Loading Spinner while gallery data items are retrieved

[vladimir84]

Hi everyone,

I have 2 galleries, you click a row on the first, and the second's data is populated from SQL, filtered by the id_cal value of the first gallery.

I need to put spinner or a rectangle over the second gallery that says "Please wait", when the person clicks the 1st gallery's item, until the moment the 2nd gallery is populated with data.

It doesn't matter what it is, the tricky part is to show it until the data is completely loaded.

The reason for this is that the retrieval from SQL makes the gallery items behave like those old airport timetable flapping letters and if the retrieval takes longer than a couple of seconds, the user might think that the old data or gibberish data is the valid data. 

If this was probably answered, I'm having trouble finding it. 

[Anonymous]

any resolution to this issue ?

Having the same problem...

show a wait image while a Collection is being load... - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

Dave

[Anonymous]

any resolution to this issue yet ?

show a wait image while a Collection is being load... - Power Platform Community (microsoft.com)

Having the same issues when trying to load a Collection...need to display a spinner.

dave

[Anonymous]

Hi @vladimir84 , a little late to the party, but I'm wondering if you've found a solution to this problem.

I'm having a similar issue, except using SharePoint as a data source with lots of data being filtered on multiple conditions, and it makes the process very slow.

Would love to implement your:

If([3 moving dots].Visible, true, false)

solution 😛 

[hemabalan]

In Items property you cannot do any action like set etc..

[james_hathaway]

Yep,

This is a pretty common request, and a MAJOR hurdle in getting User adoption of PowerApps.

It is not immediately obvious that the App is "Thinking" or loading data - only those 2 dots across the top of the screen.

I have numerous Apps where I have used the "display a loading image on the screen" solution, by setting a variable at the start and end of a function. The problem is, PowerApps' multithreading IGNORES any commands that are still processing... and moves onto the next one.

If you do something like:

Set(_Loading, true);

ClearCollect(col_MyData,MyDataSource);

Set(_Loading,false);

It will execute the final line BEFORE the Clearcollect line has actually finished - making the entire exercise pointless!

And if you have a Gallery displaying the results of "col_MyData", then your loading splash screen will show up, then go away, but still no data in your gallery!

I've had probably 4-5 clients REJECT powerapps as a solution for this very reason.

It is completely unacceptable that we have no control or visibility of when Powerapps is "doing something in the background", other than those VERY CRAP marching dots - most Users don't even see them, so they simply think that the App has crashed or that their data has gone - usually resulting in refreshing the web page, and going through the entire process again.

This is fundamental functionality - i.e. don;t let the user do anything if the app/data is still loading - otherwise, all sorts of ugly things can happen - if you happen to be working with a Form that does not quite load quick enough, you actually get Users updating "empty" fields and saving, except they weren't actually empty, just not loaded yet, and the save actually CORRUPTS the data!

- Seriously, who creates a Database interface that actively corrupts your data?

There's obviously (at least 1) "idea" related to this, but it was posted nearly 5 years ago, so I wouldn't hold your breath for Microsoft to actually sort it out any time soon.

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/quot-Refreshing-quot-signal/idc-p/1572297#M3602...

Seriously Microsoft - this is a MAJOR Showstopper, and pretty basic stuff!

James.

[LaiCBRE]

PowerApps is getting lame the more I use it. I want to show a simple loading screen but it doesn't have EventHandlers like... tbl_TableName.IsBusy or Screen.DataIsLoading(<table/list name>)  that returns to true or false (something like that) so I can block/disable controls while Patching.

Very lame no code low code.

[ProgrammerJaDe]

There are simple solutions to these problems. The easiest is to use a global variable to turn on and off a loading experience before and after running the patch. 

Set(var_Loading,true);
Patch(collection,record,{data});

Set(var_Loading,false)

When doing this, you can flip on a loading screen, and it will not turn off until the patch is done. This is key, Set(var_Loading,false) in this example will not run until the Patch is complete.

With var_Loading set to on you can either show an animated gif, or do a gif plus and overlayed semitransparent background.  It accomplishes what you want. The user cannot interact with the app during the Patch and they have a visual queue that it is loading. 

[LaiCBRE]

That I did. I overlayed a container (with something like "loading...") to block the whole interface while doing database things and just toggled that to show-database things-hide.
It's just lame that there are no native/built-in solution to check those Events that happen in the background.