Learn Google Apps Script Starter Guide

Getting Started with Google Apps Script 0

Deploying a web app from a standalone application. 5
How to create a Bound Script 7
Learn more about Google Apps Script Services 8

Getting Started with Google Apps Script

Google Apps Script is a coding language based on JavaScript that runs in the cloud. It
allows you to interact with the Google Suite of products, and create customized
functionality within those products. Google Apps Script, Google's server side
Javascript-based cloud scripting platform for automating tasks across Google products
and third-party services is available and can be accessed with an Google Account. You
will need a Google Account in order to access the Google Suite. You can sign up for
free at Google or if your company has an organizational account with Google

Google Apps Script Course by Laurence Svekis - https://basescripts.com/

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Workspace you can use that as well. There are some differences on permissions and
who can access the documents between the organization accounts and the regular
Google accounts.
Google Apps Script has many services that can be used, in addition to other Google
Services that can be accessed with the code.
There is a reference guide located at
https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference

To Get help there are resources online at

Questions and Code samples -
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/google-apps-script

Open Google Apps Script from your Drive https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/my-drive or

create a new project from the Apps Script main page. https://script.google.com/home/

Learn more about apps script at https://developers.google.com/apps-script/

There is a lot that can be done with apps script, including publishing web apps,
creating custom functions in Sheets, adding menus and dialogs to Docs, Sheets and
Forms, interacting with other Google Services like Maps, Drive, Gmail, Calendar and
much much more. You can also build and publish addons to the Google Workspace
Marketplace.

A prerequisite to being able to write App Script code is JavaScript. Apps Script code is
written in modern JavaScript, in addition there are built in libraries that can be accessed
within the Google Workspace products like Sheets, Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Drive and
more. There is nothing to install. You can write and edit the code directly in your
Browser.

Log into your Google Account and in the script dashboard create a new project. This
will open the project in the Google Apps Script Editor. https://script.google.com/
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Give the project a meaningful name.

Open the IDE code editor screen to be able to write code.
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By default the apps script editor will create a file called Code.gs and create a empty
function in the editor called function myFunction(){}
Add a line of code within the function Logger.log(‘hello’); and using the Run button
select the function and execute the code.

The Logger is a built-in function in apps script that allows you to send data to be
displayed in the execution log. The execution log will display once the function is run if
the Logger function is called. This log is lightweight and streams in real time, but
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persists only for a short time and can be used for error checking, debugging and
retrieving information as the code runs.

In the code editor you can write regular JavaScript code, as Apps Script and JavaScript
code runs within a runtime or runtime environment containing the JavaScript engine that
parses and executes script code.

Within your code editor add some JavaScript code, run the function. In order to run the
code it should be contained within a function that can be selected from the drop down
menu.

function testScript1() {
Logger.log('Hello World');
for(let x=0;x<10;x++){
Logger.log(x);
}
}
function testScript2() {
const a = 'string';
const b = 100;
const c = true;
const d = ['one','two',4];
const e = {
first : 'Laurence',
last : 'Svekis'
};
if(5>3){
Logger.log('was true');
}
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d.push('three');
d.forEach(ele=>{
Logger.log(ele);
})
Logger.log('Hello World');
}

Deploying a web app from a standalone application.

You can create a web app with Google Apps Script and publish the script as a web app.
Both standalone scripts and bound scripts can be used to deploy web app, although
best practice is to use the standalone script to do so.
The web app must contain either doGet(e) or doPost(e) function and return an output
value in order to be able to respond.
With the Deploy button you can also deploy the app as either a web app, library, API
executable or Addon. Once you select the deployment type fill out the configuration
details.

You can manage existing deployments, to either update or create new versions. Also
once you deploy you will be able to see the deployments in the Test deployments tab.
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Using the test deployment allows you to update your script and see the changes right
away in the dev test deployment URL, which will end with dev. To update and make
changes to your live version which will have a URL ending with exec, you need to
redeploy once the changes are made.

Create your own web app, using the doGet() return back a custom message with HTML
to be output into your web app.

function doGet(e){
const html = `Hello Laurence Svekis 2`;
return HtmlService.createHtmlOutput(html);
}

Share options are also available, just like other workspace apps, Apps Script can also
be shared and collaborated on. Edit permissions will allow others to edit the code, view
will only allow viewing of the code.
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How to create a Bound Script

Bound scripts are available in Google Docs, Slides, or Forms. They provide some
additional functions for interacting with the container file using Apps Script. The editor
and script will be the same and code will run the same way.
Can be opened from the container file or from the script dashboard. Bound scripts will
have a different icon which will include the parent container icon with a small script icon
on top.
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Bound script can add custom functions into a spreadsheet, run special triggers and
function to interact with the container file.

To open the editor menu, right click or Control+Click within the editor. This will open the
editor menu.

Bound scripts can add UI menus to a container file, within sheets using the UI object
add a custom menu.
1. Using the onOpen() run a block of code as the spreadsheet opens.
2. Select the Ui object and add several items to the menu. Create the functions,
use strings to represent both label and function names.
3. Create a couple of functions that will use the UI and open alerts with function
messages.
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function onOpen() {
const ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi();
ui.createMenu('adv')
.addItem('test1', 'test1')
.addItem('test2', 'test2')
.addToUi();
}

function test1() {
SpreadsheetApp.getUi().alert('test1');
}
function test2() {
SpreadsheetApp.getUi().alert('test2');
}

Learn more about Google Apps Script Services

Google Apps Script services provide ways for your script to access data on Google and
external systems. The services are built in and don’t require any import to be able to
use them within your apps script code. Google Services allow you to use the data of
your Google Workspace apps. There are also utility services that are not connect to a
particular Google product, but they are useful to be able to do some amazing things
within your code.
Within the resources you can find out more about the various classes for the apps, with
code snippets.
// The code below will write "Esta es una prueba" to the log.
var spanish = LanguageApp.translate('This is a test', 'en', 'es');
Logger.log(spanish);
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To run code, add it to your apps script, and wrap the code within a function. This can
then be run with the Run button. Try out the LanguageApp service below.

function test3(){
const val = 'Hello World';
const spanish = LanguageApp.translate(val, 'en', 'es');
Logger.log(spanish);
}