Is it possible to use google apps script in my HTML? I want to be able to write to a spreadsheet from a form in purely Javascript from an external framework such as Node.js.
https://developers.google.com/apps-script/
Google Apps Script's syntax is Javascript, however it is a unique server-side framework that does not behave as a library to applications outside of the Apps Script servers. (No, you won't be able to use Google Apps Script in your node.js app.)
However, that doesn't mean that your node.js app (or any other app on the web) can't interact with your spreadsheet. For instance, your app could authenticate as you using the OAuth API, then access the spreadsheet through the Google Drive API. For an example of this, see Accessing Google Spreadsheets from Node.js
Alternatively, you could roll your own spreadsheet API in Google Apps Script, to support read / write of your sheet via HTTP requests from your node.js app. There are plenty of examples of that, for example Insert new rows into Google Spreadsheet via cURL/PHP - HOW?.
Sure you can. You can use HtmlService to create your web form, then send the submission data to your Spreadsheet with server functions.
Nowadays you could use the Google Apps Script API to call your Google Apps Script code from other platforms like Node.js, actually the official docs include a quickstart for Node.js.
You can you use HtmlService, but maybe can be helpfull to read the Google Hosted Libraries https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/
To use a Javascrtip library inside GAS, I recommend JQuery.
But Maybe, you can use Node.js inside your external website and make a AJAX Request (get or post) to a GAS and return from GAS this:
ContentService.createTextOutput(e.parameter.callback + "("+Utilities.jsonStringify(JSONDATA)+")").setMimeType(ContentService.MimeType.JSON);
After that, process it inside your AJAX request...
Mogsad is right that you might be better of with Google Drive API to interact with your Spreadsheet!
...But depending on your exact need you might have some possible interaction between external service and google apps scrip using Content service Google Dev link.
Content Service can send back several information upon GET request (ATOM, CSV, ICAL, JAVASCRIPT, JSON, RSS, TEXT, VCARD, XML). By playing around with url parameters you can get information out and in a spreadsheet, send an email, trigger some action etc!.
But that is far from a real external library and direct interaction with server side functions!
Related
So i want to develop a simple web application, which will basically be a basic form which on submission will allow to make an external api request. So are there any application designers that can allow to do that with minimalistic code. Appian for example has an interface/application designer that lets you drag and drop a UI interface and build a workflow, make api calls externally or to a database. So like that are there any other apps that allow to do something similar (make api calls/build ui easily/store in databse)? Any other suggestions are also welcome!
It heavily depends on the API as well as the kind of task you´re trying to achieve.
Here´s just a few examples and considerations. (All the below supposes that we´re talking about Web-Based APIs).
If the API requires authentication of some sort and the user authenticates himself: A simple HTTP file with JavaScript to send the request will do the job
If the API requires authentication but you authenticate for all the users: You will need a backend application that does the API request since you need something secure where you can put your Auth-Details for the API. Classic PHP or NodeJS in combination with a served HTTP file for the form itself would work without any JavaScript (depends on the API definitions)
If the API does not require authentication maybe a simple HTML form would work
If you want to write to a database you can have a look at something like https://directus.io/. They allow building a database with a UI and they automatically generate a Web-API which you can then feed by your forms. If the end-user is known to you Directus actually allows users to log in and fill the database with forms that you can visually design but this is rather for employees entering data into an internal database than customers submitting their contact data to you
From my personal experience, all the UI-Tools that promise to integrate with REST APIs make it really hard to do so since every API is different and there is no real standard for them.
I'm currently working on an analytics webapp with a react frontend and node (express) backend.
Describing the functionality in a nutshell:
A user will be able to login on the website, search for a YouTube username and then the YouTube API is called, the data will be stored in a mysql db via my express API and also the data will be used to calucalte some statistics which afterwards are displayed in a dashboard.
Now I was wondering if I should:
Call the YouTube API from the frontend, i.e. inside my react code, do the calculations display them and and then store it in the DB via my express API.
Or, from the react app call an endpoint in my express API that will then call the YouTube API, store the data in the DB and then pass on the data to my react app.
Are there any best practices or up-/downsides to either approach?
