sodypop

I just wanted to let you all know how much Google Docs has helped improve the lives of hundreds of redditors, literally.

I've been using a calendar, a spreadsheet, and apps scripts to help me manage a subreddit for helping people quit smoking.

Currently I have a script that pulls all of the calendar entries into a spreadsheet, each entry being a username added on the date they quit smoking. The spreadsheet then calculates the number of days since each user quit, then an additional script runs to create a subreddit CSS stylesheet which assigns an icon next to each user signifying the number of weeks or months that since they quit.

The only problem I've had is with the script exceeding the 5 minute timeout, and the occasional "Service error: DocsList" which is probably my fault for crummy script design.

The combination of calendar, spreadsheet, and scripting capabilities has simplified an otherwise tedious chore of updating about 500 user icons on a daily basis.

High fives to all of you!

PS: since this is an IAmA, I'll ask a question.

Will the preview feature for text files ever return?

I used to be able to preview a .txt file up until sometime around the beginning of the year. Not a very important feature for me, but it did help skip the step of downloading a local copy and opening it up in a text editor.

Just a conduit.

You are humble. A conduit delivers content, whether that is electrical cabling, fuel, or data. You select the photos, place them into that awesomely easy to view layout, and add captions which provide the context of what we are looking at.

It's amazing how I can look at a photo set and be so much more moved than if I had only read a story about the content. You do a tremendous job as a conduit to deliver some pretty amazing content to us. Thank you!

Wow, that would be really cool so I'd be delighted to. The scripts aren't the most gracefully written pieces of code, but they get the job done and have really simplified things for us.

That's great about the text preview as well. Thanks!

How about a blue ribbon?

(I knew this silly image would come in handy one day.)

Hello! Thanks for doing another AMA.