Icons
Most apps include icons that are easily understood, such as the floppy disk icon for "Save" or the back arrow for "Back". The advantages of using an icon versus a label or a button is that the icon requires no text and it can usually fit places that text simply won't.
Power Apps includes the Icon control and provides many out-of-the-box icons that you can use throughout your app. Since icons are controls, they all have customizable properties including OnSelect and Color. You can insert an icon into your app by selecting the Insert button from the command bar. If you expand the Icons field, you can scroll through the complete list of available icons.
Adding an icon
If you've been building on our Contoso Coffee Machines app, then you've already dabbled a bit with the icon control (we changed a right arrow to an edit pencil). If you want to follow along with us, we'll use our Contoso Coffee Machines app to add a couple of icons. If you don't have this app, you can open any app and follow along.
Open the Contoso Coffee Machines app and select the "Catalog Screen".
Insert a "Back arrow" icon, by selecting Insert from the command bar. You can find it by expanding the Icons option, or simply by inputting "back" into the Insert search field.
Note
When you insert the new icon, it picks up the selected Theme color scheme.
Reposition your new Back arrow icon in the top left corner of your header rectangle.
Change the color of the Back arrow to white by selecting the Color button from the command bar and selecting the white circle under Standard colors at the bottom left corner of the option box.
Next, update the OnSelect property to:
Back()Next, using your Back arrow icon as a template, copy it and then paste it onto your "Admin Screen". That way, you can avoid adjusting the Color and OnSelect properties.
Changing an icon
You might remember that we can change the type of icon by changing the Icon property of the Icon control. We'll do that next, as we make a home screen icon.
Copy/paste another Back arrow icon onto your "Admin Screen".
Position it in the upper right corner of your header rectangle.
Notice that you have an Icon property button in the command bar, select that button and find/select the Home icon (you can input "home" in the search field to help). Notice that the Back arrow immediately changes to the Home icon. You can do this with any Power Apps icon!
Finally, let's modify the OnSelect property to return to our "Home Screen" by inputting:
Navigate('Home Screen')
Even though our app only has three screens, you can see the utility of a Home icon as a selectable control in an app with multiple screens, where a selectable Back arrow wouldn't necessarily return us to the app's home screen.
Icons are an easy control you can use to enhance user interface with your app! Let's learn more about the Image control in the next unit.