Google Workspace and Software Development
Google Sheets, Google Apps Script: onEdit
You’ve probably come across the problem where you need to know when a piece of data has been added to your spreadsheet. You probably have been equally frustrated that there is no out-of-the-box function that will do just this.
You’ve tried TODAY() and NOW(), but they change dynamically. What you really need here is something that does not change.
Let’s look at two workarounds that can help you out with this problem.
Google Apps Script: SpreadsheetApp, getUI, HTMLservice,
What if you want to get a value or a range from Google Sheets and show it in your sidebar using Google Apps Script?
First, you will need to get the value or range by using Google’s server-side script. Then you will have to display it client-side in your HTML document.
Documentation on getting the server-side and client-side talking nicely to each other is a little vague. Hopefully, this very basic tutorial will help clear things up.
In this tutorial, I will also be using Jquery.
Let’s get started.
Google Apps Script: SpreadsheetApp, getRange, getLastRow, getDataRange
I was trying to rush out some Google Apps Script code to deal with a task on Google Sheets recently. Basically, I had to search through a heap of data and find certain values and do something too them.
My column was reaching across the page to something like Column BK and my rows were over 1000 deep. Running this code was taking forever!!!
My immediate instinct was:
What have I done wrong?
…and my instinct was right.
So after looking at my code again, I discovered that for some reason I go it into my head that I should be searching each cell for the value I needed and then doing something with it.
Sounds logical right? It’s sorta what you are meant to do.
The problem is that I was calling the sever and asking for the range in each cell as I was looping through the entire document. This is super costly and inefficient in terms of time.
Google talks about this in their Google Apps Script Best Practice page under Batch Operations.
Also, if you do run a costly code like this, then you will get a little red light in your Script tool bar that represents your Execution Hints:
Clicking on Execution Hints and expanding the side bar with provide you with a far-too-deserving-polite dressing down about your slow and server costly code.
The Good
Continue reading “Google Apps Script – Iterating Through Ranges in Sheets the Right and Wrong Way”
Updated January 2022
You sure can. Google has a fully supported script editor that you integrate with your Sheets, Docs, Forms, Slide, Gmail, Calendar and pretty much every aspect of the Google Suite. Its name: Google Apps Script.
Google Apps Script allows you to do all sorts of things like building short code to modify sheets and docs, create macros, develop add-ons mess around with Gmail and so much more.
Google Apps Scripts is based on Javascript. It can integrate with HTML5, CSS and Javascript well with its HTML service class.
Google has an extensive reference library to get you started.
Let’s get started with a basic example.
Continue reading “Can I modify Google Sheets with code? [updated January 2022]”