My application currently utilises an integration with the Dropbox API. The purpose of which is to allow clients to put certain documents into a dedicated folder in the Apps/My_App_Name/ directory, my application then periodically polls the folder to see if anything has been added and if a document is found it will automatically move it into the client's document management area within my application.
At the moment there are approx 300 users (and counting) who have their Dropbox accounts synced with me in this way. I believe I am doing something very inefficient here, but essentially my application polls all 300 accounts to see if a file has been added. This happens every 10 minutes but I'm having to widen this interval as more accounts are added to prevent an overlap. Each time I poll all accounts, usually I'd find only 1 or 2 out of those 300 who have new documents.
My question therefore is.. Is there a method within the Dropbox API to post a Web Hook or notification of some sort only when a client adds a file to that Dropbox folder? This could then trigger my application to poll only that account and save a whole load of resources on my side.
Additional Information:
Platform: ASP.NET C#
Wrapper: SharpBox
I contacted Dropbox and they have confirm that currently (15th March 2013) they do not have a web-hook or notification system for when users upload files. They did however indicate that this is something they are looking to add in the future.
UPDATE 19th February 2014
Great News! Dropbox recently announced WebHooks:
If you're interested in helping us out, just click through to fill out
your information, and we'll be in touch:
https://dropboxapi.wufoo.com/forms/dropbox-webhooks-api-beta-feedback-contact-info
Happy Dropboxing!
Dropbox now offers webhooks so that you can get notifies when a file is added
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/blog/90/announcing-dropbox-webhooks
Related
I would like to programmatically validate that the OneDrive (for Business) client is successfully connected and syncing (SDK, file, event log, registry, etc.) on our Windows 10 desktops.
I have seen the OneDriveLib project, which claims to offer this through PowerShell, although it’s not working for me because of the known bug when Files On-Demand is enabled.
We’re looking to implement OneDrive as the default save location for our 5000+ users. When it works, it works great, but how can we know it’s working for all our users? There’s a good possibility that some of the OneDrive clients will break at over time, so any locally saved data will not be synced. At best it will mean that the data will not roam with the user, but worst case scenario would be a machine goes pop with months/years of unrecoverable un-synced data.
there are some local data files here, but i've yet to decipher their meaning:
$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\OneDrive\logs\Business1\DeviceHealth.json |
and
$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\OneDrive\logs\Business1\DeviceHealthSummaryConfiguration.ini
I today get Instagram api and add my website live,
I see write:
Client Status: Sandbox Mode GO LIVE
I can't click on ''GO LIVE'' button why ?
You would need to start a submission for approval to go live, though:
Feeds for websites won't be approved; these will remain in sandbox mode and be limited to 500 requests per hour and 20 images. This doesn't sound like much especially for large clients, but if you cache your responses, it's not a problem.
The main confusion is because they have made it sound like every app/feed has to be approved and out of sandbox mode to work, where as the reality is that only fully functioning apps for phones, or a widget plugin really ever need to be.
You will no longer be able to display feeds based on hashtags, only a users own photo's. By getting a client to be a sandbox user, is how you can access their feed without their login information.
Older apps/feeds will need to be updated to use the new code before June or they may stop working.
It's mainly to stop apps hammering instagram's servers for unlimited requests on any hashtag/users they like.
Here is an example of how to fetch and cache images using WordPress's 'set_transient' - you will need to use a loop to output the data.
WordPress Instagram Gist
Here is the relevant piece of information in the dev docs:
Here are some examples of scenarios that will not be approved:
To display content for a personal website. If you are a developer and you want to showcase Instagram content on a website, then you do not need to submit your app for review. By using a client in sandbox mode, you will still be able to access the last 20 media of any sandbox user that grants you permission.
One-off projects. If you are an agency building websites or other integrations, note that we don't grant permissions to clients created for one-off projects. If you are interested in building a product, platform, or widget that will be used as a service across multiple projects, then you may submit a single client_id that you can use across multiple projects.
To use a widget. If you are installing a widget for your website, then you do not need to submit for review. Some widgets may ask you to create a new client id, but you do not need to submit it for review for the widget to work. Your client can remain in sandbox mode and the widget will have access to your last 20 media.
Hope that helps clear some confusion.
I run a multi-gigabyte audio content subscription service. Right now all of our clients get download links via email for all of the content.
I had an idea of employing the Dropbox API after a "successful charge" webhook and giving (read-only) access to a shared Dropbox folder with all of the content. That way, the customer would stay in sync with all updates, changes etc...
The way I picture it, the user checks out and is immediately asked if he would like to add our company's folder to his/her Dropbox.
Does this seem feasible/practical?
Looking at the API, I only see an option to provide a download link but not an actual shared folder. Am I correct in this observation?
That's correct, the Dropbox API doesn't currently offer any API calls for managing shared folders. It only has a way to get the read-only share links like you mentioned.
However, if you'd be interested in potentially participating in a shared folder API beta in the future, please sign up here.
