#PowerPlatformTip 54: ‘Use Galleries’

TL;DR: Build data-driven menus from a single Gallery template instead of individual buttons for consistent styling and one-place maintenance.

💡 Challenge

Designing menus in Power Apps with individual buttons leads to inconsistent layouts, tedious styling, and manual updates for each item.

✅ Solution

Leverage the Gallery control to render menu items dynamically from a single data source, ensuring uniform appearance and simplified maintenance.

🔧 How It’s Done

1. Insert a Gallery

🔸 In the toolbar choose Insert > Gallery > Blank Vertical.

🔸 Position it where you want your menu to appear.

2. Set the Items property

🔸 Define a collection or table, e.g.

ClearCollect(MenuItems,
  {Icon: Icon.Home, Label: "Home", Screen: HomeScreen},
  {Icon: Icon.Settings, Label: "Settings", Screen: SettingsScreen},
  {Icon: Icon.Help, Label: "Help", Screen: HelpScreen}
);

🔸 Set Gallery.Items = MenuItems.

3. Design the template

🔸 Inside the gallery, add an Icon control and set Icon = ThisItem.Icon.

🔸 Add a Label control and set Text = ThisItem.Label.

🔸 Apply theme colors and spacing for a polished look.

4. Configure navigation

🔸 Select the template and set OnSelect = Navigate(ThisItem.Screen, ScreenTransition.Fade).

🔸 Optionally highlight the selected item using a conditional fill.

5. Maintain your menu

🔸 To add or remove items, update the MenuItems data source or collection.

🔸 Changes appear instantly without modifying multiple controls.

🎉 Result

A dynamic, data-driven menu that keeps consistent styling, scales easily with new items, and improves the user experience.

🌟 Key Advantages

🔸 Consistency across all menu items with a single template

🔸 Flexibility to add, remove, or reorder entries by updating the data source

🔸 Simplified maintenance and fewer controls to manage

🛠️ FAQ

Q: What is the advantage of using a Gallery over individual buttons?

A Gallery lets you define a single layout template and data-bind it, providing uniform styling and centralized maintenance for all menu entries.

Q: Can I use images or custom icons in a gallery?

Yes. Add image controls inside the gallery template and set their Image or Icon property to a URL or icon constant from your data source.

Q: Does using a Gallery affect performance?

Galleries support virtualization for large data sets. For typical menu sizes (5-10 items), performance is excellent and simplifies your app’s logic.