Google Workspace Editor Add-on for encrypting/decrypting columns in Google Sheets – Desktop Liberation

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

In ‘Merging sheets from multiple sources and encrypting selected columns’ I published some code for selectively copying columns from multiple input spreadsheets/sheets to create summary sheets, and optionally encrypting columns. The idea was to distribute the same sheet to multiple people, along with private key(s) to decrypt columns to which they should have access. This seems a pretty handy thing to make into an Editor Add-on. I’m too impatient and life’s too short to bother getting into the Add-on publishing process, so I haven’t officially released this one personally, but here is a fully functional decryption Add-on that any of you are welcome to fiddle with and publish yourself.

Having previously featured some of Bruce Mcphersons previous posts on encrypting/decrypting Google Sheets data it seems fitting to share the post containing the final add-on. Even if you are not interested in the add-on’s functionality this post can still be worth a look to see how Bruce structures an add-on and uses Vue and Vuex to create the UI rendered with HTMLService.

Source: Add-on for decrypting columns in Google Sheets – Desktop Liberation

How to Create Dynamic Open Graph Images with Google Sheets [and Google Apps Script] – Digital Inspiration

Generate dynamic Open Graph images for your website with Google Sheets without requiring Puppeteer. All pages on your website can have their own unique Open Graph images created from a Google Slides template.

As explained by Amit Agarwal Open Graph images are included as a feature image on social media sites when the link is shared. You can use static images but some sites like Github dynamically create an image that includes additional information.

For example, if you were to share the link to the Google Workspace Solutions Github repo on Twitter an image is automictically displayed containing information like the number of contributors, issues, stars and forks:

Google Solutions - Open Graph from Github

To generate these images often a headless browser solution like Puppeteer is used. In this example from Amit he shows how a Google Slides template and a little Google Apps Script can be used to batch create similar open graph images.

Source: How to Create Dynamic Open Graph Images with Google Sheets – Digital Inspiration

How to create slot booking system using Google Apps Script and Google Calendar

Google Apps Scripts is incredibly powerful and enables complex systems to be built on top of Google Apps. It can be a great choice when you need to quickly prototype an idea or design a solution that’s customizable by non-technical users.

In this article, I will walk through a simple example of building a “Slot Booking System” using Google Sheets, Google Calendar, HTML, Tailwind CSS and Google Apps Script.

Nice little Apps Script project shared in this post using Google Calendar and a published web app, making it possibly a nice starter project for something bigger.

Source: How to create slot booking system using Google Apps Script and Google Calendar

Bulk reset slicers in a Google Sheets, the Apps Script way

This article explains how the filtering criteria of Google Sheets slicers can be reset using a few lines of Apps Script code. Two different approaches are shown. The first one uses the Spreadsheet Service, while the second one draws upon the Google Sheets API using the Advanced Sheets Service. Additionally, some shortcomings and peculiarities of both methods are highlighted.

Kudos to Pablo Felip for taking the time to explore and write-up this post about Google Sheets ‘slicers’. It contains some very useful tips and advice about  interacting with them using Google Apps Script.

Source: Bulk reset slicers in a Google Spreadsheet, the Apps Script way

Google Apps Script library for parsing HTML form objects and adding the values to a Google Sheet

This is a Google Apps Script library for parsing the form object from HTML form and appending the submitted values to the Spreadsheet.

A common Google Apps Script use case is taking data from a webform and adding it to a Google Sheet. This can sometimes be quite painful has you have to handle the various input types and also write the data to the correct columns. The HtmlFormApp library makes this very straight forward and to illustrate once the library is added to your Apps Script project you can start appending data in a couple of lines of code:

// These are all options.
const obj = {
   formData: formData,
   spreadsheetId: "###",
   sheetName: "###",
   sheetId: "###",
   folderId: "###",
   headerConversion: {"header value of Spreadsheet": "name of HTML input tag",,,},
   ignoreHeader: true,
   choiceFormat: true,
   delimiterOfMultipleAnswers: "\n",
   valueAsRaw: true
};
const res = HtmlFormApp.appendFormData(obj);
console.log(res)

Click through to the source link for more details 👇

Source: GitHub – tanaikech/HtmlFormApp: This is a Google Apps Script library for parsing the form object from HTML form and appending the submitted values to the Spreadsheet.

