Last month, we announced several new ways to customize Google Forms. As of this week, three of those options are also available in forms created from Apps Script — embedding YouTube videos, displaying a progress bar, and showing a custom message if a form isn’t accepting responses.

Adding a YouTube video is as simple as any other Google Forms operation in Apps Script — from the Form object, just call addVideoItem(), then setVideoUrl(youtubeUrl). Naturally, you can also control the video’s size, alignment, and so forth.

To show a progress bar, call setProgressBar(enabled). Don’t even need a second sentence to explain that one. The custom message for a form that isn’t accepting responses is similarly easy: setCustomClosedFormMessage(message), and you’re done.

Want to give it a try yourself? Copy and paste the sample code below into the script editor at script.google.com, then hit Run. When the script finishes, click View > Logs to grab the URL for your new form, or look for it in Google Drive.

function showNewFormsFeatures() {
  var form = FormApp.create('New Features in Google Forms');
  var url = form.getPublishedUrl();
  
  form.addVideoItem()
    .setVideoUrl('http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38H7WpsTD0M');
  
  form.addMultipleChoiceItem()
    .setTitle('Look, a YouTube video! Is that cool, or what?')
    .setChoiceValues(['Cool', 'What']);

  form.addPageBreakItem();
  
  form.addCheckboxItem()
    .setTitle('Progress bars are silly on one-page forms.')
    .setChoiceValues(['Ah, that explains why the form has two pages.']);
  
  form.setProgressBar(true);

  form.setCustomClosedFormMessage('Too late — this form is closed. Sorry!');
  // form.setAcceptingResponses(false); // Uncomment to see custom message.

  Logger.log('Open this URL to see the form: %s', url);
}

Dan Lazin   profile | twitter Dan is a technical writer on the Developer Relations team for Google Apps Script. Before joining Google, he worked as video-game designer and newspaper reporter. He has bicycled through 17 countries.