Highlight Gallery Selected Item If Statement

[tagustin2020]

Hello,

I currently have the TemplateFill property of my home screen gallery set to If(ThisItem.IsSelected,LightBlue,White) and it is working as expected. As the user clicks from item to item in the gallery, the row is highlighted. 

When the user submits a new request form they are automatically redirected back to the home screen gallery and a notification appears across the top that their item was successfully submitted. There is a bit of a visual disconnect as the item they just submitted is not highlighted, some other item is. Is there a way I can adjust my If formula to accommodate both of these needs?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Teresa

[PowerAddict]

Awesome, looking forward to your update tomorrow! I will post a few more additional comments for you to adapt to your specific example, and will try to use SharePoint as the source, although that shouldn't make any difference. 

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Thanks!

Hardit Bhatia

Microsoft Business Applications MVP

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[tagustin2020]

Thank you Hardit. If you could use Sharepoint that would be awesome. It’s easy to throw off us rookies if it isn’t a 1:1 match up 😊

[PowerAddict]

Completely understand. If you have any information that you can share about your SP list, that will be great. Just want to make sure it is as close to your example. Which time zone are you in? Just trying to understand when I can get an update from you 🙂 

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Thanks!

Hardit Bhatia

Microsoft Business Applications MVP

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[tagustin2020]

I’m in PST. I’ll send you a snapshot of my Sharepoint columns tomorrow if I run into any snags, okay? T

[PowerAddict]

Sounds good. I am in Central. 

Thanks,

Hardit Bhatia

[tagustin2020]

Great, thanks for the formula reference you recently posted by the way. I feel like I’m working with a celebrity 😊

[PowerAddict]

Thank you for your kind words 🙂 Always happy to help! Also, thank you for trying out my formula app!

Thanks,

Hardit Bhatia

[PowerAddict · Accepted solution]

So I tested this out with a SharePoint list, and as expected, it behaves exactly the same (the data source, at least to the best of my knowledge, should not have any effect on this behavior). I may not have the same number and type of columns as in your SharePoint list but then again, I don't think it should matter. 

Here is an image of my SharePoint list: 

Here is a similar video that shows creation of new records. I have created multiple records in this video to show that it doesn't matter where the newly created record will be within the sort order of the gallery. The reason for this illustration is that typically a gallery has its first record selected by default. So adding a new record that gets added to the top of the list would not have been a good enough illustration. 

The formulas I have are ('Student Scores' is my list name): 

1. Gallery's Items property: SortByColumns('Student Scores', "Title", Ascending)
2. Gallery's OnSelect: Set(currentStudent, ThisItem)
3. Gallery's TemplateFill: If(ThisItem.ID = currentStudent.ID, LightBlue, White)
4. + icon's OnSelect: NewForm(EditForm2); Navigate(Screen8, ScreenTransition.Fade)
5. Form submission icon OnSelect: SubmitForm(EditForm2); Set(currentStudent, LookUp('Student Scores', ID = EditForm2.LastSubmit.ID)); Navigate(Screen7, ScreenTransition.Fade)

I wanted to highlight a couple of things in addition to this:

First, ID is the unique column that already exists in a SharePoint list. That is why I am using the ID column to do the lookup. You probably don't see it in your list as I don't think it gets added to the list view by default, at least mine did not have that column visible. However, you can go to "Edit current view" in your list and make this column visible. So bottom line, you shouldn't have to add another column as a unique identifier.

Second, I have experienced that in some cases, setting the default property alone doesn't set the correct record as the highlighted record. This goes back to my original message in which I mentioned resetting the gallery. If you want the default setting of a gallery to take affect, in most cases, you will also have to reset the gallery. In addition to that, you sometimes have to first set the default to a different value/record (different than the one you want to get highlighted), then set the default to the correct value/record (the one you want to get highlighted), and then also call the Reset function on the gallery using Reset(Gallery). However, in this approach, if we only want the correct record to be highlighted, we can stay from using the Default property completely. 

