Basic elements

Power Apps Studio

Power Apps Studio is the web platform where you create, build and deploy your applications. There isn't any client that you can download to build your applications - you can only work on your Power Apps online through the web interface. You can access this through the following link:

Power Apps

Step 1. Choosing an App format

The first step to build your app is the select the format of your application: either Mobile or Tablet. This determines the size of the canvas adjusted for different screen sizes. Obviously for Mobile you have a smaller screen size and tablet/desktop is at a larger resolution.

One important thing to note is that *Once you choose your format for your app, you CANNOT CHANGE IT*

Galleries

The gallery is used to display a record from a table of data. The way the record is shown is according to a gallery template defined. So to change what fields you show when you use the gallery, you can change the template in settings. After you define your template, Power Apps will apply this template automatically to all your data. So whichever dataset you're showing will look for the fields specified and follow the format provided.

Forms

Forms focus on a specific record that you might have chosen from the gallery. So forms are FOCUSED - set on a single record that has been selected from a gallery. You bring a form up by going through the gallery and picking the record that you want to display on a form. Forms therefore show a detailed record of what the user wants to see. The different actions you can use on forms are defined by form modes - effectively allowing you to use forms for various purposes :)

Input Controls

For some interaction within your app, there are input controls. These are like the input modes that are offered in HTML or any basic application. Input controls that Power Apps allows include:

• Text inputs

• Buttons

• Dropdown menus

• Toggles

• Date pickers

• Sliders

You can add any of these input controls to any gallery, form or screen. These inputs also allow a bunch of different settings to customise it right for your business.

Intelligent Controls

For more advanced controls, Power Apps provides access to more intelligent devices. These are external functions such as:

• Cameras

• Barcode scanners

• GPS

• Business card reader (AI text processing)

• Object detector (AI Object detection)

Functions

Functions bring all the inputs and data together - combining them for things like creating formulas in your applications. In PowerApps it's quite similar to excel - so many of the formulas transfer across