AppsScriptPulse

Gotchas, V8, Intermediate, Sheets

Three pitfalls to avoid when using the onEdit trigger in Google Apps Script

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Illustration by ahmiruddinhidayat111198 on freepik.com https://www.freepik.com/author/fahmiruddinhidayat111198

  1. Making a Single Function Do Everything
  2. Expecting onEdit to Catch All Changes by Default

Source: Three Pitfalls to Avoid When Using the onEdit Trigger in Google Apps Script

Gotchas, V8, Advanced

Fix Google Apps Script file order problems with Exports 

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How to fix Apps Script file loading order and defintion visibility problems with an Exports object.

It’s good practice to keep class and namespace definitions in separate files and avoid defining functions or variables in the global space. However, App Script doesn’t give you control over the order in which it loads files. If you reference a class or a namespace from one script file, it may not yet be defined. This is where an Exports object comes in.

As your script projects get larger and you start splitting out across script files you may find you need a little more structure. Class and namespace definitions are a good way to structure your code. Even when you do this you can still encounter problems with parts of your script trying to run before they are fully loaded.

This was a particular issue when the V8 runtime launched in 2020. This was fixed in June 2022, but it can still be an issue depending on how declarations are made in your code. To find out more about why this happens and how to fix it this post by Bruce Mcpherson shows how an Exports object can be used to structure your code.

Source: Fix Apps Script file order problems with Exports – Desktop Liberation

Add-on, Solutions, V8, Intermediate

Using JWT as a license key in Google Apps Script Google Workspace Add-ons

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Image credit: Zzapps

Many developers want to offer specific, additional functionality for specific users. One very common scenario is to differenciate in users that pay for this functionality.

When you deliver an add-on, you want to know whether this user has this special access. We know this as a license.

In this blog, I will show you how we can let the add-on know what the user’s license is. We are going to do this by giving the user a key, where they can ‘unlock’ functionality by pasting this in their add-on.

Here’s an elegant solution from Riël Notermans (Zzapps) for letting users unlock premium functionality in your Workspace Add-on without relying on an external fetch or database by using an encrypted JWT web token.

You can include various data in the token and this example a subscription email and expiry is included which can be checked locally, for example, comparing the email from Session.getActiveUser().getEmail().

Source: Use JWT as a license key in Google Apps Script add-ons

Solutions, Drive, Sheets, Beginner

Bulk combine CSV files into a single Google Sheet with Google Apps Script

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Bulk combine multiple CSV files into a single Google Sheet, putting the data in specific locations and creating multiple tabs.

Bulk combine CSV files into a single Google Sheet

Bulk combine CSV files into a single Google Sheet

The following Google Apps Script is designed to take a number of CSV files (structured in an identical way) stored in a Google Drive folder and combine them all into a single Google Sheet file. It maps the data within the CSV file to specific cells in the Google Sheet, along with creating a tab for each of the CSV files to separate them out.

Source: The Gift of Script: Bulk combine CSV files into a single Google Sheet

Solutions, Sheets, Advanced

How to use Flutter with Google Sheets, Apps Script, and Codemagic | Codemagic Blog

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In this article Jahswill Essien describes how to use Google Sheets with Flutter via Google Apps Script.

This article assumes the following:

  • You have experience using the basics of Flutter and can call APIs and read an existing codebase
  • You have little to no understanding of Google Apps Script
  • You have some experience using Google Sheets or spreadsheets in general

I’m sure many of you reading this post will already be familiar with Google Apps Script and have little/no experience deploying Flutter apps but I also know a lot of Google Apps Script developers are keen to try new stuff.

If deploying mobile apps is a thing that interests you I’d highly recommend also looking at Google no/low code development platform, AppSheet, which enables you to quickly create/deploy apps often using Google Sheets as a backend. If, however, you need custom graphics or pixel perfect UI, solutions like Flutter would be my personal starting point. Enjoy!

