Upcoming Canvas Changes
New Canvas User Interface (UI): July 9
On July 9, 2016, the New Canvas Interface will no longer be a Feature Option in Canvas and will be enabled for all Canvas users as a standard feature. Enabling the New UI affects the user interface for the entire Canvas account.
In this production release (May 14), the Theme Editor includes a color setting for showing the number of unread Conversations messages, and the Groups page design has been updated to complement the Courses page. Several other small changes have been made to various feature areas.
The production release notes also include fixed bugs.
Canvas New Feature Screencast (2016-05-14)
Next release schedule:
- Beta release and notes: May 23
- Production release notes: May 31 (in observance of Memorial Day in the United States)
- Production release and documentation: June 4
Production release notes indicate Canvas updates that will be included with Saturday’s release and are subject to change. New features may differ from those available in your beta environment. Learn more about the Canvas Release Schedule.
- New Features
- Theme Editor
- Updated Features
- Groups
- Other Updates
- Courses
- Dashboard
- Discussions
- Login
- Grades
- Terms
- Platform/Integration
- APIs
- Authentication
- Fixed Bugs
New Features |
Theme Editor
Badge Text
In the Theme Editor, admins can set a value for the text color in the Nav Badge. The Nav Badge is the Global Navigation Inbox icon.
Located in the Global Navigation Theme Editor section, the Nav Badge Text option allows admins to choose a complimentary color for the text number that appears in the middle of the Nav Badge. This feature allows admins to change the color of the text when the default theme text conflicts with the color of the badge itself.
Updated Features |
Groups
Groups Page Updates
The Groups page design has been redesigned to incorporate the styles used in the Dashboard. The page displays all group details in a column format for easier readability. This change mostly affects the new Canvas UI; the legacy UI design only adds page headings to show each column type.
Note: Currently the Groups page does not display course nicknames.
Other Updates |
Courses
Enrollment Invitations and Restricted Start Dates
When a student is invited to a course where students are restricted from accessing the course before the start date, students do not receive an enrollment invitation until the course is available as part of the course, term, or section start date.
When a user created a course and enabled the Restrict students from accessing before start date option enabled, regardless of the course state, the student received a course invitation that redirected to the login page. This behavior affected accounts with self registration enabled as students were not able to create an account to accept the invitation. Canvas code has been updated to not send an enrollment invitation until the course is available to the student.
Dashboard
To Do Ignore Icon Alignment
The To Do list notification aligns with the To Do item text, and the Ignore icon does not overlap items with long names.
Courses Notification Icon Alignment (New Canvas UI)
The notification indicator for a course card have been aligned to the right of the notification icon.
Logo Padding Removal (New Canvas UI)
In the Global Navigation Menu, the extra padding under the logo has been removed.
Discussions
View Discussions Permissions
The View Discussions permission allows users to view the Discussions link in Course Navigation and any posted discussions in the Discussions Index Page. However, posting to discussions and managing discussions are still separate permissions that must be enabled for each respective function; if the View Discussions permission is disabled, being able to manage discussions does not generate automatic read rights to the Discussions page.
When the View Announcements or View Discussions course permission had been disabled, the link was appearing in Course Navigation but not loading any content because of overriding discussions permissions. Canvas code has been updated to restrict access to announcements and discussions by disabling the View Discussions or View Announcements permissions. Disabling each respective permission also prevents new announcements or discussions from displaying in the Dashboard and Course Navigation, as well as not generating any relevant notifications to users in the course.
Login
Maximum Width Removal (New Canvas UI)
The login page is centered in the browser window and there is no set maximum page width. No login functionality is affected.
Grades
Concluded and Inactive Enrollment Setting Persistence
When an instructor enables or disables the setting to view concluded and/or inactive enrollments for a course Gradebook, the enrollments view persists between Canvas sessions and browsers. Gradebook settings are set on a course-by-course basis.
Terms
User Count Removal
This feature was deployed to the production environment on May 2.
In the Terms page, each term no longer shows the number of enrolled users.
When an admin tried to view the Terms page, the page timed out if the institution included a large number of enrollments because the page was trying to calculate the number of all enrolled users. Canvas code has been updated to remove the user count for each term in the Terms page. The enrollment count will be replaced with a performance enhancement in available in a future release.
Platform/Integration |
APIs
For details about using Canvas APIs, please see https://www.canvaslms.com/policies/api-policy
Courses API
In the Courses API, users can update a course and set the action for each course with the event parameter. Supported events include claim, offer, conclude, delete, and undelete.
Outcome Groups API
This feature was deployed to the production environment on May 4.
In the Outcome Groups API, users can list linked outcomes and view each outcome style with the outcome_style parameter. Additional outcome information includes the description, points possible, mastery points, and ratings.
Users API
In the Users API, admins can split merged users into separate users. If there are multiple users that have been merged into one user it will split each merge into a separate user. A split can only happen within 90 days of a user merge. A user merge deletes the previous user and may be permanently deleted. Other restrictions are included in the API documentation for splitting merged users.
