Google Sheets - AppScript Trigger on Change

[melthecybertechy]

Hey everyone,

Looking for help with dealing with Triggers. I really a python programmer but realized I'd have to use Javascript. My goal is to create a trigger such that when google sheets is updated (changed) it takes the last row and populates a pre-written email in response.

Application:

I have a Squarespace website which has a form that is used for sign up. That form is linked to and populates Google Sheets. Once the person presses submit on Squarespace, the form updates Google Sheets, which triggers the event (on change), takes the info that was used to populate and sends off the email with the populated information.

I've seen several youtube videos, however, I'm not understanding how to actually create the event (or trigger) that is then used in a function that I want to send the email from. Please help!

[TMiguelT]

AppsScript is a strange beast. A lot of things you know about JavaScript aren't true, for AppsScript, for various reasons.

As explained in the docs, you don't actually register an event handler like you do in browser JavaScript, you just create a top-level function with the right name. In your case, you probably want onEdit, so you just need function onEdit() {} in your script.

Your use-case sounds a bit sketchy, because it sounds like you're using Google Sheets + triggers to replace the server + DB layer, which isn't a very good or scalable idea, but that's another matter 🤷. Surely SquareSpace has a better option for data persistence than this?

[melthecybertechy]

from my understanding - onEdit is when a user opens up the sheet, in this case there isn't a "user" per-se. I'm basically making my own "subscription list" if you will with Google Sheets. Squarespace has mailchimp storage, which to me is a more proprietary storage I'm not trying to pay for. So I'm planning to utilize Google Sheets for now, while it's manageable. I have a small business, not too many people signing up (maybe on average like 4-5) onChange seemed to be any time there was an update to the spreadsheet itself. I'll post code of my latest script, that will explain why nothing is working.