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

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

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

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

Get hidden or visible Google Sheet tabs with Google Apps Script

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

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

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.

r/GoogleAppsScript – AutoScript – create Google Apps Script code with help of AI #nocode

I’ve seen a couple of proof of concept solutions for AI generated Google Apps Script code, but this one is the most well developed I’ve seen to date. The AutoScript Add-on isn’t fully verified so if you are trying this out I would recommend using disposable credentials (as a Google Workspace admin I created/used a Cloud Identity account). I’ve only done limited testing but was able to get the add-on to generate a functional Google Apps Script code snippet. Simultaneously both amazing and scary to think a chunk of what I do for a living could be replaced by one of our robot friends.

Develop a Google Chat App Currency Converter with Google Apps Script – Yagisanatode

Have you ever wanted to convert currencies instantly while in Google Chat with colleagues and clients? In this tutorial, we are going to build a Currency Converter Google Chat App with Google Apps Script to do just that.

This tutorial is a multi-media series containing step-by-step video instructions for each stage of the process along with code snippets for each stage, important links and some further details on the more unusual parts of the code.

This is a great video series wrapped in a blog post, which highlights a Google Chat app development process. The particular project presented by Scott Donald is a currency converter but there are many repeatable aspects that would work in a wide range of Google Chat applications. The project is coded in Google Apps Script and the post includes plenty of snippets to help you understand various aspects of Google Chat app development including slash commands and information cards.

Source: Develop a Google Chat App Currency Converter with Google Apps Script – Yagisanatode

Bulk convert Google Sheets to PDFs using Google Apps Script

Bulk convert Google Sheets within a given Google Drive folder into PDFs and optionally delete the original file.

Bulk convert Google Sheets to PDFs using Apps Script
Bulk convert Google Sheets to PDFs using Apps Script

Features

  • Maximum runtime – in order to prevent the tool from reaching the limits imposed by Google you can adjust the number of minutes the tool can run for. Change this in the ‘GlobalVariables.gs’ file in the Script Editor.
  • Continue from where it left off – if you have a lot of Google Sheets to convert and the above runtime is reached the tool will save its progress and prompt you to run it again, avoiding any file duplication.
  • HTML popup – as well as the ‘Log’ sheet the tool displays a direct popup to the user if it encounters a problem.
  • PDF counter – after successfully running the tool will include the number of PDFs created as part of the success popup to the user.

Source: The Gift of Script: Bulk convert Google Sheets to PDFs

Workaround: Checking Existence of File ID in Google Drive without Access token and API key using Google Apps Script

This is a workaround for checking the existence of file ID in Google Drive without both the access token and API key.

When you want to check whether the file of the file ID is existing in Google Drive, generally, you might use Drive API and Drive service (DriveApp) of Google Apps Script. In this case, the scope of Drive API is required to be used. By this, the access token and the API key (in the case of publicly shared files) are required to be used. But, there might be a case that the available scopes are limited. In this post, I would like to introduce a workaround for checking the existence of file ID in Google Drive without both the access token and API key.

This workaround could have been a nice addition to a recent project I was working on to audit a bunch of Google Drive file IDs. As noted in this post a big benefit of the approach is there is no need to include Google Drive authentication scopes to your project. See the source post for the code and explanation.

Source: Workaround: Checking Existence of File ID in Google Drive without Access token and API key

How to monetize your Google Workspace add-on?

You’ve built a great add-on for the Google Workspace ecosystem (Google Docs, Google Sheets, Gmail & co.). It’s getting a lot of traction and you feel like you can monetize it. This is the guide I wish I had found a few years ago when I was researching how to monetize our own add-on for Google Sheets.

Here is a very concise and incredibly useful guide written by Corentin Brossault, co-founder and CTO at Mailmeteor, on the practical steps you can take if you are interested in monetizing your Google Apps Script solution. The post includes some code snippets and guidance on protecting personal information of your users, storing licence data in Firebase and integrating with Stripe as a payment processor.

Source: How to monetize your Google Workspace add-on?

Introducing AppSheet databases: Build data driven apps for Google Workspace

Over the past year, we’ve added more functionality to AppSheet, extending how it can maximize the power of Google Workspace through integrations with products such as Gmail, Google Drive and Apps Script. To improve the experience for app creators and users, we’re excited to introduce in public preview AppSheet databases, a built-in database for citizen developers to easily and securely manage their data.

During public preview, access to AppSheet databases will be enabled by default for everyone but it will not affect existing apps. Use of this feature in public preview will be included at no additional cost in your AppSheet subscription plan, but limited to 10K rows per table, 20 tables per database and 20 databases per user. Please note that these limits may change when the feature is generally available.

For people who tuned in to TU3.5: New workflow solutions with Tables and Google Apps Script back in 2020 AppSheet databases will look very familiar. Since that episode the Area 120 team behind the Tables beta moved into Google Cloud and specifically AppSheet.

The big question for me is whether AppSheet databases can find a sweet spot for citizen developers looking for something with more performance than a Google Sheet and easier to setup than a Google Cloud project. In public preview AppSheet databases are limited to 10,000, which interestingly is the same limit as the old paid version of Tables.

Ultimately this may however be less able size and performance but a data solution that the AppSheet team has full control, particularly removing  a reliance on features developed by the Google Sheets team.

Source: Introducing AppSheet databases: Build data driven apps for Google Workspace