I'm writing a Chrome extension to add Google Maps autocomplete to Google Calendar's new event location input. I'm trying to load the library in the extension context but it blocks saying [blocked] The page at domain.com ran insecure content from anotherdomain.com.
I of course have added http://anotherdomain.com to the manfest.json in the "permissions" key. In order to load the actual places library I just downloaded it from http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?libraries=places&sensor=true, since i didn't know how to add it directly to the extension.
So far, it seems it is impossible, so I just used the JSON API and jQuery UI's autocomplete. Here's my trivial implementation https://gist.github.com/3623683
Related
I am trying to import data from the following website to Google Sheets. I want to import all the matches for the day.
https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/tournament/b731fdcd-a0c8-4558-9344-2a14c267ee8b/Matches
I have tried importxml and importhtml, but it seems this does not work as the website uses JavaScript. I have also tried to use Apipheny without any success.
When using Apipheny, the error message is
'Failed to fetch data - please verify your API Request: {DNS error'
Tl;Dr
Adapted from my answer to How to know if Google Sheets IMPORTDATA, IMPORTFEED, IMPORTHTML or IMPORTXML functions are able to get data from a resource hosted on a website? (also posted by me)
Please spend some time learning how to use the browsers developers tools so you will be able to identify
if the data is already included in source code of the webpage as JSON / literal JavaScript object or in another form
if the webpage is doing a GET or POST requests to retrieve the data and when those requests are done (i.e. as some point of the page parsing, or on event)
if the requests require data from cookies
Brief guide about how to use the web browser to find useful details about the webpage / data to import
Open the source code and look if the required data is included. Sometimes the data is included as JSON and added to the DOM using JavaScript. In this case it might be possible to retrieve the data by using the Google Sheets functions or URL Fetch Service from Google Apps Script.
Let say that you use Chrome. Open the Dev Tools, then look at the Elements tab. There you will see the DOM. It might be helpful to identify if the data that you want to import besides being on visible elements is included in hidden / not visible elements like <script> tags.
Look at Source, there you might be able to see the JavaScript code. It might include the data that you want to import as JavaScript object (commonly referred as JSON).
There are a lot of questions about google-sheets +web-scraping that mentions problems using importhtml and/or importxml that already have answers and even many include code (JavaScript snippets, Google Apps Script functions, etc.) that might save you to have to use an specialized web-scraping tool that has a more stepped learning curve. At the bottom of this answer there is a list of questions about using Google Sheets built-in functions, including annotations of the workaround proposed.
On Is there a way to get a single response from a text/event-stream without using event listeners? ask about using EventSource. While this can't be used on server side code, the answer show how to use the HtmlService to use it on client-side code and retrieve the result to Google Sheets.
As you already realized, the Google Sheets built-in functions importhtml(), importxml(), importdata() and importfeed() only work with static pages that do not require signing in or other forms of authentication.
When the content of a public page is created dynamically by using JavaScript, it cannot be accessed with those functions, by the other hand the website's webmaster may also purposefully have prevented web scraping.
How to identify if content is added dynamically
To check if the content is added dynamically, using Chrome,
Open the URL of the source data.
Press F12 to open Chrome Developer Tools
Press Control+Shift+P to open the Command Menu.
Start typing javascript, select Disable JavaScript, and then press Enter to run the command. JavaScript is now disabled.
JavaScript will remain disabled in this tab so long as you have DevTools open.
Reload the page to see if the content that you want to import is shown, if it's shown it could be imported by using Google Sheets built-in functions, otherwise it's not possible but might be possible by using other means for doing web scraping.
According to Wikipedia,
Web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction is data scraping used for extracting data from websites.
Use of robots.txt to block Web crawlers
The webmasters could use robots.txt file to block access to website. In such case the result will be #N/A Could not fetch URL.
Use of User agent
The webpage could be designed to return a special a custom message instead of the data.
Below there are more details about how Google Sheets built-in "web-scraping" functions works
IMPORTDATA, IMPORTFEED, IMPORTHTML and IMPORTXML are able to get content from resources hosted on websites that are:
Publicly available. This means that the resource doesn't require authorization / to be logged in into any service to access it.
The content is "static". This mean that if you open the resource using the view source code option of modern web browsers it will be displayed as plain text.
