This document discusses how to access Google services from the command line using GoogleCL, a Python application. It provides instructions on downloading and installing GoogleCL, activating services by approving access in the browser, and using functions to interact with services like uploading documents and videos, editing blogs, and more. The conclusion states that GoogleCL allows interacting with Google apps via the command line and expands what you can do with Google services.
Polkadot JAM Slides - Token2049 - By Dr. Gavin Wood
Access google command list from the command line
1. Access google command list
from the command line
Angchakra Rotha
Major: English Language Teaching
2. Getting Started
GoogleCL is a Python command line application that lets you access various Google
services from command line on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. Here we’ll be using the
Windows version on Windows 7, but it would work the exact same on other platforms.
Head over to the download link below, and select the correct version for your OS. If you
want to run it on Windows, select the zip file. Ubuntu users can download and install the
.deb file.
3. Download the file
After downloading the zip file for Windows, extract it as normal and then run the google.exe program in
the folder.
After downloading the zip file for Windows, extract it as normal and then run the google.exe program in
the folder.
4. The first time you run Google CL, it
will create a preferences folder at:
%USERPROFILE%.googlecl
5. Bewared!!!
On one of our tests, we received an error saying that MSVCR71.dll was missing
from our computer, so GoogleCL couldn’t run. This is a C++ runtime library
in Windows, and most programs that need it include it with their program
files. GoogleCL does not include this DLL in the zip file, so we’ll need to
find a copy for it.
You’ll likely have many copies of this file throughout your computer, but GoogleCL cannot find
them. So, do a computer-wide search for msvcr71.dll, and copy one of these files it finds.
7. Using GoogleCL
GoogleCL’s syntax is very easy to use and understand. To get
started, you might want to checkout the readme.txt file
included. Or, just type help at the prompt to get some quick
instructions.
8. You can use GoogleCL to access services on Picasa, Blogger, YouTube,
Docs, Contacts, and Calendar via the command line interface, and we’d love
to see future versions will include support for more items including Gmail and
Search. For now, though, these services are still useful. Enter help followed
by a service name to see more info about it and some usage
examples. Here we see the help for Calendar.
9. Activating a Service
When you first use a service, you’ll have to activate your computer with it
online. For instance, if we wanted to see all the appointments in our
Calendar, we’d enter Calendar list. You’ll be asked to specify a user; enter
your Gmail email address. Then, you’ll be prompted to approve the access
in your browser, and the approval page will automatically open in your default
browser.
10. Click Grant access in the webpage that opens, and then press Enter in
the GoogleCL window.
You’ll have to do this for each of the Google services
you use. Even closely related services like Contacts
and Calendar have to be activated individually. One
interesting aspect of this is that you could have different
Google account associated with different
services. Once they’re activated, though, it’ll be easy to
use these services on this computer.
11. Using GoogleCL
GoogleCL has tons of functions you can use to interact with Google’s
services. We’ll look at a few of the functions we found interesting.
Docs
First, we tried uploading a document to Docs. To do this,
enter:
docs upload path_to_your_document
12. his may take a minute depending on the size of your document, but once it’s done, you’ll
see a success message and a link to your document.
You’re supposed to be able to edit documents by entering:
docs edit –title “your_document” –editor your_editor
However, this didn’t work in our tests, and we received an error message. This should
work in the future, and could have been caused by a problem on our end, but it would
not work in any of our tests.
13. GoogleCL worked great for uploading videos to YouTube. Once you’ve authorized your account, enter:
youtube post “your_file_path”
Enter a category name when requested, and GoogleCL will start uploading your video to YouTube. As
usual, this will take a few minutes depending on the size of your video, but it’s still quicker than going to
the YouTube page to post a video.
Note that you may see an error if you enter a category that is not available on YouTube. If so, try
again, this time entering a correct category.
14. For your reference, here’s some of the categories
you can use from YouTube.com…so make sure
you use one of them.
15. Blogger
GoogleCL makes Blogger into a geekier blogging service. You can review, tag and even create new
posts on Blogger, all directly from command line. You can write the body of your post in a text file, and
you can even use HTML markup to make the post look like you want. To do this, enter the following in
GoogleCL:
blogger post –title “your_title” path_to_post_file
Moments later, we had a new blog post with the content from our text file. We could have posted a
long, well formatted HTML post, but hey, what’s better than the classic geek greeting for a geeky blog
post?
16. Conclusion
Whether you’d like to quickly edit Gmail contact info, upload a
YouTube video without using the flaky Flash uploader, or make a
script that automatically makes a post on Blogger when you bang
your head on the keyboard, GoogleCL gives you the tools you need
to do more with Google than you though possible. Who said Google
doesn’t have a cloud OS? When you can interact with a webapp via
command prompt, suddenly it feels like Google is just another part of
your computer. We’ve only scratched the surface of what you can
do with GoogleCL; check out the examples link below for more
ideas. Let us know what geeky projects you do with GoogleCL!
Link: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/23423/access-google-
services-from-the-command-line/