Items property is grayed out when using action within a rule

[DenisMolodtsov]

I'm trying to create a people picker that consists of the Text box and a List box.

The rule should go something like this:

If TextBox.Text is not blank

then

Action: Items = ["Whatver"]

The issue is that Items property is always grayed out when I'm trying to define the aciton. Does anyone know how to change the Items Property when using actions? I've tried to create the rule both against the text box and the list box and it hasn't made any difference. 

Any suggestions or comments will be greatly appreciated!

[Jeff_Thorpe]

Do you have to use a rule? If you don't then you could just write an If() in the Items property of the List control to accomplish the same thing.

[DenisMolodtsov]

I generally don't use rules, but decied to try to create a people picker using them. I was following a blog post where it definitely worked for the author. The "Items" property was not  grayed out. I have some workarounds, but would be nice if it just worked or if we had a some explanation as to why this is not working. 

If we start using rules, it would be nice to know if there are some limitations like these so that we don't waste hours to figure out what's wrong next time.

[v-micsh-msft · Accepted solution]

Thanks for posting this.

The limitation for the rules in PowerApps is documented as below with only one restriction:

"

As of this writing on 11/10/2017:

• You can't specify the ThisItem property of a form or a gallery as part of a condition.

"

Also the blog didn't mention any limits when working with the rules.

Per my understanding, the actions that could be defined within the rules should be the control property that will not affect the actual data (or saying the source data).

I will collect this as a content request.

Regards,

Michael

[DenisMolodtsov]

<Removed>

[DenisMolodtsov]

Thank you, @v-micsh-msft. That is an excellent explanation.

So we cannot use rules to control data bound to the controls. So no ThisItem, Items, etc.