Is there really no way to reuse code?

[Pjames43]

I have buttons on three different screens on my app that do the same things. Some of these do three or four things when you push them. As far as I can tell, the only way to get them all do the same thing is to cut and paste the code from one to another.

Am I missing something?

[Pjames43]

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@TheRobRush wrote:

I have to disagree on some of those points. With PowerApps you can certainly do some very impressive stuff, especially since it runs on mobile devices, where your advanced excel functionality (custom coding in the background etc.) is (at least on apple os dont know about android) not an option. When Randy says it is built modeled after excel he isn't saying PowerApps isn't able to handle advanced functionality.

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This is specifically what got me so frustrated. Microsoft literally touts Power Apps as having "Advanced Functionality" not the ability to do everything you can in Excel, but on a mobile device. It is definitely never mentioned that the "Advanced Functionality" is just "Advanced Excel Functionality".  It literally says "advanced functionality previously only available to professional developers" on powerapps.microsoft.com so you can understand why some one who make that conclusion. 

I do appreciate the trick to edit a flow. I am going to try that, but again, it seems like bad design by Microsoft to not just let you edit the code directly. Like why even let me see it in that case?

[TheRobRush]

I use the peek at code to get the specific names for things (for example each part of a form that you have fetched will have a long serial number with letters and numbers as its name that you reference in the expressions. Like so

[RandyHayes · Accepted solution]

@Pjames43 

Yes, as @TheRobRush mentioned, I am not saying that PowerApps is just a different Excel, not at all.  PowerApps has a vast amount of power and capability.  My point though is that PowerApps is designed using formulas on properties (like cells in Excel) and also provides behavioral actions, which Excel does not have.

Select across screens is not a bug, that is by design.  It would make no sense to select a control on another screen, especially since that screen may not even have been initialized in the app at that point.  However, you CAN interact with controls across screens and you can also create contained actions through controls like toggles.  Then you can cause the toggle to go true and thus perform the behavioral action.  So all that can be done.

A component also CAN navigate to any screen you want.  However, for the component to "know" about your screens breaks the concept of components.  Instead, if you are passing the screen into a property of your component, then by all means that component can then navigate to that screen - but by the name of the screen as determined by the property.

The only advice I can provide in general is (because I've encountered your feelings by many) to try to discontinue looking at any of PowerApps as development.  Get a better feel of how everything is referential in PowerApps and how everything evaluates itself all the time in the app, just like Excel formulas.  If you find yourself using behavioral actions (OnXxxx actions) a lot, then you are looking too much at the platform as a development platform.

PowerApps is very capable of very large and sophisticated apps.  The time to production is tremendously short in comparison to real development, and the infrastructure to support all devices with security across them all is already in place.  So, there are some real advantages.

[Pjames43]

I appreciate your answer, and it is very clear to me that you are correct. You and all the people in these forums have been incredible helpful and patience with me on my Power Apps journey. I marked it solved because I feel like it has turned to a discussion about the ontological nature of Power Apps in relationship to traditional development, and perhaps there is a better place for that.

That being said, I am really unclear how you do things without relying on the OnXxxx actions. I mean isn't the whole point to a button to give an OnSelect function? At what point I am using them "a lot"? How else to you the app to do in things in response to user input.

[derouio]

There is no good solution when the same code has to be executed from different screens. I found a solution that works great for me:

1. Have a component that is present on all the screens that you want to execute the code from. In my case, the app banner.

2. Put your code in the OnReset property of the component

3. From any screen, you just have to write this formula: Reset(name_of_the_INSERTED_component).

I say the INSERTED component, as opposed to the name of the component itself, which would throw an error. I found out that that it is ok to reset the same inserted component no matter what screen you are on, and it always triggers the code