NOTE: The Chrome's Inspect tool shows the parsed DOM; in other works the actual structure/content of the web page which could be dynamically modified by JavaScript code or browser extensions/plugins.
The content has the appropriated structure.
IMPORTDATA works with structured content as csv or tsv doesn't matter of the file extension of the resource.
IMPORTFEED works with marked up content as ATOM/RSS
IMPORTHTML works with marked up content as HTML that includes properly markedup list or tables.
IMPORTXML works with marked up content as XML or any of its variants like XHTML.
The content doesn't exceeds the maximum size. Google haven't disclosed this limit but the below error will be shown when the content exceeds the maximum size:
Resource at url contents exceeded maximum size.
Google servers are not blocked by means of robots.txt or the user agent.
On W3C Markup Validator there are several tools to checkout is the resources had been properly marked up.
Regarding CSV check out Are there known services to validate CSV files
It's worth to note that the spreadsheet
should have enough room for the imported content; Google Sheets has a 10 million cell limit by spreadsheet, according to this post a columns limit of 18278, and a 50 thousand characters as cell content even as a value or formula.
it doesn't handle well large in-cell content; the "limit" depends on the user screen size and resolution as now it's possible to zoom in/out.
References
https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/javascript/disable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping
Related
Using Google Apps Script to scrape Dynamic Web Pages
Scraping data from website using vba
Block Website Scraping by Google Docs
Is there a way to get a single response from a text/event-stream without using event listeners?
Software Recommendations
Web scraping tool/software available for free?
Recommendations for web scraping tools that require minimal installation
Web Applications
The following question is about a different result, #N/A Could not fetch URL
Inability to use IMPORTHTML in Google sheets
Similar questions
Some of this questions might be closed as duplicate of this one
Importing javascript table into Google Docs spreadsheet
Importxml Imported Content Empty
scrape table using google app scripts
One answer includes Google Apps Script code using the URL Fetch Service
Capture element using ImportXML with XPath
How to import Javascript tables into Google spreadsheet?
Scrape the current share price data from the ASX
One of the answers includes Google Apps Script code to get data from a JSON source
Guidance on webscraping using Google Sheets
How to Scrape data from Indiegogo.com in google sheets via IMPORTXML formula
Why importxml and importhtml not working here?
Google Sheet use Importxml error could not fetch url
One answer includes Google Apps Script code using the URL Fetch Service
Google Sheets - Pull Data for investment portfolio
Extracting value from API/Webpage
IMPORTXML shows an error while scraping data from website
One answer shows the xhr request found using browser developer tools
Replacing =ImportHTML with URLFetchApp
One answer includes Google Apps Script code using the URL Fetch Service
How to use IMPORTXML to import hidden div tag?
Google Sheet Web-scraping ImportXml Xpath on Yahoo Finance doesn't works with french stock
One of the answers includes Google Apps Script code to get data from a JSON source. As of January 4th 2023, it's not longer working, very likely because Yahoo! Finance is now encrying the JSON. See the Tainake's answer to How to pull Yahoo Finance Historical Price Data from its Object with Google Apps Script? for script using Crypto.js to handle this.
How to fetch data which is loaded by the ajax (asynchronous) method after the web page has already been loaded using apps script?
One answer suggest to read the data from the server instead of scraping from a webpage.
Using ImportXML to pull data
Extracting data from web page using Cheerio Library
One answer suggest the use of an API and Google Apps Script
ImportXML is good for basic tasks, but it won't get you too far if you are serious in scraping:
The approach only works with the most basic websites (no SPAs rendered in browsers can be scraped this way. Any basic web scraping protection or connectivity issue breaks the process, and there isn't any control over HTTP request geo location, or number of retries) - and Yahoo Finance is not a simple website
If the target website data requires some cleanup post-processing, it's getting very complicated since you are now "programming with Excel formulas", rather a painful process compared to regular code writing in conventional programming languages
There isn't any proper launch and cache control, so the function can be triggered occasionally and if the HTTP request fails, cells will be populated with ERR! values
I recommend using proper tools (automation framework and scraping engine which can render JavaScript-powered websites) and use Google Sheets just for basic storage purposes:
https://youtu.be/uBC752CWTew (Pipedream for automation and ScrapeNinja engine for scraping)
I'm trying to load Bing maps using OpenLayers 3 in a Windows application. However, i'm facing the following error:
APPHOST9601: Can’t load <https://dev.virtualearth.net/REST/v1/Imagery/Metadata/AerialWithLabels?uriScheme=https&include=ImageryProviders&key=Ao9wqOnCiDvABI4LnDdguzUE0lbF1PiAcDSYHkKdezCage1xuUXY2emXAuHzdOUX&jsonp=olc_9>. An app can’t load remote web content in the local context.
