Just a quick one. Someone I know is using google sheets as a Read database. Their data needs are very small so that's what they want to use. I have built an App in Adobe Air and this person wants to be able to display the sheet data inside this app. I know I am going to be using some form of Javascript to do this but I am not sure how to pull the cell data into the dynamic text fields. Any advice would be most welcomed.
Way №1. The simplest way is to get the cell data as a CSV or TSV file (whatever is more suitable for your purposes) via special download link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/{KEY}/export?gid={GID}&format=csv
Obviously, you are to replace {KEY} and {GID} with valid document key and sheet identifier respectively. The format parameter takes csv or tsv value.
You read it with old good URLLoader and get a plain text which you split into lines and then every line into values. There shouldn't be any problems.
IMPORTANT: The document should be shared as "anyone with link", so there are apparent security concerns, yet if security is not an issue, go for it as it is, as I said above, the simplest way.
Way №2. If security IS a concern, then you need to use the gspread library. It does not have an AS3 port, but it has JS one so I assume it is the one that acquaintance of yours uses: https://developers.google.com/sheets/api/quickstart/js
You don't run your app in the browser, JS wouldn't really be your ally here, you will need a server with PHP proxy (that will handle auth and communication with Google Sheets) or a local Python app maybe (it is not difficult to build and run a simple HTTP serving application), it is up to you to decide which one of the available gspread ports will be simpler for you to use and serves your needs best.
Related
The current task is as follows:
It's about publishing spreadsheet tables online and making them accessible only to registered subscribers. The access to these spreadsheets is meant to be a paid service. Subscribers may access them online from wherever they are and do their calculations related to expenses or working hours and so on. These spreadsheets are developed in MS Excel. They are then converted into HTML/Javascript files via a macro app. The resulting Javascript code contains all the important formulas which need to be protected.
I know about Javascript "obfuscation" and scrambling" but would like to find a better solution since the two mentioned methods can be reversed.
The idea is to place the spreadsheet tables and the formulas for calculation inside of a Flash container file for protection. This Flash container file is not meant to link to or access any other external sources. The data which the users input into the spreadsheet would be saved in XML format.
Here is one tutorial which explains how to encrypt a Flash container file in order to prevent decompilers from making the content accessible:
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/protect-your-flash-files-from-decompilers-by-using-encryption--active-3115
Here is a tool which claims to do the same, but it may be that it just obfuscates and does not go as far as the process in the tutorial above:
www.amayeta.com/software/swfencrypt/
There are some downsides of using Flash which I know. I will not list them here, they are discussed in this forum. Consider that in this case the security aspect outweighs the downsides of Flash. The conversion of the HTML/Javascript content into Flash format will add more effort to this project.
I would like to ask these questions to this community:
Is there a converter that could help to translate Javascript into Actionscript?
Would it be necessary to translate the Javascript into PHP in order to use it within Flash?
Would the effort be worth it?
No this won't be worth the effort as the client will have full control over the runtime of flash. This means that it would not be difficult to extract the functions used. If you must protect your formulas then you should only perform the calculations on your server (or any kind of well protected cloud, if such a thing exists).
If you think that your code will run fine in flash or a browser, then it should not be hard to run the code in a well protected backend server.
I have an iOS app in which I use parse.com as backend service. Now, I hired someone to do a website interface using HTML and CSS. I want to share the same data between iOS app and website, I know parse.com offers me a few ways to do this, including creating a javaScriptapplication. The problem is, my programmer doesn't have any experience in JavaScript, nor do I.
My question is: Is it possible to use what I have (objective-c, xcode) as far as retrieving data from parse.com and showing on website? Even if I need to code something new, is it possible to use objective-c together with HTML and CSS?
Thanks.
Parse has several APIs, one of which is REST. Your web developer should use the REST API to get data from Parse
https://www.parse.com/docs/rest
If there is will there is way, but you'll be making something really specific to your use and will be non standard and will be immediately hard to maintain, I recommend that you hire another developer and do things properly using the technologies given to you by parse !. if the cost will be high now I can promise you it'll be much higher if you went the path you're going to now.
So my answer is:
Yes, everything is possible and no, don't do it ! :)
Edit: Added an example to a possible way to do it to actually answer OP's question.
Example case:
1-Create a simple Mac Application in Xcode that fetches data exactly like you do it on iOS, and store the needed data into a database of your choice on your server
2-You now have access to the data you needed from parse, but on a local mirror. you will need some tool to fetch that data though, I recommend a simple PHP script.
Note that this will require an OSX server to always be running to fetch that data, you'll also need of find a way to fetch data on demand when a user needs it Vs. polling at specified intervals, this will hardly scale and will be costly as I said.
I have a HTML page that uses javascript to generate dynamic images using a graph handler on a different server. The images will contain the same data for 1 week but will change when the 1 week window expires.
I am trying to come up with a way to automatically save the contents of the page to either a local file on the server or write to a PDF file.
I tried to use a 'web downloader' like HTTTrack, but it does not get the dynamic images...
I am running the html page off IIS.
I have no experience with IIS or ASP.
Thanks!