Source: How to use Flutter with Google Sheets, Apps Script, and Codemagic | Codemagic Blog

Solutions, Web App, V8, Intermediate

Report: Implementing a pseudo 2FA for Web Apps using Google Apps Script

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In Google Apps Script, there is the Web Apps. When Web Apps is used, the users can execute Google Apps Script using HTML and Javascript. This can be applied to various applications. When the Web Apps is deployed with “Anyone”, anyone can access the Web Apps. And, there is the case that Web Apps deployed with “Anyone” is required to be used. Under this condition, when 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) can be implemented, it is considered that the security can be higher and it leads to giving various directions for the applications using Web Apps. In this report, I would like to introduce the method for implementing the pseud 2FA for Web Apps deployed with “Anyone” using Google Apps Script.

There can be scenarios where you’d like to publish an Apps Script web app with ‘anyone can access’, but still provide a level of security. Here’s a nice example from Kanshi Tanaike where they use MailApp to email the user a a time limited random passcode.

Magic links and passwordless login are used by a number of services, including Slack, and rather than including a password, as demonstrated in this example, it wouldn’t take much to turn this solution into a passwordless app. There are risks associated with email based authentication and if an attacker already has access to your email so other solutions are worth considering depending on the sensitivity of your web app.

Source: Report: Implementing Pseudo 2FA for Web Apps utanaikech.github.iosing Google Apps Script

Solutions, Sheets, Beginner

Get hidden or visible Google Sheet tabs with Google Apps Script

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Learn how to list hidden Google Sheets tabs with Google Apps Script – CODE and VIDEO tutorial with script explainers.

This post from Scott Donald is an opportunity to learn about how you can work with hidden tabs in Google Sheets with Apps Script. For beginners this post is also an opportunity to learn about the JavaScript reduce method as a way to iterate through data. As well as the code and supporting video the author Scott Donald has some related projects where you can see this solution in action.

Source: Get Hidden or Visible Google Sheet Tabs with Google Apps Script – Yagisanatode

Add-on, Solutions, V8, Intermediate

[Workaround] An alternate to displaying more than 100 widgets/sections in a Google Workspace Add-on

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Working around the 100-widget limit in Card Services, used when building Workspace Add-ons.

Like it says on the tin a way to display more than 100 items in a Google Workspace Add-on. The solution also has a nice UX friendly search feature to make it easier to find stuff in the UI. The source post from Sourabh Choraria includes additional information and links to the code on GitHub.

Source: [Workaround] An alternate to displaying more than 100 widgets/sections.

Community News, Beginner

Tech Recruiter Tries Coding pt. 2 — Google Apps (Type)Script

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Image credit: Unknown

Talking CRMs, Databases, and how to ditch them; this time within the Lead Generation domain. Bonus: pitfalls of a 90s computing mindset! 😅

Previously on Pulse we shared Rafael Romo Mulas’ post, Tech Recruiter Tries Coding. Rafael has recently published part 2 in which they highlight their journey into VS Code, clasp and TypeScript. If you are unfamiliar with TypeScript its a language which transpiles into JavaScript and basically designed to help you write better code. Rafael notes:

… the main difference is you are forced to be more precise, which avoids running into stupid errors! Therefore, to my surprise, it is actually easier to code in TypeScript than JavaScript, even more so for a beginner like me, because:

  • There is not much to “unlearn” from JS, if you just started anyway.
  • You’re alerted when values can be of a type that would cause errors.
  • You’re forced to do something about it, basically debugging in advance.

You can read more about Rafael’s journey in the linked article

Source: Tech Recruiter Tries Coding pt. 2 — Google Apps (Type)Script

Snippet, Beginner

Filter a try/catch error message when coding with Google Apps Script

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Search a try/catch error message for keywords to determine the error message to log using JavaScript match.

Filter an error message in a try/catch

Filter an error message in a try/catch

The following Google Apps Script is designed to exercise how you might go about searching the error message in a ‘try/catch’ for keywords. I wanted this specifically for a tool I built that contains a lot of code (and hence a lot of potential error messages) between a try/catch, for which a very small number of people were experiencing a timezone issue with their Google Sheet file.

The aim was to use a JavaScript ‘match’ to find the keyword timezone and display a set of instructions for the user to resolve the issue themselves instead of just a generic error message.

Source: The Gift of Script: Filter a try/catch error message