I've tried adding the following line to the ContentUriRules in the manifest without success:
<Rule Match="https://dev.virtualearth.net/*" Type="include" />
I do not want to load the OpenLayers map in an iframe, because then I have to use the postMessage function to pass data to the iframe from classes outside the iframe. Is there a workaround to get the Bing maps working?
Without using an iframe, the Windows app will not let you to load any external script references. I recommend taking a look at using Apache Cordova which hosts everything in an iframe and also gives you access to the native features of the Windows app.
I've managed to fix the issue by adding a function to the OL library that loads an url containing JSON data without using JSONP. Now the data is seen as JSON instead of Javascript (inherent to JSONP) and thus the security restrictions do not apply anymore.
The loading time can be long for this request. I wonder if we could avoid making it every time the window is refreshed.
I also have a problems with stereographic projection but otherwise it's OK.
Is there a JS framework or library to add text/check box to gmail UI?
Please note that the data contained there will be sent through AJAX - JSON object to a particular server.
Idea is to make a Chrome extension with this functionality.
Something similar to:
Thanks.
You can write Greasemonkey script for that. It's supported by Google Chrome by default.
I would like to create a Web App for device. For that I would have some script being stored on device, instead of downloading them all time when I start application. As far as I saw including a GoogleMaps API makes some additional request for javascript files. Is there any way of having all of them taken directly from local store? Or is this always have to refeer to google web address? Thanks for any answers here!
No, you always must load them from the Google site. They offer no way to run Google Maps locally. The GMaps scripts are generated on the fly, based upon (among others, I'm sure) the HTTP_REFERER header of the request. That's how they can bind an API key to a specific website.
I'm developing a Firefox extension and would like to track its use with google analytics, but I can't get it working.
I've tried manually calling a function from ga.js, but that didn't work for some reason. No error was produced, but neither was any data collected.
My last attempt was to have a website that just holds the tracking javascript and then load it within the extension in an iframe with the URL configured so it contains meaningful data. This way the analytics are getting connected when I visit said webpage with a browser, but not in an extension. I've tried putting some visible javascript on the site and have confirmed the site's javascript is executing. This method also works with other trackers, but I don't like their output and would prefer Google Analytics.
Any ideas what else I could try to accomplish this?
The solution is to use Remy Sharp's mini library for tracking bookmarklets and extensions with Google Analytics. Works like a charm.
Usage is as simple as:
gaTrack('UA-123456', 'yoursite.com', '/js/script.js');
Note that, since it doesn't use cookies, there's no differentiation between pageviews and visits, or for that matter, between visits and visitors. But, the rest of the functionality is fairly reliable.
Depending on what you want to track you may not need Google Analytics. Mozilla's addon.mozilla.org portal already provides comprehensive tracking and usage statistics for addons.
To check if Mozilla provides what you need go to the Statistics Dashboard and choose the statistics for one of the publicly available addons.
Here is a small library to proxy the requests through an iframe hosted on another server: https://github.com/yelloroadie/google_analytics_proxy
This gets around the bug in the add-on sdk that causes ga.js to die (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=785914).
This method allows full use of google analytics, unlike the limited use found in the library by Remy Sharp.
I don't think this is possible. Firefox extensions don't allow you to load pages from other servers. So the only way I can think of is to have an invisible iframe load up the code. The pings to Google's servers need to be from a domain belonging to you. So I guess your own servers have to serve up pages every time a user loads the extension, which just kills your server and defeats the purpose of Google doing all the work!! Please post if you have found a way around it. Chrome extensions can be tracked easily!
For using analytics in the main/background script you might want to use this solution:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/17430194/193017
Citing part of the answer:
I would suggest you take a look at the new Measurement Protocol in Universal Analytics:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/
This allows you to use XHR POST to simply send GA events directly.
This will coexist much better with Firefox extensions.
The code would look something like this: