Blogs by Ashwin

  The Power Apps Studio To access Power Apps Studio, click on the Create Tab in the Dashboard. Occasionally, new features may be introduced, and elements might change, but the fundamental layout and structure will stay consistent. Each section serves a distinct purpose for the Citizen Developer. The Power Apps studio contain the following: App Authoring Menu There is Selection pane to switch between data sources and insert options. On the left pane in Power Apps Studio, you can switch between options such as- Tree View (like file explorer this allows you to navigate pages and controls in your apps) Insert (This is where you find controls you want to add to your apps) Themes (Change the underlying theme of your app) Data (You connect to sources of data for your app from here) Media (Import images, audio, video and other assets to the app studio) Power Automate - if you’d like to trigger automations from your Power App, you can do so from this icon. Variables (View global and lo...

  The Power Apps Dashboard The dashboard consolidates a selection of quick links to essential features of Power Apps to assist you in getting started swiftly. By clicking the Home Icon in the left navigation menu, a screen will appear. The primary sections to be aware of are outlined below: Start From Copilot- This is the newest feature of Power Apps and the Power Platform, enabling you to articulate the app you want to create using everyday language, while AI generates the app for you. It will offer a fundamental table and app structure to assist you in addressing your requirements. Copilot is continually enhancing, so this is certainly a tool worth revisiting from time to time. Other Ways To Create An App- We have several ways to initiate our app development process. We can begin with the data, which is a solid approach, or we can focus on page designs and app templates, heavily shaped by user experience. Your Apps- Below is a collection of apps commonly accessed within your Powe...

  Citizen Development "Citizen development" describes individuals without formal developer training who possess the capability to create business applications, tools, or processes. Embracing the role of a citizen developer enables you to shift your focus away from considerations of hiring help for enhancing your business processes, worrying about expenses, or questioning whether a developer will grasp your needs, and instead empowers you to independently craft productivity solutions. By utilizing resources like those from Collab365, you can embark on your journey and swiftly uncover the advantages of the Microsoft Power Platform in saving your business both time and money. Modern businesses are adopting Agile methodologies and concepts to enhance their ability to respond and adapt swiftly. Facilitating shorter and more efficient paths to improved workflows, decision-making, and information processing aids them in achieving that goal. This is where the Power Platform, ...

  Continuous Delivery Options When launching anything into production, it's essential to eliminate any uncertain elements. This is where Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CI/CD) become relevant. GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps (or Azure Pipelines) are two Microsoft options for implementing CI/CD. There are numerous other alternatives, such as Jenkins, TeamCity, and GitLab - the options are extensive. If our current CI/CD solution is compatible with deploying ASP.NET, it will also be capable of managing Blazor since Blazor essentially functions as an ASP.NET application. We should ensure that we establish tests as a component of our CI/CD pipeline. The great aspect is that there is no requirement for additional hardware to test our components, it will function as long as our CI/CD pipeline can execute unit tests (nUnit, xUnit). We can execute all builds and tests whenever a pull request is made. If both the build and tests are successful, a team member condu...

  Mocking The API We can implement the mock API in two ways. One option is to set up an in-memory database, but to maintain simplicity, we'll opt for the alternative and create posts on demand: Under MyBlog.Shared.Tests , right-click on the Dependencies node and select Add Project References. Check MyBlog.Shared and click Ok. Now our test project has access to all the classes in our shared project as well as all the classes the shared project is referring to, such as Interfaces in the MyBlog.Data.Shared project. Select the MyBlog.Shared.Tests project. Press Shift + F2 to create a new file and name the file MyBlogApiMock.cs . Add the following namespaces- using MyBlog.Data.Interfaces; using MyBlog.Data.Models; Implement the IMyBlogApi interface. For BlogPost , add code in the class. When we get a blog post, we simply create one and fill it with predefined information that we can later use in our tests. The same thing goes for getting a list of blog posts. The same thing goes ...

  Introduction Conducting tests will enhance the product's quality since it ensures that previously functioning features continue to operate correctly. However, writing tests for UI components can often be challenging; the most prevalent approach is to launch the site and utilize tools that simulate button clicks, then analyse the results to confirm whether everything works as expected. The benefit of this approach is that it allows us to test our site across various browsers and devices. The drawback is that this testing process can be quite time-consuming. We have to launch the web application, open a web browser, confirm the outcomes of the test, close the web browser, and then repeat this for each subsequent test. We can apply this approach in Blazor in the same way as with any ASP.NET application, but Blazor offers additional options for testing. Steve Sanderson initiated a testing framework for Blazor, which was further developed by Microsoft MVP Egil Hansen. The framework cr...