Improve the setup/configuration process

[jamietr1]

Now that a large portion of the application is data-driven, I'm looking for suggestions for how to make the initial setup easier. I'm open to anything, including something as simple as improving/clarifying the documentation. Drop any ideas or thoughts in the comments.

[digitalnotions]

Unfortunately, I believe a lot of what makes setup so difficult is on the Google Scripting end, and an inherent limitation of this platform. For example, there is not good way to upload scripts or download scripts. This means that the user is forced to actually manually create scripts and copy and paste code into them. (It also means that it's very difficult to sync the scripts to Github as well since you basically have to keep copying and pasting in as updates happen).

I do notice that one of the major problems people seem to have revolve around time zones and configuration issues. My ideas for making this simpler would be as follows:

1. Create a "Check Configuration" function that would basically check the timezone information and spit out things similar to what is currently logged in debug mode and send all that in an email to either the Evernote email address on file or a specific debugging email address. It appears there's actually an example of emailing the log here.
2. Allow the above functionality (email logging) to be enabled even when debug mode is turned off. This way, less code savvy people could just enable a logging mode and post the log reports when there are issues. I'm thinking this may save your sanity a bit :-).

I believe there is also some room for documentation updates, though this is always a debatable area. My personal experience is that, if one desires complete accessibility to their product by all skill levels, documentation needs to be 100% complete (including screen shots at every step) and the product has to be very simple to maintain and configure. This is a ton of development effort and a large support burden. The other option is to leave the documentation at the level it's at now (which is very sufficient for a moderately knowledgeable individual) and make the decision that one needs to be a more advanced user to utilize the product.

Regardless, I find these scripts to be invaluable. They are very close to what I was looking to write myself and, while I may add somewhat customized features for my own personal use, they are a fantastic asset to those interested in writing in the Google Docs platform.

[DrWhodini]

I don't know what can or cannot be done coding-wise, but is it possible to create a SEPARATE stats/almanac doc that is used by the code to call the parameters?

EG writingstatsparam document.

THIS IS WHERE YOU SET YOUR WRITINGSTATS PARAMETERS:

QS_FILE = "INSERT THE DOC ID OF THE SPREADSHEET BETWEEN THE QUOTES "
SANDBOX = "INSERT YOUR FOLDER LOCATION HERE EG - WRITING/BOOKS/CURRENT"
PREV_FOLDER = "ENTER THE LOCATION OF YOUR BACKUP FOLDER - EG WRITING/BOOKS/CURRENT/BACKUP BETWEEN THE QUOTES"
etc

THIS IS WHERE YOU SET YOUR ALMANAC PARAMETERS:

QS_FILE = "INSERT THE DOC ID OF THE SPREADSHEET BETWEEN THE QUOTES "
SANDBOX = "INSERT YOUR FOLDER LOCATION HERE EG - WRITING/BOOKS/CURRENT"
PREV_FOLDER = "ENTER THE LOCATION OF YOUR BACKUP FOLDER - EG WRITING/BOOKS/CURRENT/BACKUP BETWEEN THE QUOTES"
etc
etc

These references are called by your code (this doc must be in same folder as the scripts (for ease)

For some, this will be easier than looking at the daunting list of code and panicking about editing it, and it's a one stop place for editing and reference.

And obviously, something you point out yourself, a little more flexibility on some of the other parameters.
However, even as it stands, it's a great script.

[jamietr1]

@DrWhodini, this has essentially been done in the beta branch. Check out the README in that branch for details and instructions for using it.

[DrWhodini]

AHA! I missed the beta branch, just seen it now. I'll certainly be playing with that at the weekend.
Thanks for your help :)))

[jamietr1]

I'm hoping to merge the beta branch soon, as it is much, much better than
the existing. So if you run into any problems, let me know.

---

Jamie Todd Rubin (@jamietr http://twitter.com/jamietr)
http://www.jamietoddrubin.com
http://www.jamietoddrubin.com/going-paperless/

On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 5:37 AM, DrWhodini notifications@github.com wrote:

AHA! I missed the beta branch, just seen it now. I'll certainly be playing
with that at the weekend.
Thanks for your help :)))

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