Google Apps Script: WebApp, HtmlService, LockService; Google Sheets
In this tutorial, we are going to create an interactive story chain app that we can embed into a Google Site or your own site like WordPress.
What’s a chain story, Yagi?
Maybe you did this in school. Someone wrote the first part of a story. You then gave that story to someone else to continue writing. They then pass the story on to someone else to write the next part. And so on and so forth. In the end, the story is read out and everyone laughs at the direction the story went – except that one kid silently raging over their lack of control of the narrative.
Why are we making this? How’s it going to help me?
Well, for one, I thought it would be fun. More importantly, this will allow us to have a look at how Google Apps Scripts communicates client to server-side and vice versa in a little more advanced environment than our previous tutorial. It will also give us an opportunity to look at some more parts of Google Apps Script as they relate to creating a WebApp.
Our chain story WebApp tutorial will also give us an opportunity to look at some of the pitfalls of using WebaApp. Particularly when using the execute as me permissions. Finally, this will then launch us into our follow-up tutorial on updating the WebApp to execute as the user rather than me, the owner of the app.
This tutorial is the second part of the WebApp series. However, if you can read a bit of JS, CSS and HTML, you should be able to follow along and if you get stuck you can always go back to the first tutorial:
Embedded below is our interactive Chain Story web app. If you are feeling creative, read the story so far and then add your part to the story. It has been written by readers just like you:
This article should have been titled “Creating Links from Custom Menus and Buttons in Google Sheets with Google Apps Script: And Why it’s probably not a good idea”, but you know, I got to appease the SEO gods.
There is no natural or “out-of-the-box” way to create hyperlinks for custom menu items and buttons in Google Sheets. The solution I am providing below is a somewhat hacky approach, that I am not fond of and I will suggest some better alternatives in my summary.
However, there are a few occasions where you may feel forced into a corner as a developer to provide direct links from custom menus, buttons and images in Google Sheets. With this in mind, let’s get cracking.
The Example and Starter Sheet
In the example, I will provide custom links to my homepage and YouTube channel via a custom menu. I will also add an image link and button (Drawing) link.
To attempt to transform a menu item or button into a link we use a Google Apps Script modal dialogue box as an intermediary. We can use HTML, JavaScript and CSS in these dialogues in the same way we would in a website.
This means that we can run the JavaScript window.open() command globally as soon as the dialogue opens which will open the link in a new tab (On most occasions) IF the user has given permission to unblock pop-ups for Google Sheets in their browser.
The Complete Code
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/**
* Google Apps Script simple trigger that is run when the sheet is opened.
*/
functiononOpen(){
SpreadsheetApp.getUi().createMenu("Links")
.addItem("Yagisanatode.com","openYagi")
.addItem("YouTube","openYT")
.addToUi();
}
/**
* Run when Yagisanatode.com is selected from the "Links" menu or the Yagisanatode Icon is clicked.
* Executs openUrl with selected URL payload.
*
*/
functionopenYagi(){
openUrl("https://yagisanatode.com")
};
/**
* Run when "YouTube" is run from the "Links" menu or when the red YouTube button is clicked.
* Google Apps Script simple trigger that is run when the sheet is opened.
*/
functiononOpen(){
SpreadsheetApp.getUi().createMenu("Links")
.addItem("Yagisanatode.com","openYagi")
.addItem("YouTube","openYT")
.addToUi();
}
The onOpen() function is a built-in simple trigger in Google Apps Script that can run scripts when the Google Sheet (Or Google Doc, Slide or Form) opens.
In our example, we are using onOpen() to create our custom menu “Links”. We do this by using the SpreadsheetApp class’getUi() instance class that allows us to build on the existing user interface. The UI class contains the Google Apps Script createMenu() builder which has its own set of methods to construct a custom menu. The builder takes a menu name as an argument, which we have defined as “Links”.
We then use the addItem() method to build two sub-menus, ‘Yagisanatode.com’ and ‘YouTube’. This method takes a title that will appear in the menu and a function name that will be executed when the menu item is clicked.
Each sub-menu directs to its own function. Both of these functions are identical and simply add the relevant URL for each button and then calls the openUrl() function.
These functions also have a secondary purpose for us. We can attach these function names to each of our buttons.
You can change out these functions to your own URL and names, just make sure you update the addItem methods in the create menu builder.
