Creating an Elegant Power Apps Mobile Navigation Menu - Part 1

How to Build a Navigation Menu in Power Apps

Creating a beautiful navigation menu in Power Apps can significantly enhance both user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). Through a series of steps, users can develop a layered, elegant and fully functional mobile navigation menu using a HTML control. This tutorial will be divided into several sections for clarity and ease of understanding.

This is a detailed exploration of the different parts involved in creating the menu. It involves generating a menu background through a HTML control, using a gallery to create menu items, replacing static icons with SVGs, and developing reusable components from the elements built in previous parts.

Users who are not familiar with using a HTML control or SVGs need not fret. The lesson promises to carefully go over these aspects in detail, making it easy to understand irrespective of the user’s background knowledge. For those who wish to reuse the component, it will soon be available on the author's GitHub.

HTML control is a superb tool to introduce additional styling using inline CSS that Power Apps does not natively provide. Exploring the HTML control can help users push their creative boundaries, resulting in an eye-catching menu. Users develop the base of their control using the HTML control, adding box shadow and border radius for a professional finish.

The tutorial guides users on how to add the HTML control to their canvas. It also teaches the intricacies of adding a box and how to use the div tag in the code. Furthermore, users can set the dimensions of their control according to preference while leaving enough space to add drop shadow.

Additional aspects such as color and border radius are also explained. The tutorial uses a slightly transparent grey color and a uniform border-radius of 36px for all corners. However, for those who prefer different border-radius for various corners, they need to specify in this order: top, right, bottom, left.

Drop shadow is another feature that is added to the control. This not only enhances the UI but also adds depth to it. Users can modify the dimensions, blur, and offset or even the color of the box shadow as per their liking. The tutorial provides an example for better comprehension.

Moving forward, users learn how to fix the cut-off line on the blur's left side by adding the margin property to the control. They also learned how to add a bar at the bottom of the menu, either through HTML or by adding a rectangle/button. Finally, they learn how to add a gradient to their HTML control using the background-image property.

This guide in building a menu with Power Apps includes options to personalize each step, so users can implement their preferences in the design. It offers a step-by-step explanation that ensures Power Apps users, regardless of their previous knowledge or exposure, to create an efficient and aesthetically pleasing navigation menu.