When changing the visual style of a collection (e.g., from Card to List), the custom logic configured in associated Add or Edit forms is lost. This includes:
Initial values
Validation rules
Visibility conditions
Custom actions
This causes a major loss of work, especially when forms are complex.
How to replicate
Go to any collection component (e.g. in a custom screen).
Ensure that the collection has custom Add/Edit forms with logic (initial values, validations, etc.).
Change the collection’s visual style from Card to List (or another style).
Open the Add or Edit form again.
→ You’ll see that all previously configured logic is reset or deleted.
This is a well known issue going back years. The general recommendation is to create workflows and call the workflow that opens your forms or screens instead of directly calling the action. Then if you change your collection style, the only thing you may have to do is point to that existing workflow again.
With that said, ‘Show Detail Screen’ and Show Edit Form’ layouts should be tied to the table, so they should never reset. However the same can’t be said for ‘Show New Screen’ and ‘Show Form Screen’ layouts, which you can have multiple independent layouts of those.
@Jeff_Hager beat me to the punch. Like he said, it isn’t a bug, necessarily, but it is an issue that’s been identified multiple times over the years that still hasn’t been fixed: