I got stuck with Power Drag and Drop PCF component in my Canvas App with OnAction for non masterZones

[UsernameIsTaken]

Dear Community members,

I have a simple Kanban board scenario that I wanted to replicate in Canvas Power Apps.
My DV tables are the following:
my_boards: // Contains the projects e.g.: Name: Roadmap
my_columns  // Contains the Columns where I can drag and assign my tasks from that board: e.g.: Name: Now, Later, Never etc.
my_tasks: //Tasks have name and description and belong to a column/status and contains subtasks.
my_subtasks // Subtasks are related to a task from my_tasks and can be Completed or not. 

My complexity / problem started where I can add additional buckets/columns.
Therefore I used a blank horizontal gallery to populate my DnD PCF component, to enabled dragging I designated the first Column in that board to be the MasterZone. E.g. Columns for "Product Launch" board have the following Array: Todo/Doing/Done so Todo is the MasterZone, other Zones are not. So I can drag those tasks between those zones, and count the nr of items assigned to those "columns" and update the status in DV of that task column. If I create a new one, it will patch my DV my_columns table for the board and it will be another Power Drag and Drop instance in the gallery. etc...

However there is another requirement that when I click on any task I can open and check its details and edit the ask or add new subtasks or complete a subtask stb. I can use the OnAction Property for that will create a local variable with that selected item record. 

Long story short it works only for the MasterZone = true. but I would like to be able to populate that variable OnAction for each other DnD component with is NOT marked as the MasterZoneID. Only workaround is to drag those item that I want to edit to the first DnD PCF. I have also tried to use the galleries OnSelect property to dynamically change the MasterZone to selected Item in that gallery when I click on a Task to view/edit/delete, It works, but then I loose the dragging functionality which was the primary reason to kick of this small project. On Scott's github power-drag-drop/README.md at main · scottdurow/power-drag-drop (github.com) there is a Readme with images and the expected behavior and an open Issue https://github.com/scottdurow/power-drag-drop/issues/57#issue-2027212474 which also resonates with my issue. Maybe you came across with a solution? 

Thank you for any hints/tips. 

[Kirkby]

Hi,  @UsernameIsTaken 

I ask your understanding if my assumption is not correct. What you need to do is to distinguish each action triggered by DnD controls and apply a different action to each event? Is that what you intend? If so, as Scott mentioned, you can define various actions that have names start with "action-".

Multiple actions can be specified for each DND control.

This is a snippet of my code of ItemTemplate of DnD controls on a screen. Then, you can distinguish each action name by the  $"{YourMasterControlName.ActionName}"  in the OnAction of the Master Zone and define the proper action 

[Multiple actions can be specified for each DnD control  and onAction of Master zone can handle all defined events ]

I just gained some basic understanding from a short test, so there must be better usage than what I currently know.

The reason Scott did not fully document how to use it may be to encourage creativity(?) and expand our imaginations.😆

I hope this helps.

Kirkby

[UsernameIsTaken]

Hi @Kirkby My creativity when overboard or maybe my understanding needs much deeper dive. I have a simple set up. Maybe my assumption from the beginning of setting up the galleries when wrong. 

I want to perform exactly the same action on every zone. My issue is that if I drag my items into a non master zone action is not triggered. Therefore I am dynamically changing the master zone assignment by selecting the gallery. That is messing up the "draggability" of my items.

[Kirkby]

Hi @UsernameIsTaken 

I think that once the master zone is set, there's no need to change it. The intention of your code seems to be an attempt to set the zone where the action just happened as the master zone, but it seems like it would be sufficient to set the first zone as the master zone. The reason for this is as follows.

Once a zone is set as the master zone, you can handle all events(events in all other zones as well as the Mater zone)  in the OnAction of that master zone .

The triggering events could be:

1. The Drop event provided by the component "by default" (distinguishing between source, target, and selected items, etc.)

2. Various functions defined in your ItemTemplate (e.g. Delete, AddNew, Modify, etc., if you want to add additional actions by attaching action buttons to each item). You can create different functions in the ItemTemplate of each zone under different names. You can then distinguish and perform the necessary actions based on these functions in the OnAction of the master zone. The master zone does not need to be constantly changed in real-time. I think the name 'MasterZone' is given because it acts as a representative for handling various actions. The following code is about the most essential properties(Defined by the original author) that can be used to handle events:

"Moved ItemId = " & Backlog.DroppedId & ", Target =" & Backlog.DroppedTarget & ", Source =" & Backlog.DroppedSource &" , Position =" & Backlog.DroppedPosition

(NotStarted,x, x1,x2 : Drop zone id)

Here, 'Backlog' is the name of the MasterZone in my test.

I think you can understand all events occurring in various other zones through the master zone in this way. Once a zone is set as the master zone, there is no need for coding in other zones.

Of course, there may be some  more effective alternative way or  inaccuracies since this is based on the results obtained from testing. I ask your understanding in advance.

Kirkby