Gallery keeps selecting first item

[Anonymous]

Hello, this is my first time writing here.

I have a gallery on the same screen as controls that modify the records this gallery displays. More specificaly I have a toggle and twelve checkboxes. I didn't create a separate edit screen because all modifiable values are  technically boolean and I didn't want users to use drop down controls for every value. I am using Excel as database, the values are either "yes" or "no". I tried true/false, but then the gallery wasn't able to show any records.

So, my screen has a gallery and controls which use Gallery.Selected to check which value should be changed. It technicaly works, but only if changes are done one at a time. And here is the problem. Whenever I try to change more than one value at a time, the gallery selects the first record. It can also cause updates to wrong values.

My idea was to make Gallery.Default update alog with Gallery.Selected, but reference to same object is not allowed, so I made a workaround with global variable, which only blocked me from turning off the toggle control. I also tried making a separate screen with Edit Forms using custom data cards, but I couldn't get it to show other records than the first one.

Toggle and all checkboxes use the same command:

Toggle.OnCheck = Patch(Table, First(Filter(Table, Group = Gallery.Selected.Group)),{Active:"yes"})
Checkbox1.OnCheck = Patch(Table, First(Filter(Table, Group = Gallery.Selected.Group)),{January:"yes"})

Every month has it's own checkbox and all have their .Uncheck commands setting the value to "no".

Is there a way to either force the app to keep the selected record or at least disable all gallery dependend controls until the app applies the changes? Or maybe there is a way to get custom data cards to work?

[rebeccas]

Don't use the Gallery.Selected...it is bad about that. 

Use in the gallery, wherever they select, instead of the Parent(Select) use Set(varItem, Title) -- or you can use whatever field you want, sometimes I do ID, sometimes Title. 

Then on your form "Item" instead of the Gallery.Selected you use: LookUp(DataSource, Title=varItem)

So in the gallery your setting a variable that is the common field you want, Title in my example. And then for the Form it is saying go look up the items in my data source and show me the one that has the same "Title" as the variable (varItem) I just set in the gallery. 

This also works if your gallery and form have a common field but are not the same datasource so keep that in mind too if you have the need. 

[Anonymous]

Based on your suggestion I added:

Gallery.OnSelect = Set(var, Group)

And modified my toggle and checkboxes to this:

Toggle.OnCheck = Patch(LookUp(Table, Gruop = var), {Active:"yes"})
Checkbox1.OnCheck = Patch(LookUp(Table, Group = var), {January:"yes"})

But now the table is not updating. I'm not sure what I could have missed.

EDIT: I realised I didn't add source after Patch. Now it works, but just as poorly as with Gallery.Selected method, snapping back to the first entry and occasionaly modifying wrong entries due to that snap.

[rebeccas · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure if I am going the right direction for you but I hope this helps:

If I want to Patch one item at a time the I put the Patch code in my gallery and do the Patch(ThisItem..) one. If I use patch outside of my gallery then I do the ForAll(Patch). I didn't understand which is your goal. 

Also, you can disabled controls or make them not visible based  on selections outside the gallery with a simple If Statement. Just keep in mind that checkboxes are funny as to what they show as true so sometimes I use not false instead of true. 

The only way I know to keep what was previously selected is if you store that information in your data source somewhere or somehow. 

I mostly use SharePoint List for my apps and a typically App for me has about 5 SharePoint List with it. I set up my data similar to how I would tables in Access. I hope this information helps you some. Please let me know if I can be of anymore help. 

[Anonymous]

My idea is to smoothly update the group without having to wait for the app to update a single value, so the first option is out of the question. However, the ForAll option gave me an idea. I could probably clear the controls from all that Patch code and use button for it instead. It would mean that the button would have 13 patch commands though. This makes me wonder if powerapps would be able to update all of these values in such specific way.

As for disabling option, these controls are outside of the gallery and are the same for every group. As in, I use the exact same controls to update data in every group. I coded them to update themselves upon group selection using this:

Toggle.Default = If(Gallery.Selected.Active = "no", false, true)
Toggle.Reset= If(Gallery.Selected.Active = "no", true, false)

The main reason behind this gallery is to tell the controls which group they are supposed to modify.

I hope I managed to explain myself more clearly. I will try to use the previously mentioned method with button, but I would be glad to hear about other possible solutions.

[rebeccas]

Usually if I use the ForAll to Patch and it is to Edit items...not create new I find a way to only Patch the ones that were modified. 

I have one that is checkboxes in the gallery and it is only updating the ones that they selected to be updated. I have another that looks at the original value of a field and what is in the TextInput field of that gallery (whose default is the original value) and if they don't match it means the user changed it so only those items are updated. 

Most people do over use Patch in my opinion. I try to just use when I need it (which is typically when I want to do edits in a gallery or to create mulitple items at once). I've probably built over 80 apps now and about 1 in 5 use Patch. Anytime you can use a Form instead of Patch do it...it will always be faster and more reliable!

[avitas]

Hi, did you find a solution to this? I have encountered the same problem, albeit with different control types and properties. 

I have a gallery and put in 2 drop down lists. On the 'On change' property I patch the selected value to my Excel database. 

As long as I only had 1 drop down list, it worked like a charm. When I added my second drop down list I strted to have problems. It patches correctly, but the display value on all the other items in the gallery is changed (only "on screen", not in db).

It drives me crazy.