How to Request Stripe Payments with Google Sheets – Digital Inspiration

Image credit: Amit Agarwal

How to use Google Sheets to generate Stripe payment links and request payments in any currency from your customers anywhere in the world!

Amit Agarwal continues an excellent series of payment themed posts with this latest contribution on integrating the new Stripe Payment Links API with Google Sheets. As noted by Amit this can be combined to make quick payment workflows. Click through for more details and the source code.

Source: How to Request Stripe Payments with Google Sheets – Digital Inspiration

Generate code verifier and challenge for OAuth2 with PKCE [Using the Twitter API v2 as user with OAuth2 in Google Apps Script] 

here’s how you can generate a cryptographically random code verifier, hash it using sha256 & derive it’s base64 encoded challenge in google apps script.

Continuing the crypto theme Sourabh Choraria has been geeking out with Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE) OAuth 2.0 authentication flows which be used in the new Twitter API when making requests on behalf of users.

If you are unfamiliar with PKCE, you can find out more in Okta’s description on how to use PKCE to Make Your Apps More Secure. You can follow Sourabh Choraria post to find out more about the Apps Script implementations of this and the good news for Twitter/Apps Script users is the sample is now committed to the Google Workspace OAuth2 Apps Script library samples as Twitter.gs

Source: generate code verifier & challenge for OAuth2 with PKCE

Importing CSV data by keeping number formats of cells on Google Sheets using Google Apps Script

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

This is a sample script for importing a CSV data by keeping the number formats of cells on Google Spreadsheet using Google Apps Script.

When a CSV data is manually put using the default UI using the browser, it seems that the number formats of all cells cannot be kept. In order to import the CSV data to the cells with keeping the number formats, it is required to use a script as a workaround. In this workaround, Google Apps Script is used.

When the following sample script of Google Apps Script is run, a dialog is opened. And, when the CSV file is selected from your local PC on the dialog, the CSV file is loaded, and then, the CSV data is put to the active cell with keeping the number formats of cells.

The quoted post description explains everything you need about this solution and worth clicking through to see how the code works.

Source: Importing CSV Data by Keeping Number Formats of Cells on Google Spreadsheet using Google Apps Script

Merging Google Sheets from multiple sources and encrypting selected columns – Desktop Liberation

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

This post introduces a library that can summarize selected columns from multiple sheets across multiple spreadsheets into 1 spreadsheet, as well as to optionally apply a public/private key data encryption scheme to selected columns, all via a simple JSON definition file.

Bruce Mcpherson continues to be one of my favourite Google Apps Script authors and often you get to gain an insight into his development process. This latest post is the latest in a series that follows a post on Super simple cipher library for Apps Script encryption and decryption. The source post shared here continues this journey, in particular, highlighting the use of Google Sheets Developer Metadata to store data bound to the spreadsheet.

Source: Merging sheets from multiple sources and encrypting selected columns – Desktop Liberation

Refreshing an oauth token in a Google Workspace Add-on with Google Apps Script – Desktop Liberation

Image credit: Igor Ovsyannykov, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s very convenient to use ScriptApp.getOAuthToken() in an addon to reuse the token from the server side in your client side add-on code. However, these have a limited time to live (1 hour), so what to do if your add on sits around for longer than that? One solution would be to always go for another token every time you needed one, but that would be wasteful. Luckily, there’s a way to check a token to see how much life it has, and only get a new one if it’s almost expired.

There is also a related discussion thread on this post with the author, Bruce Mcpherson, in the Google Apps Script Google Group.

Source: Refreshing an oauth token in add-on – Desktop Liberation