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google-docs-api

Google Docs web UI warns automatic document upgrade (from Writely to KIX) will soon be done. Is it safe and well prepared for developers?

Google Docs web UI warns "This document will soon be upgraded to the latest version of Google documents" when a user opens a Writely document.

I wonder if the conversion is safe for developers.

The conversion would change the resource IDs of the documents from Writely (Legacy Editor) type to KIX's (latest Editor) one (as the manual conversion via Web UI does). If so, the conversion could cause a big problem to the apps which have sync feature with Google Docs.

Resource ID is the key for tracking documents on syncing. If, one day, the conversion has done suddenly, the app will find all Writely documents deleted and lots of new KIX documents appear on the server side. Not only it costs users a lot of syncing time, but also they will be surprised and think the app broken.

I would like to avoid the trouble. I have two questions to Google Docs API staffs about it.

  1. When will Google Docs do the conversion?

  2. Will you provide a way to distinguish the automatically converted document in document list entry, like "gd:writelyResourceId" in addition to "gd:resourceId"?

Thank you.

Hi, I have to ask you one more question for our customers.

It seems there really is no way to get KIX URL (or resource ID) from Writely URL (or resource ID) via API after the conversion. Couldn't you provide it for developers?

Web UI of Google Docs accepts old Writely URL and redirect to new KIX URL with manually converted documents. I assumed things are the same with API access. But it seems not.

Our app stores metadata of each Google Docs document in Google Spreadsheet using resource ID. When automatic document conversion occurs, all metadata in converted documents of our customers will be lost.

Thank you for your time.

Solution

  • Unfortunately there is no specific way of knowing that a document has been converted or not. So sorry about that.

    From applications that synchronize data, it will appear as though the old document has been deleted, and a new file has been created. If you are using the changes feed, then this will be much easier to detect. Otherwise this would be the best way to ensure that there are no duplicates.