You can learn a lot more about how to run script from buttons, diagrams and images in Google Sheets with Apps Script in this tutorial:
Let’s skip the div for now and head down to the content in the script tags. Lines 16-25
First, we set a variable named, urlLinked to window.open("${url}"). This is a JavaScript DOM method that opens a URL when called. In our case, we have added our selected URL as a template literal tag. Line 18
If the URL is able to be opened in a new tab urlLinked will return an object or for our purpose a “truthy’ result so we know everything worked and we can close the dialogue automatically with google.script.host.close(). Lines 19-20
If the URL could not be opened in a new tab (likely a result of your browser’s pop-up blocker) then urlLinked will return null. We then need to select our HTML div with an id of “blocked” and unhide it. Line 21-22
The “blocked” div
Our “blocked” HTML div is unhidden when the browser prevents the script from automatically opening the new window.
The first thing we need to do is give the user a link to the URL they were looking for. You will notice that we use window.open() again instead of the URL directly. This is because dialogues and sidebars in Google Sheets are embedded iframes. You can learn more about this here:
Next, we provide a message explaining what is going on and how they might want to fix it in future.
Finally, we provide a close button for them to exit from the dialogue box should they have an aversion to clicking the “x” in the top right of the box.
Why directly linking from Menu items images and buttons is not a great approach.
The user still needs to authorise the script
This might be fine if you have some links say to an external help page as a part of a larger project, but it is probably not a sound idea to create a simple project that just produces links from menus or buttons. The user is already going to be annoyed that they have to go through the Google Apps Script permission process.
Perhaps if you are publishing an add-on this might be okay, because the permission process is a lot smoother.
It doesn’t always work
As you can see in the script above, we have included a failsafe if a pop-up blocker is enabled. More often than not this will be the result of running the script unless the user specifically unblocks popups in their browser for Google Sheets.
It’s hacky – Google is probably not amused
There are always a few bugs and better implementations that arise in large software projects like Google Sheets. However, in this case, I get the feeling that Google has a very good reason for you to not directly link from menu bars and buttons in this way.
If you disagree:
Let me know in the comments below. It’s always good to get alternate perspectives.
You could always make a feature request on Google’s Issue Tracker (feel free to link your issue in the comments below).
Workarounds and alternatives
Simulated mouse clicking
Simulated mouse event first seen in Demolition Man
There is a clever bit of code by Stephen M Harris that used the same modal dialogue event but first sets a timeout on the dialogue to close. The script then generates an anchor element followed by a scripted mouse click event which is a common workaround to prevent pop-up blockers from running.
Stephen also handles for Firefox’s idiosyncracies with his script too.
Personally, I think this is a little too forced for my liking, but many devs would disagree and I have seen a number of Google Workspace Marketplace apps using Stephen’s code. So, what do I know? 🤷♂️
You can find a link to the solution here on StackOverflow. If anything, give him some upvote love for the clever workaround.
External link dialogue warning
As you’ve traversed the Internet, have you ever seen a dialogue that warns you that you are about to navigate to an external link?
Yeah, this is one extra step for the user and that is a definite downside, but I also think that it better conforms with how Google intended links to be accessed from the UI.
This alternative is probably better suited to menu items rather than buttons and images.
Let’s go ahead and update the blob constant variable.
Another really useful approach is to create a separate links page as a dialogue or sidebar. This keeps all of your links in one location and out of your main document.
This is probably my main go-to and my clients tend to learn quickly how to get to these links to find resources and more instructions that complement the document or sheet that they are working in.
You can see some examples of this in this tutorial:
If you are working in Google Sheets and you want to get something out quickly, why not just make a “Links” sheet tab for users to access? You can always protect the sheet tab, users will still be able to access the link without editing the page.
Button and Images can be linked without code
In a previous tutorial, I cover a few approaches on how to apply hyperlinks to images in cells in Google Sheets. This way when the user hovers over the link, they will see the link (with preview) that they can click on.
Well, this was probably not the satisfying answer you were, hoping for, sorry. But we have covered a number of ways for you to provide links to users from the somewhat ethically dubious to some good alternatives.
I would love to hear what your solutions were in the comments below and how you went about implementing them. Not only does it interest me, but others may find your perspectives and use cases helpful for your own projects.
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You’ve created an awesome Google Apps Script web app for your secret society within your Google Workspace organisation or …dom! dom! DOM! … the world. The problem is that you only want to share your web app with the worthy. Those selected few. 🐐🛐🛐🛐
How do you do this? How to prevent this most coveted of apps from reaching the wrong hands?
It’s actually surprisingly simple.
In this tutorial, we will explore how to validate selected users to provide access to your web app. For our example, we validate users based on whether or not they have edit access to a Google Drive file ( a common occurrence). In the discussion, we will also look at alternative ways of validating emails.
One of the bonuses of the approach we will go through is that it can also be easily adapted for use in Google Workspace Add-ons, and Editor Add-ons like sidebars and dialogue boxes.
We’ll start off with an example and then move to a quick-use guide for those of you who just want to get in and apply the code to your own project. Then for those who want to know how it all works, I’ll dive into the details.
