Stuck on old version of Studio, cannot import custom components

[problex]

Hey guys,
Just wondering if there is a way to bring an older app up to date with the latest version of the studio, I would like to have features such as importing custom components but the "Custom"button is missing, also the datasource menu is still the old style.

Saving and publishing makes no difference. New apps created are running the new studio interface fine.

Even switching between the multiple versions of studio gets tiring, I am constantly looking in the wrong place.

Any Ideas?

[PaulD1 · Accepted solution]

To enable Components you need to go into Advanced Settings and turn them on under the Experimental settings.

For the newer datasource experience I think you need to turn on 'Improve data source experience and Common Data Service Views'.

As an aside/grumble, these options are often very badly named and explained. There really should be a link giving a better explanation and warnings of some of the 'gotchas', e.g. if you are assigning records to variables, don't turn on 'Explicit Column Selection' (which should be called 'Inferred Column Selection' or 'Make a really bad guess at the columns I need') or it will likely break your App, and 'Use non-blocking OnStart rule' will mess up your App if your OnStart pulls in some vital data (like a user id) that is needed elsewhere in your App.

[problex]

Thanks, I have gone through and enabled those settings which have bought it up to the current setup.

I wonder if there could be a button that will set it to the latest defaults or something similar, might make it easier for people to follow.

[PaulD1]

I think the Preview features tend to be turned on if you create a new PowerApp but for existing ones, they should not change unless you explicitly change them.

Do be careful of just turning them on by default. A lot of these cause unexpected issues and/or have bugs.

[problex]

Yes I know what you mean, I have had issues with these settings before, Enhanced microsoft SQL connector caused weird datetime issues on apple devices that took me a long time to diagnose, but it seems the features I wanted were mainly Development environment settings that you wouldn't think would cause many issues to the existing application?

[PaulD1]

>>the features I wanted were mainly Development environment settings that you wouldn't think would cause many issues to the existing application?

You would think, but at this point I've been burned so many times I wouldn't take anything for granted 😉 

I'd recommend doing a thorough test of any App after changing the settings, or indeed, just republishing to a later version of the platform.

Right now I have to retest a (large and complex) App because I'm having to republish it as the prior version of PowerApps introduced an intermittent bug into the pen input control. Apparently publishing under the latest version should resolve this, but I don't know what else it might break and as there are no release notes (that I'm aware of) I don't even have a hint at where I should be checking.