A lot is made from generative synthetic intelligence’s affect on search, content material, and processes, however it’s additionally a potent coding software that might assist ecommerce companies of all sizes.
Whereas they’ve but to remodel a novice right into a grasp programmer, ChatGPT and its opponents can produce purposeful code that entrepreneurs and retailers can paste into apps and automation workflows.
An instance could make the purpose.
Posting to Shopify Weblog
The content-then-commerce mannequin is massive enterprise. Content material attracts readers to transform into patrons. Nevertheless, Shopify retailers usually encounter an issue.
Whereas it excels at many issues, Shopify’s default weblog editor — assume content material engine — lacks sturdy options.
As an example, a YouTube URL within the weblog editor produces nothing greater than textual content. It doesn’t mechanically broaden right into a video, requiring retailers to stick HTML for that objective.
In distinction, the identical YouTube URL within the WordPress.com editor leads to a responsive embedded video that shrinks and expands to match a customer’s display screen. That is the habits most content material entrepreneurs anticipate.
An answer is bypassing the Shopify editor altogether. What if a marketer may compose content material in a software reminiscent of Google Docs — with pictures, tables, and YouTube movies — after which auto-load it right into a Shopify weblog?
I prompted ChatGPT to generate the code for simply such an app.
The AI Answer
ChatGPT’s answer had two components.
Apps Script is accessible from any Google Doc and supplies a improvement setting whereby Google utility programming interfaces (APIs) can be found as companies. The code used is basically JavaScript.
ChatGPT produced detailed code that might be copied and pasted into the Apps Script’s setting, itemizing the method step-by-step.
ChatGPT’s Apps Script had six capabilities.
- postArticleToShopify() — this was the first perform. It calls the supporting capabilities and in the end connects to the Shopify API.
- convertBodyToHTML(physique) — given the doc physique, this perform does many of the work. It identifies if a specific aspect within the doc physique is a bulleted record, a desk, or a paragraph. Paragraphs are difficult since they’ll include textual content, headings, pictures, or a hyperlink.
- extractYouTubeVideoId(url) — finds the YouTube ID in a URL string.
- generateYouTubeEmbed(videoId) — given a YouTube video ID, this perform builds a set of HTML tags that end in a responsive embedded video.
- formatCurrentDate() — is a helper perform that retrieves and codecs the present date into the publication date for the weblog submit.
- escapeHTML(textual content) — is a helper perform that removes a set of characters that might trigger issues when the HTML is shipped to Shopify’s API.
Essentially the most stunning a part of ChatGPT’s code technology was its familiarity with the App Script and Shopify API necessities. ChatGPT knew that Shopify’s API couldn’t obtain a picture as a file however needed to be encoded and handed as knowledge.
Customized Shopify App
There was one final step. In Shopify, I needed to navigate to the “Apps and gross sales channels” tab within the platform’s settings. From there, I created, licensed, and put in a customized app. The purpose was to gather an API entry token permitting the App Script to submit content material to the Shopify Weblog.
Content material Posted
In lower than half-hour and ChatGPT’s code, I accomplished a working answer to compose content material in a Google Doc and have it seem on Shopify.
The method is repeatable. Anybody may compose content material in Google Docs — with pictures, tables, and YouTube URLs — and produce a clear and responsive weblog submit in Shopify.
Here’s a PDF of ChatGPT’s full Apps Script.
Implications
ChatGPT’s preliminary answer had a number of glitches.
- ChatGPT didn’t perceive exactly how Google Doc recordsdata are structured. Its preliminary code appeared for pictures and hyperlinks on the similar degree of the doc hierarchy as a desk or paragraph. In observe, these parts have been inside a paragraph aspect, i.e., youngsters of a paragraph aspect.
- When it generated the perform to create the responsive HTML for the YouTube video, ChatGPT loaded the picture twice. Altering the variable project solved the difficulty.
- The code just isn’t excellent. In some locations, it ought to be refactored to enhance readability and performance.
- The Shopify API required a weblog ID that was not straightforward to retrieve. In the end, I used the API and a improvement software referred to as Postman to acquire it.
Nonetheless, the instance exhibits ChatGPT can generate helpful code, particularly for a consumer with some technical know-how. What’s extra, the method was quick. I’ve written many Apps Scripts. This one would have taken for much longer with out ChatGPT.