In this episode, we are reaching a really important milestone in the {low-code} 🚍 journey. We are completing here our first complex build. The main purpose of this exercise we have been engaged in over the last several weeks is to develop an example of scaffolding for {low-code} app-building. We started by using a data source to trigger an automated app build using the Power Apps engine. From there, we took a moment to dissect that automated build to start learning what different elements and components of the system do. This looking-under-the-hood approach became a powerful resource as we moved into designing and building efficiencies into the app, including pull-down lists, and tapping into mobile device capabilities such as the camera, to adding photos to our records and using it to enter data via barcodes.
For many, this could be a great achievement and destination on the {low-code} 🚍 ride, and this would be justifiably so. However, the creative mind never rests, and in this episode, we head to a new destination and start to straddle the experience of letting Power Apps build things for us and our building and expanding apps from the ground up. In this video-heavy post, we will look first at how we build accessibility into components. While the Power Apps engine takes care of a lot of this when it builds an app for you, it will be up to you to make sure that, as you enhance and modify an app, those new elements are accessible. Here, you will find some interesting tips that go beyond standard text to support accessibility and take advantage of the ToolTips and AccessibleLabel functions.
Listen to a recording of this post:
Here is an example:
The ToolTip function for the Asset Photo in our app could be simply set to ToolTip = “Photo of Asset,” but this would give the same ToolTip to all assets. Instead, you can create a simple function that looks like this:
ToolTip = ThisItem.Asset & ” ” & ThisItem.Type & ” Photo.” This will create a ToolTip that when the cursor rests over a printer photo will show something like “HP A1 Printer Photo.”
Once you have this in place, every ToolTip has a customized content that is based on the Description and Type of each individual asset. From there you can leverage that info into the AccessibleLabel automatically by setting its property to Self.ToolTip.
Pretty, 😎🆒 eh?
From here, we continue the rest of the journey with a series of videos. They will start with a quick description of an approach we can take to make our app more functional by letting users add new buildings, departments, and hardware types to the database. They won’t need to edit the menus or edit the database itself. In other words, we create a pull-down list management function for the app. One of the coolest features here is that we discover that you can have multiple galleries on a single app screen and use each for different purposes.
Planning new screens
Adding the TablesList Screen
And finally, here, we complete the build.
If you have been following this series, you should feel like your superpowers as a 365 Champion 🦸♀️🦸♂️🥇 have expanded tremendously. This has been a journey full of experiences, and with every step, you have acquired new capabilities. Now it’s your turn to start using those powers for good and apply them to help others. And remember, #sharingiscaring so let others know, and support them along the way.
Below you will find the sequence we followed in our {low-code} 🚍 journey. It started with creating and modding an existing app and then we got serious and started building our data set, let Power Apps stand up a workable version of the asset tracking app. Then we ended up with a darn cool very customized app.
- Let’s talk about making an app with {low-code}
- I am out of the office, but I forgot to let people know: My first Power App
- That app was okay, but how do I customize it?
- Inventory paper forms? That is so 1999!
- Dissection of an app – and there is no gooey stuff to clean!
- Let’s mod that asset tracking app with {low-code}
- Let’s use some mobile inputs on the {low-code} asset tracker app
Where do we grow from here? We build one from the ground up 🙂