#Greg's answer is correct, but I thought I'd mention a couple other options:
You could use the Saver to let users save the files directly into their Dropbox. This wouldn't help you to push new content to them—they'd still have to visit your site to save the new files—but it would let you cut down on your bandwidth costs, since Dropbox would cache the files for you.
You could use a combination of /copy_ref and /fileops/copy to copy the contents from a central Dropbox account into each user's Dropbox. This wouldn't use any of your bandwidth (once the file was in the central Dropbox account).
Please note, however, that free Dropbox accounts only start with 2GB of storage space. Since you mentioned "multi-gigabyte," you'll need to keep in mind whether your customers will actually have sufficient Dropbox space to store the files you want to share with them. (Even if you were able to use a shared folder, they would need to have enough space left to accept the shared folder invitation.)
Suppose I have an online shopping system and many users are registered to it. I want a feature that when I add a new product or there's a promotion for a particular product, my Google plus page gets updated in the sense that the details of the product are published there automatically. It will only be used for back-office purpose.
The problem is that I cannot share on the Business Page, it gets posted on my user profile.
How can I achieve posting on google plus page via a web application?
Currently, you would need to use a third party social media management tool to achieve this in an automated manner. I've tried Hootsuite and it appears to work with a standard account.
If the number of products that you add is not high in volume, you could manually share by using the https://plus.google.com site and switching to use your page as the poster.
Set the page free as a standalone account
Apparently Pages may now (since when I don't know) have their umbilical cords severed, and set free to stand on their own two feet.
The process involves setting a password for the Page (via the Page's settings) that allows it to be signed into and out of rather than simply managed.
This should allow Shares to be made (and other G+ actions such as +1ing) from around the web as the Page instead of as the profile that created it.
See an article on plusyourbusiness.com from Oct 2014 for some details, and an article on blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.de from Mar 2014 (cited by the former) for some more.
P.S. The "apparently" and "should" are due to my not having walked through the process myself yet.
P.P.S. (done it now) Easy and works.
I am thinking about app that will use google form and I need to create forms from that app. Is there a way how can I create form in google docs without using website but through some api or some other way?
I can offer an idea for a solution using Google App Script.
Since the beginning of 2013 you can create new forms using the App Script Forms Service API quite easily.
var form = FormApp.create(title)
.setDescription(description)
.setConfirmationMessage('Thanks for responding!')
;
The problem now is how to get that App Script running from your non App Script code.
You can use App Script to create a Web App that reacts to HTTP GET requests.
So putting it together, you may be able to create an App Script Web App that reacts to a GET request and when it gets the right URL parameters, it creates the form.
(Nov 2020) Yes, it is possible to programmatically create Google Forms. You can do it with Google Apps Script using its Forms service. You can also extend the code to read in the contents from Google Docs (with Apps Script's Document service) and use it for the creation of Google Forms.
I created a Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) Add-on, which you can think of as a Google Docs extension, called GFormIt. Its original purpose was intended for teachers to write exams/quizzes, possibly with answers, in Google Docs, then automatically convert them to Google Forms to distribute to students who submit their answers into Google Sheets (the destination for Google Forms submissions).
Furthermore, if you (the teacher) provided answers to your test questions, GFormIt would also auto-submit your answers to the Sheet as if you were a student. If you do that, and use a tool like Flubaroo to grade the exam, you could designate your row in the Sheet as “the answer key.” You can learn more about how it works, including viewing a short video, at the GFormIt page linked above.
This Google Docs add-on, along with others for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, etc., are all certified/validated by Google and available for free to anyone from the Google Workspace Marketplace. (However, your admins may have to grant permissions for you to try to install them to your corporate Workspace account.) If interested in building your own add-on, please see the developer documentation and perhaps some of my introductory videos to get started, the most relevant being the one linked to at the top of this answer.
Apps Script is a serverless Google technology, meaning you write your code (using JavaScript) in the browser, and it is hosted by & executed on Google servers. If you wanted to create your own web app (and hosted anywhere), you would have to wait for a Google Forms REST API which does not exist at the time of this writing. (If we ever launch one, you'll find its documentation at https://developers.google.com/forms along with the others like Sheets https://developers.google.com/sheets, Gmail https://developers.google.com/gmail, Drive https://developers.google.com/drive, etc.)
Earlier this year (Mar 2022) the new Google Forms Api graduated from Beta. It is more powerful that the previous versions and caters for two main use cases:
Automated form creation and editing: Enables automated form creation
and editing. Enables rapid form generation from large volume question
banks or other data backends.
Reaction to Form responses: The API also enables developers to build
automations for acting on incoming responses. Examples include
developing real-time dashboards or visualizations and triggering
business workflows based on response data.
We have used it to build an integration that Creates documents and slides each time a form is completed: www.portant.co/google-forms-to-docs and it works really well.
I think the other key use case looks like it would be a good fit for you and others looking for a solution like this.
Cheers, James
Sorry, the API doesn't support programmatically creating forms.