Apologies for the super long response but I wanted to get as much information across as possible. Looking forward to getting your update tomorrow. 

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If you like this reply, please give kudos (Thumbs Up). And if this solves your problem, please mark this reply as a solution by selecting Accept as Solution. This makes it easier for others to find answers to similar questions. 

Thanks!

Hardit Bhatia

Microsoft Business Applications MVP

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[RandyHayes · Accepted solution]

@tagustin2020 

Sorry to miss a day (no internet service for most of yesterday and through the night).  Looks like a lot of activity here.

So, the suggestions for setting a variable and all that are fine, but they do defeat the point of actually Selecting the proper item in the Gallery.  I usually look at it as - if you have to set variables to work around these things, then there is something else that is not working properly (or impacting).  This is more meaningful when you are referring to your Gallery.  If you are trying to reference the selected Item in your gallery for other functions, then the problem will be that the selection is wrong!  You'll then be faced with having to reference a variable all the time (new video coming soon on why variables are your worst nightmare - and thanks for subscribing by the way). 

Also, as far as unique ID's - you already have one in SharePoint which is ID.

So, picking back up where we left off, I was having you let me know what the value of frmNewRequest.LastSubmit.ID was and you stated it was blank.  There is the clue...if it is blank, then you are doing a ResetForm somewhere.  What is the submit formula you are using?

What I would recommend at this point is to:

1) Remove the ResetForm from the submit or anyplace else you are using it.

2) Set your Default property on the Gallery to frmNewRequest.LastSubmit

3) Set your TemplateFill to If(ThisItem.IsSelected, LightBlue, White)

4) Make sure your function to navigate to the new request form screen includes a NewForm(frmNewRequest)

Even with complex types in your SharePoint list, this selection process works!  

The original suggestion of dropping the attachments was a shot at an occasional problem we encounter with attachments, but I'd just keep that in the back pocket in case you ever run into it as well.

And...just cuz you like videos 😉 Here is one of an app based on exactly that above which I put together for you.  No variables, just straight out the way it should work.

[PowerAddict]

Thanks @RandyHayes! Just to clarify, I think I had mentioned that using the suggestion I gave will help setting the fill color to the correct/neely creates record. If i missed that part, my apologies. 

I also mentioned that selecting that record vs simply setting a color fill can be achieved with the default property (and possibly a Reset function, this hasn't been consistent for me). I have noticed on several occasions that for a gallery to kick in its default property, i have had to use the Reset function after setting the default value. May be its just what I have ran into? Obviously if it works without it, that's awesome!

I would say though that using a variable is justified in certain situations. For example, say you have a form that can get populated by 2 galleries, if you set the Items property of the form to Gallery1.Selected, then when you want a record from Gallery 2 to be the one that should be displayed on the form, you will have to add conditional logic to say, if this, then Gallery1.Selected and if that, then Gallery2.Selected. If instead, both galleries have their OnSelect to Set(currentRecord, ThisItem), the Items property of the form can simply be currentRecord. Additionally, and I would say probably a more important reason to use a variable is when the gallery and form are not on the same screen. If you are not setting the selected record in a variable, your forms Items property will have to be Gallery.Selected. This creates an inefficient delay loading i.e. dependency across screens which with 2 screens may not be an issue but it can easily build up as you add more screens. Keeping it in a variable helps to not being forced to load both screens at the same time. This not only applies to this specific example but also in general, its better to not have dependencies across screens. Variables help a lot to overcome this. Global vs context/local variables? That's a topic in itself. 

Anyways, like I said in my 1st message on this thread, apologies for sneaking in. I was just curious to see a question with such a long thread and wanted to see if there was an opportunity to help. My apologies if I offended you or anyone else on this thread. I have learnt a lot from you, being one of the first, if not the first, super users here. So was definitely not the intention. 

Over to your testing @tagustin2020 !

Thanks,

Hardit Bhatia