I'm not sure that I see any way to do this directly off the front end in an automatic manner. The challenge is that any "screen scraper" you have go out and grab the site with would need to be running javascript to get the tables, which isn't how I see many such systems operating. It's partially why you see strangeness on Archive.org when you have a site that's heavily augmented with javascript or flash.
An untested concept you might attempt was posted in this Stack Question
I could see some sort of a system that you rig together with another computer that schedules an browser load then prints to .pdf in some fashion. I've been unable to find any specific software that would automate that process, so you'd be left cobbling such a system together on your own.
Clearly you have the data available to make your dynamic images. The most feature-rich way I could think of would be to use a system like Jasper Reports or Crystal Reports, which you could feed your data, replicate the report, and easily output via pdf, a built-in export in both systems.
Perhaps its worth questioning your end purpose. To me, creating a "snapshot" of the relevant data in another table and using another system to render your graphs from that snapshot data seems far more valuable than just a print of the screen. You can then go back and adjust data as needed, or use it for other reporting purposes, exporting in any number of tools that are even as simple as Access. Heck, 10 years down the road you may want the data to look better than the graph system you're currently using, and you'd have the data to render it any way you want. When the VP of marketing comes looking for his numbers, a simple click would output those numbers that could be manipulated as needed from there.
I was able to accomplish what I wanted to do using wkhtmltopdf to convert my HTML page with Javascript to PDF. I ran the job via a task scheduler to supply my website url and output file name as parameters.
I then used a windows batch file to check if the file was created and then rename/email it to interested parties.
This of course requires that you have the ability to install wkhtmltopdf on your server.
I'm planning to write a web app using either Backbone or Angular. We want to push "widgets" from the server to the client (i.e. semi-complicated, dynamic but largely autonomous UI elements... something maybe like the popular TodoMVC app). So we'll need to send over a template, some javascript (controllers etc.), probably CSS, and JSON data (models).
We're debating how to send over all the information. How much can be, and what should be encapsulated in the JSON?
Is it possible to create files out of data passed over? i.e. could we pull out CSS and apply the rules to our document? I believe it would be easier to run javascript passed over this way.
I'm under the impression that being able to cache the template is important... does that require loading it as a (separate) resource rather than as part of some huge JSON object?
As for CSS, it needs to be loaded before inserting into the DOM (so we don't want just a promise). Would it make sense - or even be possible - to pass our CSS rules in the JSON and extract them somehow?
EDIT: to more fully describe what I'm working with, I'm focusing only on the front-end. The back-end can be customized to send over resources however we want - they'll optimize that depending on what the front-end needs. Our backend stack includes MongoDB, Tapestry, ActiveMQ.
The payload that needs to get sent over will be all the resources necessary to push something like a Mac Dashboard Widget or Windows Gadget into the browser. So HTML, CSS, Javascript, data will all get sent over. We want things to be snappy and minimize server requests as much as possible, as some of these payloads may get to be somewhat large.
Your questions are rather vague and the answers can change by coding on a different build platform. Your chosen application design can also impact the best practices to follow for implementing X type of application to X device(s). There's more than one way to skin a cat ya know.
What information are you sending over? Is it a lot of raw data arrays? Is it more document based where XML could be more beneficial? You'll need to work with your DBA if the data is stored in a repository and you'll be querying it. Will you need to write code to format your data or will the DBMS output it in the format you need?
What do you mean the CSS needs to be loaded before being inserted? Everything loads in the order you specify so making sure your CSS loads at the proper time shouldn't be an issue. If you're using ASP.NET, you can also use a SSM (style-sheet manager) to serve your CSS and only load whats required. SSM's are great if you have a lot of style-sheets to serve.
A lot of the questions you asked will be answered as you get further into the design phase. In order to get some solid answers and not just speculation on what is the best method, you will need to publish a lot more details than this. Any answers at this point shouldn't carry much weight in your decisions. They certainly wouldn't mine.
I want to add Excel button below the html table, that gives an Excel sheet of the table. I am using C# behind it, but I want it do on client side just using jQuery or Javascript without using PHP or .NET... Not more.
I am searching for hours however I don't find any fix solution. There it said you can use activeX object and CSV however I don't see any running examples.
ActiveX will only run on Internet Explorer so your solution will be limited to that platform.
Without ActiveX or server side scripts there is no way to achieve this due to JavaScript security designs it is not allowed to create files or push in memory files to download streams.
I would not recommend ActiveX or anything that tries to run code outside of the browser on the client system. ActiveX only works on IE not to mention the inherent security risks that brings about.
A possible method would be to use a server side script along with jquery to generate the file and return it without ever leaving the page your on. It looks good and you don't really have to jump through hoops to make it work nor will the user. (if you want an example of the jquery required to do this let me know).
For c# there is alot of tutorials on generating excel files from your data for example here.
The only reason I can think of that you would want to create the file locally is use of resources on your server. C# will be extremly efficient in generating that file not to mention there are a couple things you can do (dependant on the data) to negate any impact it has:
If the data changes are few and far between consider storing the
generated file and directing to that the next time until the data has
been changed.
Limit the data set it returns by way of a search criteria
There are plenty more optimization you could do but you get the idea.