4 ms·

Apps Script is amazing and a sorely under-appreciated feature in Workspace.

Edman274 5y ago
I built a Google Apps Script Gmail add-on (with a UI and card view for a selected email) for archiving email contents as a PDF to an internal enterprise document system using GAS and AWS API Gateway. Here are two extremely annoying problems that I really can't fix using this platform: 1. Calls to UrlFetchApp.fetchAll() will fail with an "Unexpected Error" exception about every 3 to 8 percent of calls. The way my code works is that I'll make one GET request to an AWS API Gateway endpoint to request a pre-signed S3 URL, and then I'll use the pre-signed S3 url to PUT a document. The unauthorized first request will fail sometimes, and issuing a PUT to the pre-signed S3 url will fail sometimes too. I have found no reason that these requests should fail, so instead of torturing myself by trying to figure out the root cause, I've decided to wrap both fetchAll() calls in a loop that retries the exact same request three times before giving up. If there was anything wrong with the request itself, one would expect a retry loop to be pointless, but it's significantly reduced the number of add-on failures. 2. If an email has invalid SPF alignment, then the add-on won't run at all. It's been three years and there's still no workaround for this. I have had to explain to dozens of people over the past three years that there's nothing I can do about it. https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112064778 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112064778 . I feel like Google Apps Script - especially Gmail add-ons - are sorely neglected and are treated as an annoying legacy product that will probably be discontinued very soon with no replacement.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Yeah, I found that UrlFetchApp.fetch had similarly weird issues–I got a lot of sporadic “Address unavailable” errors out of it.
- agentdrtran 5y ago
  Yes, it's incredibly annoying how little attention it seems to get from google. Bugs sit in the bug tracker for years and while I like the redesign it broke a function I used (to get the current URL so create multi-page apps). Apps Script just got a new UX update not long ago which I took as a good sign but App Maker had a roadmap going out a year when it got killed, so.
thepangolino 5y ago
bonzini 5y ago
Indeed, at my workplace we use Gmail and it's been a lifesaver for sorting email. Now of course it would not be necessary if only Google implemented sieve or at least proper header and substring search in the backend filters; but some functionality such as tagging and untagging entire threads is very useful. I also use Apps Script at home to send me email if the home network goes offline (a script at home updates a cell in a worksheet every 10 minutes, one on the cloud checks that it's been updated recently). It has saved my frozen goods at least once.

I built a Google Apps Script Gmail add-on (with a UI and card view for a selected email) for archiving email contents as a PDF to an internal enterprise document system using GAS and AWS API Gateway. Here are two extremely annoying problems that I really can't fix using this platform: 1. Calls to UrlFetchApp.fetchAll() will fail with an "Unexpected Error" exception about every 3 to 8 percent of calls. The way my code works is that I'll make one GET request to an AWS API Gateway endpoint to request a pre-signed S3 URL, and then I'll use the pre-signed S3 url to PUT a document. The unauthorized first request will fail sometimes, and issuing a PUT to the pre-signed S3 url will fail sometimes too. I have found no reason that these requests should fail, so instead of torturing myself by trying to figure out the root cause, I've decided to wrap both fetchAll() calls in a loop that retries the exact same request three times before giving up. If there was anything wrong with the request itself, one would expect a retry loop to be pointless, but it's significantly reduced the number of add-on failures. 2. If an email has invalid SPF alignment, then the add-on won't run at all. It's been three years and there's still no workaround for this. I have had to explain to dozens of people over the past three years that there's nothing I can do about it. https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112064778 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112064778 . I feel like Google Apps Script - especially Gmail add-ons - are sorely neglected and are treated as an annoying legacy product that will probably be discontinued very soon with no replacement.

saagarjha 5y ago
Yeah, I found that UrlFetchApp.fetch had similarly weird issues–I got a lot of sporadic “Address unavailable” errors out of it.
agentdrtran 5y ago
Yes, it's incredibly annoying how little attention it seems to get from google. Bugs sit in the bug tracker for years and while I like the redesign it broke a function I used (to get the current URL so create multi-page apps). Apps Script just got a new UX update not long ago which I took as a good sign but App Maker had a roadmap going out a year when it got killed, so.

thepangolino 5y ago

bonzini 5y ago

Indeed, at my workplace we use Gmail and it's been a lifesaver for sorting email. Now of course it would not be necessary if only Google implemented sieve or at least proper header and substring search in the backend filters; but some functionality such as tagging and untagging entire threads is very useful. I also use Apps Script at home to send me email if the home network goes offline (a script at home updates a cell in a worksheet every 10 minutes, one on the cloud checks that it's been updated recently). It has saved my frozen goods at least once.