Using Google Apps Script with Google Sites - Updating a Page

Google Apps Script is now available within Google Sites. We can launch the script using a link or using a time trigger.

Updating a Page

As example, we can update a Google Sites Page with a feed coming from Google Reader. It is a better way then using a Feed Reader. We can open the link in a new window, and using some html, it's easy to create an unordered list which is directly incorporated into the Page.

The Updated Page

Feeds From Google Reader is a Google Sites Page which is fully updated every 24 hours with a Google Apps Script.

Reading the html of the Page

We get the content of the page, using the following snipset :

// get Sites and Page content (html)

...

var site = SitesApp.getSiteByUrl("https://sites.google.com/site/annuairevin/");
var name = "feeds-google-reader";
var page = site.getChildByName(name);
if (page == null) { return; }
else { process; }
...

Parsing the Feed

We get an XmlElement and we create an unordered list with each entry of the feed.

...
var rep=UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);                           // get HTTPRESPONSE from the url of the feed
var doc=Xml.parse(rep.getContentText(),true);    // get XmlDocument
var root=doc.getElement();                                // feed element

// create a table (entries) with all the entry of the feed

var entries=root.getElements("entry");

// create the ul list

var ul="<br/><ul>";

for (var i=0; i<entries.length; i++){
   var e = entries[i];
    var title= e.getElement("title").getText();
    var link = e.getElement("link").getAttribute("href").getValue();
    ul += "<li><a href='" + link + "' target='_blank' title='" + title + "'>" + title + "</a>;
    ul += "<br/><br/>" + "</li>\n";
}

// end the ul li list

ul += "</ul><br/>";
return ul;
...

Inserting some html within an existing page

As we have now the unordered list, we have to insert the html fragment within the original page. The tips is to create, within the targeted page, a named div tag which define the html bloc to be updated.

<div name="somename">Any content</div>

To replace Any content we use the following function :

function InsertToPage(html,s,target) {
//
//-- in an html string, assume we have a div name='target'
//-- replace this div content with s
//

var i = html.indexOf("name='" + target + "'",0);
i=html.indexOf('>',i);
var j = html.indexOf('</div>',i+1);
return html.substring(0,i+1) + s + html.substring(j);
}

More informations

Google Apps Script Guide

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Using Google Apps Script with Google Sites - Updating a Page