Top 10 Power Apps Features Wishlist

Happy new year my fellow Power Appers! To kick off 2023 I’m publishing a wishlist of features I would like to see in Power Apps. I love Power Apps canvas apps and its my full-time job to build them. After working in Power Apps Studio all day it pretty easy to come up with a top 10 list. Take a look at my suggestions below and post your own most wanted features in the comments section.

Table Of Contents:
• 1. Define A Custom Theme
• 2. Pop-Out The Code Editor
• 3. Get New Canvas App Components From An In-Product Marketplace
• 4. Add Fluent UI Controls To Power Apps Studio
• 5. Allow User Impersonation In Power Apps Studio
• 6. Build Custom Functions
• 7. Support For Responsive Apps In Power Apps Studio
• 8. Github Style Switch To Pro Code
• 9. Unlock Forms By Default
• 10. Editable Data Table

1. Define A Custom Theme

The most time-consuming activity in Power Apps is setting up and maintaining a custom theme. Why? If you don’t want to use one of the default themes, you must style each control individually. The community has come to the rescue with some excellent 3rd party branding templates. But this is a feature that really should be in product.

Canvas Apps already includes a Theme menu with several default themes. I’d like to see the product team extend this feature and allow us to create our own themes. If Microsoft already has the ability to default themes for us, that means the hard part is already done. Give us a theme setup screen and allow us to define custom themes for ourselves.

2. Pop-Out The Code Editor

The Power Apps formula bar completely covers the app when it gets expanded to edit a long code block. You cannot immediately see how your code is changing your app. It also makes it harder to know what other controls you are referencing in the code block since you cannot see them highlighted in the canvas area. For a low-code app editor, I believe these two aspects to design are very important.

If we could pop-out the code editor and make it a moveable object on the screen, we could position so we can always see the canvas area. In my mock-up below I’ve moved on top of the right-pane. And why not? It can do everything the right-pane does and more.

Imagine extending Power Apps studio across two screens: positioning the canvas area on the left and the code editor on the write. It would be an amazing app making experience!

3. Get New Canvas App Components From An In-Product Marketplace

One thing I love about Power BI is how easy it is to get new visuals. Don’t like any of the visuals included out-of-the-box? No problem. Select the get custom visuals from store button and you’re taken to an online marketplace that usually has the visual you need.

Power Apps makes it harder to get new components than it needs to be. You must download new components from the community website or find them in a developer’s Github repo. Power Apps should copy this feature from Power BI and start a marketplace for free (and paid) components.

Imagine if you could do this in Power Apps!

4. Add Fluent UI Controls To Power Apps Studio

There’s a simple reason Dataverse for Teams apps and custom pages for model-driven apps look & feel way better than standard canvas apps. They both use Fluent UI controls which are included in a broad range of other Microsoft products. Standard canvas apps still use the same set of classic controls it shipped with back in 2016. If modern Fluent UI control be used in other types of Power Apps, its high-time we bring them to standard canvas apps as well.

Yes, the Power Apps Creator Kit adds Fluent UI controls as components in standard canvas apps. But Fluent UI controls should be included in Power Apps out-of-the-box. Power Apps should look great by default.

Fluent UI controls offer a better user experience too. For example, the Fluent UI DatePicker allows users to select a date with one-click. The classic DatePicker requires two-clicks: one to select the date and another to press OK. Most users don’t understand they need to click OK the first time they use an app.

5. Allow User Impersonation In Power Apps Studio

It is important to test Power Apps with each set of security roles assigned to a user. Security roles define what permissions a user has for a given datasource. They can also be used to hide functionality in a canvas app a basic user should not have access to.

By allowing developers to impersonate another user in Power Apps studio, it would be faster to test all user permissions scenarios. The way to do this right now is to publish the app, login as another account and play the app. It works, but impersonation in Studio would make unit-testing Power Apps faster.

6. Build Custom Functions

Power Apps still lacks a fully-featured way to build re-usable custom functions inside of an app. Named formulas which launched this year are an improvement upon building custom functions using components. But I’d like to see two improvement.

First, let us define custom functions in the formulas property of an app like this. Currently formulas cannot take parameters and are not very useful. This simple improvement would make a big difference.

// define a function in app formulas property
AddNumbers(x,y) = x + y

// use a formula anywhere in an app.  Result: 8
AddNumbers(5,3)

Second, custom functions should be able to execute a code block. I want custom function to be able to do things. Not simply return a result.

ResetScreen = {
    Reset(Toggle1);
    Reset(Toggle2);
    Reset(Toggle3);
    Set(varCurrentRecord, Blank();
}

7. Support For Responsive Apps In Power Apps Studio

Responsive design is one of the toughest skills to learn in Power Apps. Coding aside, it is simply hard for app makers to imagine what an app will look like at each screen size. Right now Power Apps studio only shows apps at their default width while in edit mode. What I would like to see is a menu for responsive apps that allows app makers to change the screen size just like the developer tools in Google Chrome.

Here’s what editing a responsive app would look like at the largest setting.

And here’s what editing a responsive app could look like at the smallest setting.

8. Github Style Switch To Pro Code

There’s a really cool Github feature where you can boot up VS Code in a browser window and start editing code in a repo. Just browse to the code you want to edit and press the [period] keyboard button. It’s honestly amazing.

I cannot think of any better way bridge the gap between low-code and pro-code in Power Apps. Give us an easy way to toggle between Power Apps Studio and a full code editor.

9. Unlock Forms By Default

Every field in a Power Apps form is locked by default and each field must be unlocked one-by-one. Nobody wants this feature. Turn it off. Make forms unlocked by default instead. It is a simple way to give us coders better quality of life.

10. Edit Values Using The Data Table Control

Finally, I would like to see the data table control become a little bit more useful. Data tables are great way to quickly build a way to view a datasource. I want to be able to edit data in the table too just like Excel. When I click into a cell, let me start typing.

What New Features Would You Like to See In Power Apps?

Leave a message in the comments section below. I’d love to know what you think should be added to my Top 10 Power Apps Features Wishlist. You can post using your email address and are not required to create an account to join the discussion.