Need: More detailed Release Notes

[mr-dang]

There are many welcome features in versions 2.0.630+, but some of the changes broke an important app of mine. 

I've read the What's New blog and sent in session-ids and fiddler traces, but have not been able to pinpoint the exact problem yet.

I am asking that in addition to listing new features when a new version comes out, can the PowerApps team also list out what bugs have been fixed and what controls have been tweaked? 

If I can get a list of changes that had happened, I can troubleshoot and fix parts of my app on my own. But without anymore information to go on, the only other option is to rebuild my app from scratch. If this list doesn't exist, can the team hire someone to get this information compiled?

[Meneghino]

Hi @mr-dang, fully support this!

@audrieg should be interested, this is what I have mentioned to you before.

Many thanks.

[mr-dang]

Ohhh I had posted about this a long time ago: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/PowerApps-Ideas/Post-a-Change-Log/idi-p/716

I think the Release Notes came about after that post, which is good.

Back in the day I used to play a video game made by an independent company. The game devs had a forum dedicated to finding, reporting, and resolving bugs--they were very transparent about the process. I think the same could benefit PowerApps.

This might fit better in Ideas, but I recommend a sub-forum dedicated to bug reporting and status. It can help filter out posts about bugs in the General forum. It could work like Feedback Hub with upvotes if you also have the same problem. Users can try certain tests on their devices to see if they can replicate bugs in different contexts--Feedback Hub has "quests." Replicated problems can be confirmed and similar posts can be grouped to reduce clutter and confusion. A sub-forum like this leverages the community: it's crowd-sourced bug reporting.

If publishing a list of bugs addressed in each version is not possible, would a crowd-sourcing sub-forum for bugs be something PowerApps can start?

[Meneghino]

@mr-dang I could not agree more!

@Darshan, please take note.

@Anonymous, @jguzzo, @TihowMehunx may be interested in this thread.

@audrieg, @Audrie-MSFT also.

[Anonymous]

@mr-dang @Meneghino I also could not agree more. A production app deployed to some user within our organization also broke with the latest update. I love that Microsoft has been spending the energy making PowerApps more robust, but having proper documentation/communication is just as important as having new features.

[mr-dang]

Documenting the precise bugfixes and changes should reduce the load on PA support team. Users can troubleshoot on their own if they know what to look for. Everyone's apps are so different, and nobody knows it better than its creator. 

[mr-dang]

In the latest update to PowerApps, my app that was previously broken due to an update is now working correctly again. 

The new features are being described more in the blogs. I like how you can now choose to update your app to the latest version of PA or not; that level of flexibility fits everyone's needs. That and the ability to rollback saved versions should prevent another situation where an app gets broken due to a PA update.

Can we continue to get more of these blog posts about new features--they should always be shown off (with pictures) so we can buzz about them.

Thank you!

EDIT: DOH it worked okay for the first instance of the app, but opening it again does not reproduce a working instance. How do I get a session id?

[Audrie-MSFT · Accepted solution]

@mr-dang Agree with you. I will work with the team to determine the best way to include that level of information into release notes. I am not ignoring your comments, but working internally to integrate into our release process.

Appreciate your patience as we work through this. I hear you load and clear! 🙂

Audrie

[mr-dang]

@Audrie-MSFT,

Thank you, Audrie. I have updates to share about bugs I involving galleries for anyone interested.

First I address the bug mentioned in this thread. After deleting one object at a time and fiddling with the Items property, it turns out the problem was with a Slider control. The slider was inside the gallery. An Image box referenced its properties. The problem was that the Image did not know which slider to referece since the slider was duplicated for each record in the gallery. I could have kept the slider and changed the way it was referenced (First(Filter(Gallery.AllItems,conditions)).Slider.Value), but I fixed it by giving the image the information directly and then I deleted the slider.

I also have an update on an issue I was having involving galleries. I had nested a flexible height gallery inside a gallery. When opening the app and doing things that caused the Items to change, and therefore the height to change, the entire app stopped functioning. I replaced the flexible height galleries with normal galleries and had their heights individually calculated instead. It worked afterwards.

And in another issue I was having involving galleries. I was trying to make 3 levels of nested galleries like I had in another app, but found out that galleries have been capped to 2 levels. I resolved it by opening an old app, emptied out the contents of an existing 3 level gallery, and was able to copy paste it where I needed it. 

[Anonymous]

Hi @Audrie-MSFT

I refer to this thread for reference but it seems that nothing has happened regarding providing more details release notes. 

The latest release 2.0.680-2.0.681 refers to 2 changes:

1. Download a list of apps used in your organization.
2. Delegate Sum, Average, Min, and Max functions for SQL Server.

However immediately on loading the application I noticed that the pen input has had some adjustments.  This is mentioned nowhere.  I would have thought that the ShowControls would have been defaulted to False so that existing applications would not suddenly look different.

I'm very pleased with the Agile approach that the PowerApps team is taking but without detailed release notes any breaking changes won't easily be able to be pinpointed.

Look forward to your response.

Cheers

Jeremy