Ganz Time and Again Waffle Bars

If you lot've been a visitor to the PowerApps Community Forum, y'all might recognize my pixelated face in an avatar. It's the one abreast solutions for how to write formulas, how to incorporate best practices, and how to simulate Pokemon Become mechanics in your own apps.

I'yard Brian, just most people know me every bit Mr. Dang considering I teach. Like members of our community, I enjoy solving problems. Information technology'southward why I chose PowerApps–I can use the platform to address bug effectually me from the mundane to the critical. So since 2016, I've authored solutions for motivating students, improving spelling practice, visualizing math, and more.

While I'm proud of my apps and what information technology'south done for my teaching, I'm most proud of my capacity for learning. I had taken my existing Excel skills and transformed it into an app-making skill–all while beingness an simple school teacher. And what I've learned from meeting members of our community is that I'chiliad not the simply one who has gone through this journey! What all of usa have in mutual is that nosotros know "how to larn," and it's a skill I desire to gift to you.

Learning with Mr. Dang

I am starting a blog series, which I've titled "Learning with Mr. Dang." In the commencement, I'll exist walking through my methods for learning: what do I already know that I don't need to re-acquire? What do I exercise when I don't know something? And as the name of this series suggests, over time, I will be writing about how I am exploring other capabilities in PowerApps so that you tin learn at the aforementioned time as I am.

Non simply will the content of these blogs apply to acquiring a skill like building PowerApps, merely also learning a new skill in full general. Yous tin can accept these skills anywhere y'all go. My ultimate goal is for you to replicate my feel so you can learn on your own and enjoy learning. Enjoy this kickoff fleck on mutual patterns.

Common Patterns

Don't reinvent the wheel.

Information technology's a mantra that starting from scratch is non ever the right decision. When a software designer is thinking about the UI that they want their users to experience, they look to existing examples. For instance, users are already familiar with accessing a file menu where they can relieve their progress or change settings. The hamburger or waffle icons may bring upwards a console for site navigation. It's expected that Ctrl+C should copy content and Ctrl+V should paste it. These consistent experiences across apps and websites are chosen "common patterns."

Mutual patterns reduce the learning curve for a user. If you're getting started with inserting controls in PowerApps, yous exercise not demand to read an commodity on the bailiwick. You tin utilise what you already know from using the ribbon in Microsoft Office products and the menu on any operating system: the insert carte du jour is the identify to get for inserting objects. Past acknowledging the basics, you can allocate more of your time on learning crucial content.

The insert menu is a simple case about layout, but mutual patterns also apply to interactivity. If you want to resize any control in PowerApps, selecting i will reveal dots at the corners and the midpoints only as they appear for images and textboxes in Word. You can even hold Shift to maintain the attribute ratio as you resize, which is consistent with Function products and Photoshop. When UI patterns are familiar, it becomes second nature to practice your existing habits.

Common patterns exist between platforms, but as well inside. Equally y'all learn ane experience, information technology can inform another experience. So once y'all've learned how to change the X and Y properties of i command, information technology works the same way for whatever other type of control. Patterns can besides be found inside a set up of properties: changing the color belongings is the same for fill, border colour, hover fill, disabled make full, etc. And, scaling up, if yous sympathize how to utilise a condition to decide colors for ane scenario, it's the aforementioned logic elsewhere. By recognizing mutual patterns, you've accomplished a broader scope of learning than the initial effort.

The most effective common patterns come up to PowerApps from Excel. If yous're a user of spreadsheets, you'll find that non only is the construction of the language familiar, merely UI experiences like the ability to expand the formula bar deport over every bit well. In the next part of this blog series, I'll describe how to transfer your knowledge of Excel to PowerApps.

Look for these mutual UI patterns to speed upwards your learning and spend your fourth dimension where information technology is more than impactful. As you identify them, you're able to larn new products more easily; the retentivity sticks considering it'south connected to previous learning. Below are another areas where such patterns exist:

• commonly used icons activate the same activity
• side panels reveal more options
• formatting of colour, fill, font, size, etc. are always placed together

It is interesting to note that patterns do change over fourth dimension. For instance, non merely is the floppy disk icon phasing out because floppy disks are no longer in way, simply autosaving capabilties have replaced the need to manually salvage. And if you grew up with the internet in the 90s, you may be pleased to encounter some patterns evolve. 🙂

Once you take a ameliorate idea of how common patterns appear in PowerApps, it'due south time for you to employ them into your own apps–yous're an app maker, after all. What experiences do you lot desire to carry over from your favorite apps?

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Source: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/de-ch/blog/learning-with-mr-dang-common-patterns/

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