Use column values in document library to populate combo box

[hzer]

Hi everyone,

I'm working on an application which can be used to search files in a document library based on tags which a user submits when they upload a document.  For example, a user could upload a word document containing weather information and tag it "Weather", "Precipitation", "Wind", etc.   "Tags" is a column in my document library that holds the user submitted tags for each document.  An image of my application so far, and my document library layout,  is attached to this post. 

I want to create a combo box which will allow the user to select a number of tags (from the document library column information), that can be used to filter the documents presented in the gallery below.  Ideally the combo box options should be searchable as well (ie. if i type "We" this should show me tag options like "We", "Welcome", "Wednesday", etc).

Looking for any help/recommendations on how this could be done.

[AJ_Z]

I noticed your tags appeared to be one word and separated by a single space will that always be the case? The reason i ask is because any solution that immediately comes to my mind relies on the Split() function so it would be important to understand the delimiter which can be a space but is usually a comma or semi-colon. 

[hzer]

Thanks for the quick response! Yes, how the tags will be formatted/submitted is in my control.  Right now I have the separator as a blank space and this will always be the case unless I change the delimiter myself. 

[AJ_Z · Accepted solution]

Hey @hzer 

So i have built a dummy version  of your app and datasource.

i called my datasource: 'Power App Test'

i called the column with the tags in: 'test text'
i called the combobox which will select tags that i will use to filter the gallery: ComboBox1

first i have a List with tags in a column broken up by spaces:

then i am working under the assumption that we have a predefined list of tags so i add a combobox and in its items i add my list of possible tags:

i then go to my gallery and tweak the filter to be: 
Filter('Power App Test',ComboBox1.Selected.Value in 'test text')

I then want to make sure my combobox is searchable so i go to it properties an i turn on this:

Now then imagine there is no predetermined list of tags and users are evil and choose to create loads of tags. It would be super tedious for your to keep coming into the app and adding all there new tags as options in the Combobox. Do not worry i got your back in that case we are going to switch things up. 

I want you to add this to either the OnStart or the Onvisible of your app whichever makes more sense for your app. For my app i chose to put it in the OnStart.:

ForAll(
    'Power App Test'.'test text' As RecSplit,
    ForAll(
        Split(
            RecSplit.'test text',
            Char(32)
        ) As tagsplitted,
        Collect(
            Tags,
            {TagChoices: tagsplitted.Result}
        )
    )
)

Now go back to our ComboBox1 we will be changing it's Items to this:

Distinct(Tags.TagChoices,TagChoices)

then we need to go back to the gallery and change it's filter to this:

Filter('Power App Test',ComboBox1.Selected.Result in 'test text')

Okay now Delegation is a potential issue due to the In within the filter.
For me this is not a problem as I have less than 500-2000 rows of data but what if it is an issue? in that case I would collect a filtered down list for your gallery e.g. maybe users only need to see rows Created in the last 30 days. Alternatively we can collect in  batches perhaps.

Also don't forget to change my datasource and columns names to be your ones where applicable.

Also please forgive my typing if there are errors as i am currently on a train 🙂

[hzer]

Thanks, everything worked perfectly! For some reason, the collection wasn't populating when I had the function run OnStart.  I switched it to OnVisible and everything's good.  Thanks again

[AJ_Z]

Hey @hzer For it to appear on start you have to reload the app or if in studio editor press run onstart and I am glad it worked and was a solution for you 🙂. Please make sure to click accepts as solution next to it to mark it as the solution so others can find it easily 🙂