How do I download a Google Sheet with Google Picker all in JavaScript?

Question

I'm trying to implement Google Picker and the Google Drive API in JavaScript on my website. Currently, I use a PHP script to fetch Google Drive documents, but it's using restricted scopes and I want to remove restricted scopes from my application.

First, I got the Google Picker quickstart code working . I tried to add a Google Drive get using the access token that I fetched in the Google Picker code. Google Drive code comes over in the client.js, right? Is the access token used in api.js compatible with the access token used for client.js?

I found an old Gist from six years ago and tried to integrate and update it. Here's my code right now. The gapi.client.drive.files.get fails to get the file.

// Scope to use to access user's photos.
var scope = 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file';

var pickerApiLoaded = false;
var driveApiLoaded = false;
var oauthToken;

// Use the API Loader script to load google.picker and gapi.auth.
function onApiLoad() {
    gapi.load('auth2', onAuthApiLoad);
    gapi.load('picker', onPickerApiLoad);
}

function onClientLoad() {
    gapi.client.setApiKey(developerKey);
    gapi.client.load('drive', 'v2', onDriveApiLoad);
}

function onAuthApiLoad() {
    var authBtn = document.getElementById('auth');
    authBtn.disabled = false;
    authBtn.addEventListener('click', function() {
        gapi.auth2.init({ client_id: clientId }).then(function(googleAuth) {
            googleAuth.signIn({ scope: scope }).then(function(result) {
                handleAuthResult(result.getAuthResponse());
            })
        })
    });
}

function onPickerApiLoad() {
    pickerApiLoaded = true;
    createPicker();
}

function onDriveApiLoad() {
    driveApiLoaded = true;
}

function handleAuthResult(authResult) {
    if (authResult && !authResult.error) {
        oauthToken = authResult.access_token;
        createPicker();
    }
}

// Create and render a Picker object for picking user Photos.
function createPicker() {
    if (pickerApiLoaded && oauthToken) {
        var view = new google.picker.DocsView(google.picker.ViewId.SPREADSHEETS);
        //view.setMimeTypes("text/csv");
        //view.setMode(google.picker.DocsViewMode.LIST);
        view.setQuery(jQuery('[updateparam="name"]').val());

        var picker = new google.picker.PickerBuilder().
                //addView(google.picker.ViewId.DOCS).
                addView(view).
                setInitialView(view).
                setOAuthToken(oauthToken).
                setDeveloperKey(developerKey).
                setCallback(pickerCallback).
                build();
        picker.setVisible(true);
    }
}

// A simple callback implementation.
function pickerCallback(data) {
    if (data[google.picker.Response.ACTION] == google.picker.Action.PICKED) {
        var doc = data[google.picker.Response.DOCUMENTS][0];
        var fileId = doc[google.picker.Document.ID];
        jQuery('[updateparam="googleDriveFileId"]').val(fileId);

        //if (driveApiLoaded) {
            var request = gapi.client.drive.files.get({
                'fileId': fileId
            });
            request.execute(function(file) {
                var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
                xhr.open('GET', file.downloadUrl);
                xhr.setRequestHeader('Authorization', 'Bearer ' + oauthToken);
                xhr.onload = function() {
                    console.log(xhr.responseText);
                };
                xhr.onerror = function() {
                    warningMessage.displayMessage('Failed to download Google Drive document ' + fileId);
                };          
            });
        //} else {
        //  warningMessage.displayMessage('Google Drive API has not been loaded.');
        //}
    }
    // Triggers before Picker is shown
    // else {
    //  warningMessage.displayMessage('No Google Drive document selected.');
    //}
}

And my script tags:

<!-- The Google API Loader script. -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/api.js?onload=onApiLoad"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi?key=KEY"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/client.js?onload=onClientLoad"></script>

Answer 1

The problem is when you try to retrieve the downloadUrl attribute in file.downloadUrl, which is a field that doesn't exist anymore in the Drive API version 3 (It was in the version 2), check v2 [1] and v3 [2].

Instead, you should use the webContentLink attribute to download the file, which is available for files with binary content as images, pdf, etc, but not for google docs and sheets (it's only available the webViewLink attribute which is the url to the file) [2]. For these cases (docs and sheets), you can implement the import method which works for convert google documents and returns the file object [3]. The import request would be like this:

var request = gapi.client.drive.files.import({ 'fileId': fileId, 'mimeType': mimeType });

With mimeType for the target document you want (pdf, txt, etc). Then, inside the callback, access the attribute using file.webContentLink as with the other cases.

[1] https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v2/reference/files

[2] https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/reference/files

[3] https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/reference/files/export

Answer 2

Through trial and error, I discovered that in order to load both the Google Picker (client:auth2) and the Google Drive API (gapi.client), the Google Picker must be initialized with a callback, and then the Google Drive API is initialized with a Promise that must be chained. If the Promise is not chained, then it will be unresolved and will not work.

// Use the Google API Loader script to load the google.picker script.
function loadPicker() {
    gapi.load('auth', {'callback': onAuthApiLoad});
    gapi.load('picker', {'callback': onPickerApiLoad});
}

function onAuthApiLoad() {
    driveApiLoaded = true;
}

function onPickerApiLoad() {
    pickerApiLoaded = true;
}

function askForClientAuthorization() {
    gapi.load('client:auth2', function(_) {
        window.gapi.client.init({
            apiKey: developerKey,
            clientId: clientId,
            discoveryDocs: ["https://www.googleapis.com/discovery/v1/apis/drive/v3/rest"],
            scope: 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file'
        })
        .then(function(__) {
            return gapi.client.drive.files.export({
                'fileId': window.googleDriveFileId,
                'mimeType': 'text/csv'
            })
            .then(function(file) {
                // Client is authorized to access this file, do something with the file
            })
            .catch(function(e) {
                gapi.auth.authorize(
                {
                    'client_id': clientId,
                    'scope': scope,
                    'immediate': false
                },
                handleAuthResult);
            });

        })
    })
}

function handleAuthResult(authResult) {
    if (authResult && !authResult.error) {
        oauthToken = authResult.access_token;
        createPicker();
        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

// Create and render a Picker object for searching images.
function createPicker() {
    if (pickerApiLoaded && oauthToken) {
        var view = new google.picker.DocsView(google.picker.ViewId.SPREADSHEETS);
        view.setMode(google.picker.DocsViewMode.LIST);
        view.setQuery(window.dataFeedName);
        var picker = new google.picker.PickerBuilder()
                .setAppId(appId)
                .setOAuthToken(oauthToken)
                .addView(view)
                .setDeveloperKey(developerKey)
                .setCallback(pickerCallback)
                .build();
         picker.setVisible(true);
         return picker;
    }
}

// A simple callback implementation.
function pickerCallback(data) {
    if (data[google.picker.Response.ACTION] == google.picker.Action.PICKED) {
        // Do work
    }
}

With this code, it must check if the user is authorized for every execution.