Filtering via a dropdown menu errors

[RPWade]

Details-

List name: FoodOption

Columns: Cat , ItemRef , Description , Price

I am trying to present details/description of an item when selected in a dropdown menu, I will have multiple of these for each 'cat' but they are standalone so won't affect each other.

For the dropdown menu I have: 

Filter(FoodOption,Cat="Refreshments").ItemRef

I was going to then use this result for the filter of a gallery view (Will only show one as the Itemref is unique) I feel I maybe going about filtering the gallery all wrong I was simply going to use a similar filter as above but reference the dropdown so:

Filter(FoodOption,ItemRef=Dropdown1    <- But at this part I see others use selected value but it doesn't work for me it says that isn't an option so I am left with 'Dropdown1' which comes up with "This data type is unsupported for evaluation"

Any nudges in the right direction?

[RandyHayes · Accepted solution]

@RPWade 

If I understand you correctly, you have a dropdown that should have a filtered list of items from the FoodOption list based on the Cat column.  Then you want the details of that record to display in a Gallery.

If that is the case, then you might want to consider changing your DropDown Items property formula to something like this:

Filter(FoodOption, Cat="Refreshments")

In this case, your dropdown will now contain all the records that meet that filter.  You will want to, in the designer, change the Value property to the ItemRef value so that it is displayed in the dropdown.

Then for your Gallery, you will change the Items property to:  DropDown1.Selected

That is all you need to do.  Then in your Gallery, your labels or whatever you are using will reference - ThisItem.ItemRef,  ThisItem.Description,  ThisItem.Price, etc.

In this scenario, the Gallery is deriving its records from the selected Item in the DropDown filtered list.

I hope this is helpful for you.

[RPWade]

I was massively over complicating things then wasn't I!

Also found out list changes seem to be pretty sensitive, as I am not sure why but I had to remove the Data source (tried refreshing) for the description to pull through.

Many thanks!

[RandyHayes]

@RPWade 

It happens!  Number one rule with PowerApps - Keep it simple!  If you feel like you are "developing" then you might be overcomplicating.

As for datasources - you should only have to pull out datasources and add them back if you make structure changes to them.  Sometimes, depending on the change, a refresh from the DataSource list will work. Other times not.

If it is an issue with just updated data in your list, then the refresh from the list will work, but if you need something more from within the app, consider a button or other control with an action of Refresh(yourSource) to do the job.