc., but I'm not sure if it's possible with the free versions. There's another angle where you generate code (Javascript) from a macro, and then modify it from there.
Of course, all of these things are more fragile than an API approach long-term. Google could change its presentation layer and it will break your macros.
Seems like Apps Script now has a REST API and SDK's for it. Through Apps Script you can generate Google Forms. This API was really hard to find by trying to google for it and I haven't yet tested it myself, but I am going to build something with it today (hopefully). So far everything looks good.
EDIT: Seems like the REST API I am using works very well for fully automated usage.
In March(2022) google released REST API for google form. API allows basic crud operation & also added support for registering watches on the form to notify whenever either form is updated or a new response is received.
As of now (March 2016), Google Forms APIs allow us to create forms and store them in Google Drive. However, Forms APIs do not allow one programmatically modify the form (such as modify content, add or delete questions, pre-filled data, etc). In other words, the form is static. In order to serve custom, external APIs are needed.