Stata programs online

[Belinda Foster]

Does anyone know if it is possible to host a Stata site on Google Sites? If not, are there any uncomplicated free alternatives that allow access directly from within Stata using net?

[William Lisowski]

I'm not sure if this is a question about Stata technique, or, given the technique, a question about Google Sites?

For Stata technique, at the bottom of help net we see

Details for those wishing to produce their own package files and download sites are provided in usersite, with more examples found in [R] net.

and clicking on usersite, or running help usersite, describes how to construct a site. So with an understanding of Google Sites, or access to a Site you can experiment on, this provides the basics to let you answer the question of possibility empirically.

But perhaps you knew that and your question is whether anybody has first-hand experience using, or running, a Stata download site on a Google Site. I just wanted to make sure the basics are shown here, for anyone finding this thread later who is curious about Stata technique.

[Belinda Foster]

But perhaps you knew that and your question is whether anybody has first-hand experience using, or running, a Stata download site on a Google Site.

This. I know you can upload Stata programs on Google Sites but it seems that you can then only access them from a browser. You cannot place a stata.toc file to get access by using the net command from within Stata.

[William Lisowski]

This refreshes my memory. Thank you.

Let me start by calling your attention to the Statalist FAQ linked to from the top of the page, as well as from the Advice on Posting link on the page you used to create your post. Note especially sections 9-12 on how to best pose your question. The more you help others understand your problem, the more likely others are to be able to help you solve your problem.

Section 12.1 is particularly pertinent

12.1 What to say about your commands and your problem

Say exactly what you typed and exactly what Stata typed (or did) in response. N.B. exactly!
...
Never say just that something "doesn't work" or "didn't work", but explain precisely in what sense you didn't get what you wanted.

You'll see below that I hypothesize various things you might have tried and results you might have achieved. Following the above advice in post #1 would have (a) probably have refreshed my memory at the time, and (b) would have saved me some effort that could have been devoted to addressing other posts. Not to mention to my day job.

With that said, I expect that the issue is not that
access to files loaded onto a Google Site is available only through a browser
but rather that
access to any portion of a Google Site is available only using the https (secure http) protocol

In support of this assertion, I believe that if you try to access a Google Site using an http (non-secure) URL in a browser, you will find that your browser is redirected to an https version of the same URL.

So my question to you would be, have you tried using an https URL in your net command? Except even that may not be adequate. From the experience of a friend, I understand that underneath it all, Stata's ability (at least in version 14) to access https sites is limited to those supporting AES128 cypher suites, while some sites support only the "stronger" (deliberate use of scare quotes) AES256 cypher suite. It seems to me this is likely the case with Google Sites.

Here's the error message that Stata 14 disgorges when this issue arises.

. net describe [redacted], from(https://[redacted]) // redacted details to preserve friend's privacy
Received fatal alert: handshake_failure
https://[redacted]/ either
  1)  is not a valid URL, or
  2)  could not be contacted, or
  3)  is not a Stata download site (has no stata.toc file).
r(5100);

If none of this seems to reflect your experience, then let me remind you of the advice I opened with.

[Belinda Foster]

William Lisowski thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. My question is very specific and requires knowledge of Google Sites. Google Sites prevents files to be opened directly and forces users to download them. Anyone who has used Google Sites probably knows what I talking about. I was wondering if someone has dealt specifically with this problem in the past and hence my post. Other sites like Git hub seem unnecessary complicated

[William Lisowski]

It would be instructive, and in keeping with the spirit of the Statalist FAQ guidance, to see the command and the error message you received when you attempted to use a net command on your Google Site. You can, of course, redact the specific details of your site, as I did in my example.

[Friedrich Huebler]

First I would like to encourage you to follow William's excellent advice.

In addition, I wanted to mention that your comment about "complicated other sites" is unlikely to be true for all sites. For example, have you considered Dropbox, which several Statalist members use for their work?

[Belinda Foster]

Friedrich Huebler I have, but to my knowledge, Dropbox does not allow remote installation of Stata programs.

[Friedrich Huebler]

Maybe you should start a new thread with a more informative title. "Stata programs online" is a bit vague and list members who use Dropbox or similar services may not read messages here.

[wbuchanan]

Belinda Foster I routinely do this through GitHub. You just need to make sure you create a gh-pages branch and you can add the toc and pkg file there. Completely free and others can contribute to your code as well.

[Belinda Foster]

wbuchanan can you set access permissions on GitHub or is everything public? I would like some programs to be for personal use only?

[wbuchanan]

Belinda Foster you can pay for private repositories from GitHub, but their free tier requires that the project be open. You might also want to see if GitLab has something similar.

[Apoorva Lal]

BitBucket allows private repositories in their free tier.

[William Lisowski]

The problem accessing sites using the AES256 cypher suite described in post #4 was resolved in the Stata 15.2 update of 18 April 2018. For further discussion, see

https://www.statalist.org/forums/for...32#post1464432