Navigating Power Apps Studio

1. Navigating Power Apps Studio

Now that you know what Power Apps is, let's get inside the studio. This video covers what you need to build a canvas app from scratch: where to create one, how the editor is organized, and how to preview your work.

2. The maker portal

Power Apps lives at make dot powerapps dot com. Sign in with your work account and you land on the maker portal. The left navigation gets you anywhere: Home for an overview, Create for new apps, Apps for the ones you've already built, and Tables and Flows for the data and automation side.

3. Creating a blank canvas app

To start, click Create in the left navigation, then Create from blank, the first tile under Start from design. Pick a format. Tablet gives you a wider canvas, Phone gives you a taller one. Power Apps then opens the Studio editor, which is where all the building happens. It won't ask for a name yet. You give the app its name later, the first time you save it. Before you add anything, there's one setting worth turning on.

4. Turn modern controls on

Modern controls are an app-level setting, not a user setting, so you'll turn them on for every new app you build. The one exception is joining an app a teammate already enabled; then it's already on. After creating a new app, click the three dots in the toolbar, choose Settings, open the Updates tab on the left, then the New tab, scroll down to Modern controls and themes, and toggle it on.

5. Inside the studio editor

The Studio editor has four main areas. One, the Tree View on the left, lists every screen and control. Click to select, double-click to rename; this is where you find things. Two, the canvas in the center, is where you arrange controls visually. Three, the Properties panel on the right, shows settings for whatever is selected. And four, the formula bar at the top, is where you write Power Fx expressions. Everything you configure in this course goes through one of these four areas.

6. Adding controls

To add something, click Insert at the top. A panel opens listing every control you can drop onto a screen, text labels, text inputs, buttons, and more. Click one, it lands on your canvas. To change what a control does or looks like, select it and use the Properties panel on the right or the formula bar at the top. That's the core loop, insert a control, then change its properties.

7. Preview your app

A useful habit in Power Apps Studio is previewing early. Click the play button at the top right and the app runs right inside the editor. You can click buttons, type into inputs, and navigate between screens. Close the preview to return to editing. Get into the habit: build a small thing, preview it, see it, tweak it.

8. Save versus publish

Two actions to know: Save and Publish. Save preserves your work while you're building. Publish makes it live to anyone you've shared the app with. For now, just save. We'll cover publishing in Chapter 4.

9. Containers come later

One thing you'll notice, we're starting on a completely blank screen. No layout helpers, no containers, no grid. That's deliberate, it makes each control easier to see while you're learning. In Chapter 4 we'll switch to layout containers, which is how you'd start a real production app, and your screen will become responsive across phone and tablet. For now, don't worry about pixel-perfect alignment.

10. What you'll build

In the exercises ahead, you'll start building a two-screen app for a community library. You'll create the app, add and rename screens, drop in your first controls, and preview with the play button.

11. Let's practice!

Time to practice!

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