How to build a split button component for Power Apps
tl;dr
Less controls mean less user confusion and better performance - This blog post guides you through the creation of a simple yet effective split button component.
Let’s create a component
- Create a new canvas component
cmp_SplitButton
and add the following custom properties to itproperty type default splitButtonHeight Number 40
splitButtonWidth Number 196
primaryColor Color ColorValue("#1e6091")
secondaryColor Color ColorValue("#168aad")
textColor Color White
buttonText Text "open"
Onchange Behavior(Text) (needs boolean parameter called option
)Onselect Behavior(Boolean) true
- Add a button
btn_main
to the component - Set its OnSelect property to
cmp_SplitButton.Onselect()
- this will make sure that when we later call that function we will return atrue
so that we can determine in our app if that button was selected. - Now let’s refer to our custom properties:
property value BorderColor Self.Fill
Color cmp_SplitButton.textColor
Fill cmp_SplitButton.primaryColor
Height cmp_SplitButton.splitButtonHeight
HoverBorderColor cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor
HoverColor Self.Color
HoverFill cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor
PressedBorderColor cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor
PressedColor Self.Color
PressedFill cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor
Radius 0 Width cmp_SplitButton.splitButtonWidth-36
- Add a dropdown control
drp_options
to the component and refer as follows to our custom properties:
property | value |
---|---|
BorderColor | cmp_SplitButton.primaryColor |
ChevronBackground | cmp_SplitButton.primaryColor |
ChevronFill | cmp_SplitButton.textColor |
ChevronHoverBackground | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
ChevronHoverFill | cmp_SplitButton.textColor |
HoverBorderColor | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
Color | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
Fill | White |
Height | cmp_SplitButton.splitButtonHeight+2 |
HoverBorderColor | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
HoverColor | cmp_SplitButton.textColor |
HoverFill | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
PressedBorderColor | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
PressedColor | cmp_SplitButton.textColor |
PressedFill | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
SelectionColor | cmp_SplitButton.textColor |
SelectionFill | cmp_SplitButton.secondaryColor |
Width | cmp_SplitButton.splitButtonWidth+2 |
I know, that is a tedious task, but trust me, the result looks good.
- Set the Items property to any array that you like - I used
["open in SharePoint", "open in Teams", "send as an email"]
- Now let’s take of functionality of the dropdown - set the OnChange property to
cmp_SplitButton.Onchange(drp_options.SelectedText.Value)
.
Add Functionality to your component
Depending on your use case, you will want to at least
- determine, if the button has been selected (to then perform other actions)
- determine, which value has been selected in the dropdown.
To achieve this,
- Add your component to the app
- Set the Onselect (custom) property to
UpdateContext({loc_isButtonClicked:true})
- which saves aTrue
value in local variable to determine if that button was clicked. - Set the Onchange (custom) property to
UpdateContext({loc_selectedOption: option})
- this way you set a local variable to the Selected Text of your dropdown
Why is this better than a dropdown menu and a separate button?
We aim to deliver clean, consistent, and intuitive user experiences - and in cases where we want users to perform a main action or where its likely that one action is the most important action on a screen, we want to make that obvious to them. However sometimes, there are similar actions that can be performed as well - and then such a split button comes in handy. This design pattern is a great way to reduce visual clutter and provide a good user experience.
Feedback and what’s next?
I am curious - do you use split buttons as well? What are your use cases>? Let me know on twitter :-) If you found this blog post useful, please also subscribe to my newsletter - news coming about every 2 months, I promise to not spam you!
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