The first step is to establish a connection to Google Drive’s API, and for that, we will need to do some kind of authentication. Just a few things you may want to check out as we get started: Of course we can! Here’s how we did it where I work. Could we utilize Google Drive’s API to import a Google Doc directly into a site as raw HTML, with a simple REST request? Many of the places where I have worked use Google Drive to organize and share files, and that includes things like blog and landing page content drafts.

What if we could pull content from where it already is? That’s what we’re getting at here. The bloat of all this setup may end up cramping your tech in a way which is counterproductive to the actual purpose of the website.

Custom or third-party plugins may need to be to vetted, installed, and configured for unique use cases - and each of these is yet another source of complexity, friction, technical debt, and risk. It requires creating templates, a format with its own syntax and idiosyncrasies. But this comes with its own set up of disadvantages: it’s a new platform for your team to juggle, a new interface to learn, and a new vector for potential attackers. That’s what a good content management system is for, right? Maybe something like WordPress.

So what happens when a new non-technical partner needs to gain edit access? This could be a designer, a product manager, a marketing person, a company executive, or even an end customer. But… why?Īt some point in the development of a website, a crossroads is reached: how is content managed when the person managing it isn’t technically savvy? If the content is managed by developers indefinitely, pure HTML and CSS will suffice - but this prevents wider team collaboration besides, no developer wants to be on the hook for content updates in perpetuity. A ready-to-use npm package, Git repo, and Docker image are provided throughout the article. We’ll examine the step-by-step implementation, as well as how to utilize server-side caching to avoid the major pitfalls to avoid such as API usage limits and image hotlinking. We’re going to walk through the technical process of hooking into Google Drive’s API to source content on a website.

Google drive api search for files