PowerApps forcing phone format when creating from SharePoint List

[MountaintGoat04]

Hello,

I am running into a small problem and couldn't find anything on the topic. 

When createing a PowerApp from a sharepoint list. (List > PowerApps > Create App)

When it takes me to the PowerApp page where it prebuilds the app, it is already in "phone" mode. When I go to "File > App Settings > Screen size and Orientation" there is only "Portrait or Landscape" available. I am unable to change the layout style/size/format. I am stuck with the "phone" view as my only option. 

I have created the app from scratch and connected to the data that way, and have all the options I need, but the issue, I think, has to do with the SharePoint intergration not working properly.  

My end goal is to have it so that when people fill out a "Form" they will only see the PowerApp and not the Sharepoint List view.

Any help would be appreciated. Happy to send more information acrross if I am not being clear.

[iAm_ManCat · Accepted solution]

Hey @MountaintGoat04

Happy to help, I can confirm that if you choose the phone option you will not be able to change the specific resolution or aspect ratio - this is a design feature on the PowerApps end.

Could you give me a bit more detail as to what you're trying to achieve that is not working?

Ideally you should create the app in two tabs, one in Phone mode from data and another in Tablet from scratch then try to look at how they handle the respective functions like submit or edit in order to make your own app - this is the best possible way to learn so that going forward you can customize and make anything the way you want and get better knowledge on creating galleries and forms.

However, if you are pressed for time:

My best advice, as a quick and rough method, is to create the app in phone mode from data as you described, then have another tab with your tablet style layout, then copy/paste the screen items from one app to another, for all of the screens. Ctrl+A,Ctrl+C then paste it into a similar screen on the tablet app, for each of the screens - then change their layout and sizing to suit your needs:

Now after pasting you'll notice there's red X's everywhere as there's no data source currently attached, ignore that for a moment and copy paste the rest of the screens:

Now that you have missing datasource red X's everywhere, click on View: Data Sources and add the Sharepoint List that you originally used to create the Phone app:

Either Select it from a recent list or type out the location of the base Site where the list is stored:

Now, If you changed the names of the screens like I did, you should only have 8 errors showing when you go to the App Checker, which are all to do with Navigating to those screens:

Clicking on one of these we can see that the Screen name is wrong, and if we click at the start of the name that has the squiggly red lines underneath, we can change this to the name we changed the screen to: Edit_Screen

Ok, now that will have cleared two of the errors, do the same for the other items.

Now we can change the layout of the everything to look however we want, for example:

Note how the Y, Height and Width properties of the gallery are greyed out as they are formula-based and contain relational sizes - click on the actual 'Y' below the number to jump to its formula if you would like to view/change it.

With a few quick changes we can make a great-looking application with minimal effort in a matter of minutes:

If you have any questions about the App you created from scratch feel free to reply with details so that we can resolve any issues 🙂

Once you've created the app this way you would save and share both the SP list (without emailing invite) and the App (sending invite) with the users. You could also NOT send an App invite and instead copy/paste the Web link to share out in a more corporate fashion via an email with details explaining what the users should do and how they can access the app.

This way the users would only follow the Web link to the App and have no interaction or knowledge of the source list 🙂

[rkirk2k]

So what you're saying by all of this is that there is no answer, and you MUST copy the app into a separate one with a bigger screen???!!!

HOW is Microsoft not bankrupt?

[iAm_ManCat]

Hey @rkirk2k 

This post was from 2018, so a lot's happened in four years.. you can now change to whatever size or shape for a customized SharePoint canvas app - just go to your app settings when in the editor:

Cheers,

Sancho

[rkirk2k]

Not in my experience. If you launch Power Apps the way the original post says - you DON'T have those options. You are forced to start an app outside and copy everything over if you want to customize the size.

[iAm_ManCat]

Well, yes you are correct there are limitations to what you can do within a side-panel, which is why the embedded SharePoint form canvas App doesn't have the entire flexibility of a standard canvas app - remember it has to fit within the pane that SharePoint allows

I would always advise against using SharePoint form canvas Apps and instead create a standalone app (then in your SharePoint customized app, replace all objects with one label saying "click here to open the XYZ app" which then launches the standalone app)

Reasons:

Can't do ALM properly with the SharePoint Apps (they don't 'show' in the Apps list)

SharePoint apps are Always created in the default environment - this might have larger implications if you are required to not host any items within a specific region (..and while you can technically move it to another env by modifying the JSON, moving them or using them in the non-default environment is not supported by MSFT).

Size limitations (its more flexible now but it's still not ideal).

Wherever possible I try not to let users have direct access to SharePoint lists by creating non-views (i.e. view where ID=-1) and creating a custom permission role where they cannot create personal views.

Hope some of that info is useful if you need to justify to anyone why you shouldn't use the customized SharePoint forms!

[mitchem63]

Thorough, very thorough - I just love some people's dedication.

[Paula_22551]

Yes, this post is old, but I wanted to thank you for this nugget. Not sure why your answer never came up before when I asked the question, but things make perfect sense now.

THANK YOU!!