ShowError function changes its name to Notify as it learns some new tricks

A quick note.  A few months ago we introduced a new ShowError function that could display a banner error message.

We heard from the community that they liked it but wished they could display more than just errors.  This is one of those rare cases where we asked the engineering team about the possibilities and they said the code was actually already there, we just needed a way to expose it.  We had an opportunity to pick some low hanging fruit.

The name ShowError didn’t make sense for displaying a success message and it didn’t make sense to introduce another function that was so similar.  So we decided to rename ShowError to the more generic Notify and give it an optional argument for the type of message to display:

Full details are available in the formula reference.

You may be wondering if the function’s name change will break existing apps.  Not to worry, you shouldn’t notice any difference unless you look at the formula.  When you open an app that uses ShowError, PowerApps will automatically update it to the new name Notify and add the parameter for an error message.  We have facilities built in to the product to ensure we can evolve the language forward without sacrificing backward compatibility.

Note that using Notify is very different from sending a push notification.  The Notify function only shows a message while the app is active.