Control OnEnter & OnExit

[GDSI]

Back in the ye olden days of Access, there existed triggers for OnEnter and OnExit of a control, like a textbox or combobox. It would fire when the user did ANYTHING to enter/exit the control, including Tabbing, Hot Keys, or the mouse. 

The half-baked pie that is PowerApps doesn't have this basic necessity, nor any semblence of a grid control. So, when creating a fake grid control inside of Gallery container, and you allow the user to Tab Key from one Control to the next, there's no way to trap that they've changed controls (exited one control and entered another one) using the Tab key. They MUST use the mouse to click onto a control, which then fires the control's OnSelect.

How hast thou solved this basic need of OnExit or OnEnter?

[WarrenBelz]

@GDSI ,

Thou art partly correct.

A tab doth not trigger OnSelect, yet doth trigger OnChange

[Pstork1]

Can you explain a bit more what you are trying to accomplish? I've never really seen a need for OnEnter and OnExit in Power Apps. If you tell us what you are trying to do we may be able to help you do it using the controls available in Power Apps. I know it doesn't work exactly like Access or Visual Basic did before it, but it can do many things that neither of them can do.

[GDSI]

We've built a fake grid control using a Gallery and a bunch of controls. We've implemented an "Edit in Grid View", like SharePoint, and want the user to be able to Edit, Tab, Edit, Tab, Edit Tab... across all of the controls in the Gallery.  Upon leaving an edited row, want to commit the Save back to the SharePoint list. So, when the user Tabs out of the furtherest control on the right of the screen, the cursor hops down one row, and lands on the leftmost control. 

As there's no way to know that they've tabbed out of the furthest right side control, and no way to know that they've entered the furtheset left side control of the next row, the Save can't be triggered. 

(The reason why we want individual row saves is because if the user accidently closes the browser, there's no way to prevent that, and they would lose their changes. (The Screen.OnHidden doesn't seem to catch it.)

Ok, so what would be a better implementation of an "Edit in Grid View", with individual row saves, that knows that the user has moved from one row to the next from an Edited Row state?

Additional Note: There exists an icon in the row that allows the user to cancel all changes to the current row, prior to it saving.  

[GDSI]

OnChange only fires when the user changes the value, and then moves OFF the control. So, tabbing into a control does NOT fire OnChange. 

[WarrenBelz]

@GDSI ,

Yes I do a bit Power App solving - I ran a test here and OnChange triggered fine on tabbing out of a control - see below on four Text Inputs when I changed three of them while tabbing to the next one - I used a Notify message OnChange

[Pstork1]

There is a way to know that they have Tabbed out of the last control into the next row. When they make that tab the Selected property of the Gallery will change.  So when they enter a row to edit it set a variable equal to a field from the Selected property of the gallery that won't change, something like the ID. Then when that value no longer equals the property of the selected.field they have moved to a different row either by tabbing or by using the mouse.  If the user hits cancel then use the Selected value you saved to reset the row. I would need to do some playing around with it, but it should be a viable solution for what you want.

[GDSI]

We're already storing the current ThisItem.ID into a variable, and in the OnSelect of each control, verify that the ID hasn't changed. This is what fires the save process. The problem is that tabbing into a control doesn't fire the OnSelect.  So, imagine that there 5 controls, and the user edits the 3rd. They then tab three times, which then puts them into the first control of the next row. Since the 5th's control didn't fire the OnSelect, then there's no way to know that the cursor touched that control prior to jumping down to the next row.

The Gallery's OnSelect doesn't seem to ever fire. I've added a Notify to it, and it never shows.

Think about it this way, when you tab onto a control, there is no way to know upon what control you've landed, as there is nothing that triggers. Hopefully you know a trick, because we have yet to find anything. 

[GDSI]

That OnChange is firing from the control that you're leaving, not the one that you're landing on.  Add the ThisItem.ID to see that.

[WarrenBelz]

@GDSI ,

Your tone in your first post probably set the scene on your outlook and I should have noticed - it was also quite misleading as to what you wanted. I said right at the start tabbing onto a control does not trigger OnSelect but tabbing out triggers OnChange. I am happy to drop out and help other people who appreciate the assistance.