Multiple screens or single screen

[RaviTD]

Hello,

I am a newbie to power apps. I have been designing an app that involves multiple tabs or pages and I am not able to decide between using multiple screens or using just one screen to put the controls of all the tabs and changing the visibility of the controls as per the tab so please help me in deciding. It would also be helpful to know the pro's and con's of having multiple screens.

Thanks,

Ravi

[mdevaney]

@RaviTD 

I found a very helpful post by a a Microsoft employee you might be interested to read.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps-Formerly/Max-Number-Screens-Data-sources-vs-...

Personally I find having a single screen easier to maintain.  There are several elements that tend to get repeated over multiple screens such as the header and nav buttons.  Imagine a scenario where your company decides to change its corporate branding and that theme was including in your app.  Which will be easier to update: the app with 1 screen or the app with 10 screens?  The answer is definitely 1 screen.

Fewer screens = better.  That's just my opinion.

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[v-xida-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @RaviTD ,

Could you please share a bit more about your scenario?

Whether or not use multiple screens or single one screen with multiple tabs, it would be based on your needs. From my perspective, I think single one screen with multiple tabs may be a better choice (change the visibility of the tab based on the current pressed tab).

More details about configure multiple tabs within a single one screen, please check and see if the following video or blog would help in your scenario:
https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/design-tips-part-1-handling-tab-control-scenarios-in-powe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdiQ802dG3E

Pro's of have multiple screens:

You could customize more content within each individual screen. You could switch across different screens with low formula. Decrease the renderig time on individual screen, improve app load performance.

Con's of have multiple screens:

The more screens you added in your app, the lower performance you would get within your app. The more screens you added in a screen, the more CPU resources, memory would be consumed.

Best regards,

[RaviTD]

I am designing a leave request application where a user has multiple tabs( Similar to the navigation menu in the service request canvas app, refer to pic below) used to view leave requests, create a new leave request, etc. On app start is the rendering of a single screen and multiple screens the same though? Thanks, @mdevaney, and @v-xida-msft for your suggestions

[OsmandFernando]

Hi @RaviTD just a thought. I also started with three screens for every module at early stage.  

e.g Sales, 3 screens. 

But then later I learned how to do it in a single screen, Gallery, Edit and view. 

So it is more user friendly when we have in a single view but can be little bit packed. Therefore based on the need please decide how you want it. 

Try to download the Northwind sample and learn from it. I did the same

Osmand

[RaviTD]

Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions. I am gonna go with using one screen in my app.

[nestorph]

When I click on the Settings button I don't see an option for "Enable Multiple Screens".  The other options are there.  Does anyone know if this feature has been disabled?  If not, how do I enable multiple screens?

Thanks