Breaking PowerApps - Cannot Save or Edit an app

I just wrapped up about 12 hours of me wondering if I should keep trying to figure out this problem or if I should just quit and start filling out job applications.

It turns out that if you make a change to a SharePoint list that a Model PowerApp links to then it is possible your application can get in such a state that you cannot even edit or save any changes to it.  Completely unusable.  Completely broken.

Now imagine that somebody else controls the SharePoint list you are linking to...

Filtering on Booleans from SharePoint lists

One of the easiest variables to use/test against in all of programming are Boolean values.  Those are true/false, yes/no or the classic ones and zeros.  And yet, things are not so simple when trying to filter records returned from SharePoint.

Default Lookup field to logged in user

"Why of course I'd like to have this user lookup field default to the currently logged in user.  That's easy right?"  - New PowerApps Developer

Oh so easy...

PowerApps: "Fixing" Tab order

Yet again, PowerApps does not fail to disappoint in how certain basic things function while continuing to perform feats of magic on the back-end.

It is best to laugh when you encounter these little glitches, note them, and then quickly not brood over exactly how dumb someone had to be to miss X.

This article deals w/ Tab order and some of the issues you'll encounter

PowerApps: Modal Dialog or Popup Boxes

Once again, PowerApps succeeds at making easy things difficult for everyday tasks.  This time, it is the creation of Dialog or Popup boxes.  Their approach is incredibly flexible from a User Interface perspective, but it makes just creating a simple stupid dialog box an extended series of steps that will cause you to doubt your decision to ever use this a platform.

HOWEVER, do not get discouraged (at least about this).  In fact, it is fairly easy once you change your perspective a bit.

NOTE: Updated in November 2024 to ditch the kludgy methods we used to have to do

PowerApps: Display a SharePoint User's name in another text field

Some very basic things are just far too convoluted in the current iteration of PowerApps.  Displaying raw text values from lists is one of them.  Even worse, are displaying individual fields from a List of Records.  The most obvious and common problem is just listing the name of a user selected from a SharePoint list (or one/multiple users from the same list).  

This is the primary issue w/ PowerApps: things which you assume to just be simple are convoluted, while things you believe will take forever as just a few mouse clicks away.