When answering questions like these, it's important to remember that the client-side is different for each and every user that visits your website, their internet speed, their GPU & CPU power, etc., but the server is most commonly held in a stable container and much more powerful than a client.
The proper way would be the following:
1. Obtain a search query from a client
Meaning you should get the user's search query from an input, or any other form of control (text area, checkbox, etc.), this way client is doing the least business logic, as it should. The client should always focus more on UI / UX rather than business logic.
2. Send query to the server
Let the server use the query you've just obtained from client, call the youtube api from the server (either explicitly using Axios, or find a node.js youtube library), and do all the necessary calculation on the backend
3. Send processed data to the client
Let client receive the data in the form which is ready for use (iterations, mappings, etc.) - again separating concerns, server - business logic, client - UI / UX
Now to be fair, the example you have will most commonly be done all on the client-side, since it is not as computationally heavy as other enterprise examples, but this is a good rule to follow for big projects, and no one would really complain if you did it this way, since it would be the proper way.
In my application i need to use tropo application with node.js to send,receive message and call and answer phone calls.I saw the documentation but i didn't get any idea.Can anyone help me.
Disclaimer - I have never worked with tropo, but this is how I understand it works:
You write a script that tropo can parse, in most languages, to perform some function.
You link up that script to a number using tropo's web interface.
You / a client phones that number, tropo fetches your script and executes it.
Here is a full walkthrough of how everything above works: https://www.tropo.com/docs/scripting/creating_first_application.htm
NOW, if you want your script to do dynamic things, you need to host it yourself. For this you can use node.js:
You write a script that changes based on time / user data in node.js
You link up the script using tropo's web interface.
When someone calls / texts the number, tropo now fetches the dynamic script from your node.js server.
This node.js api can be used to write scripts on your node server: https://github.com/tropo/tropo-webapi-node, https://www.tropo.com/docs/webapi/new_tropo_web_api_overview.htm
Finally, you might want to dynamically create different scripts for different users and hook them up to individual numbers. At this point you use the REST API to automate the "number hooking up work" you used to have to do manually on tropo's website. You can use any node REST client, like request to do this. Here are the API docs: https://www.tropo.com/docs/rest/rest_api.htm
I have a JS wep app & Parse.com backend which I would like to hook up to Facebook using Opengraph actions. Problem is being a web app, it's not possible to manipulate the meta tags in such a way so that the Facebook scraper will use it.
Most solutions point to having a server side implementation running alongside your web app. Having read a little about Node.js...I think there could be another way and I was wondering if Node.js experts could shed some light.
Would it be possible to use Node.js to query my Parse.com DB based on URL parameters in order to serve up the proper meta tags? And would it be quick enough a solution?
Something like
- Request comes in - 'xxx.com/user/1234'
- Node queries Parse.com DB with user=1234
- Parse returns the information for meta tags
- Node serves up HTML page with the correct meta tags
- Web app runs as normal
Thanks in advance for contemplating this question.
You can absolutely do this. To set up a simple webserver with node.js, you can follow the simple example on their homepage.
http://nodejs.org/
To communicate with Parse from node.js, you can use the Parse JavaScript SDK, available through through npm.
http://blog.parse.com/2012/10/11/the-javascript-sdk-in-node-js/
https://parse.com/docs/js_guide
I want to know how and which things are used to make google docs and box.net ?
Most of the UI functionality comes from using Javascript and HTML's DOM together with AJAX, a technique for using JS to make additional requests of the server without reloading the page.
In terms of the back-end languages (that provide the dynamic content) box.net returns PHPSESSID as part of it's set-cookie http response. They're also running nginx. So I would suspect one of the many PHP frameworks as being in use.
As for google docs, Google are known to use python quite extensively. Google's "App Engine" uses Python or Java as its languages (I believe Python was added first). So I suspect they use some customised form of python based on their own instance of their own app engine. Their http headers give nothing away, except that the Server: GSE line.
According to HowStuffWorks, Google Docs uses Java for the backend and JavaScript for the front end. Of course, HTML is in the mix there as well.
As for the database it uses, Google won't say. It will use the cloud though, we can be sure of that.