Authentication
Oauth2 Token Type
The oauth2 standard includes the token_type field as part of the access token response. The response is shown as token_type: 'Bearer'. However, institutions can choose to ignore this response.
Fixed Bugs |
Accessibility
Announcements
When a user reaches the bottom of the announcements list, the Loading More Results message is read by screen readers.
Assignments
When adding an External Tool, the Configure External Tool dialog window retains focus.
Dashboard
Course card icons include a tooltip with the name of each icon.
Files
Users can upload files in Safari.
Gradebook
In the Individual View Gradebook, the Notes column generates a warning for screen reader users when the column contains more than 255 characters.
The Score Details graph is hidden from screen readers.
Individual View Gradebook error messages can be read by screen readers.
The Individual View Gradebook Message Students Who buttons retain focus even if they are disabled. Additionally, points possible are included in the assignment description.
Grade History text is included after every assignment name.
In the Student Grades page, the Show/Hide All Details button is read as a button.
Help Menu
In the Report a Problem menu, the text block retains focus for screen readers.
Outcomes
Outcome titles can be read by screen readers.
Pages
Pages table headers and content can be read by screen readers.
Quizzes
The quiz history and number of attempts for a student quiz can be read by screen readers.
The Quiz Statistics page does not include unnecessary tab indexes. Additionally, the download button can be read by screen readers.
The Quiz Statistics page includes alternative text to identify correct and incorrect responses.
Settings
In both Account and Course Settings, the Enter key changes the Feature Options toggle buttons when the toggle is the focused element.
SpeedGrader
When a rubric contains 10 or more criterion, tabbing through the rubric fields does not affect the Add a Comment section at the bottom of the rubric.
Calendar
Calendar Event Dates and non-US-English Languages
In non-US-English accounts, dates for new Calendar events are retained when a user clicks the More Options button.
Explanation: When a user created a new calendar event with an account set to a language other than English (US), clicking the More Options button removed the entered date of the event. Canvas code has been updated to retain event dates for all languages.
Calendar Event Tooltip Text Color
After changing the color for a calendar, the tooltip for the event retains the new course color.
Explanation: When a user changed the color for a calendar and then hovered over an event, the tooltip color reverted to the previous color. Canvas code has been updated to retain the updated color for a calendar.
Students and Non-editable Calendar Events
Students cannot drag course events to another date in the Calendar.
Explanation: When a student tried to drag a course event to another date in the Calendar, the course event would move to the new date but would disappear. After a page refresh, the event would reappear in the original date. Canvas code has been updated to not allow students to drag non-editable course events; personal events can still be changed by dragging the event in the Calendar.
Courses
Enrollment Invitations and Restricted Start Dates
When a student is invited to a course where students are restricted from accessing the course before the start date, students do not receive an enrollment invitation until the course is available as part of the course, term, or section start date.
Explanation: When a user created a course and enabled the Restrict students from accessing before start date option enabled, regardless of the course state, the student received a course invitation that redirected to the login page. This behavior affected accounts with self registration enabled as students were not able to create an account to accept the invitation. Canvas code has been updated to not send an enrollment invitation until the course is available to the student.
Instructors and Invitation Previews
If an institution has enabled invitation previews, instructors can view unpublished courses.
Explanation: When an admin created an unpublished course and invited an instructor to the course, the instructor was not able to view the course if the institution had enabled invitation previews. Invitation previews allow a user to view a preview of the course before accepting the course invitation. This behavior occurred when an instructor clicked any link other than the course invitation Accept link, such as the title of the course. Canvas code has been updated to allow instructors to accept a course invitation and view the unpublished course.
Discussions
View Discussions Permissions
The View Discussions permission allows users to view the Discussions link in Course Navigation and view posted discussions in the Discussions Index Page.
Explanation: When the View Announcements or View Discussions course permission had been disabled, the link was appearing in Course Navigation but not loading any content because of overriding discussions permissions. Canvas code has been updated to restrict access to announcements and discussions by disabling the View Discussions or View Announcements permissions. Disabling each respective permission also prevents new announcements or discussions from displaying in the Dashboard and Course Navigation, as well as not generating any relevant notifications to users in the course.
Enrollments
Linked Enrollments and Restored Observers
This change was deployed to the production environment on April 29.
Restored observer accounts retain any linked enrollments.
Explanation: When an observer enrollment was deleted from an account, any associated linked enrollments were also deleted. If the observer enrollment was re-created in the account, all associated linked enrollments were not retained. Canvas code has been updated to restore all linked enrollments when an observer enrollment is re-created.
Global Announcements
Non-US-English Dates
In non-US-English accounts, dates for Global Announcements are retained.
Explanation: When a user created a global announcement with an account set to a language other than English (US), entering a date for the global announcement generated a page error. Canvas code has been updated to retain global announcement dates for all languages.
Grades
Muted Assignments and Tooltips
When an instructor starts to grade a muted assignment, the muted assignment tooltip fades from the Gradebook.
Explanation: When an instructor muted an assignment in the Gradebook and hovered over the grading cells, the page generated a tooltip that was not removed if the instructor clicked in a different Gradebook cell. Canvas code have been updated to face tooltip text through CSS browser enhancements.
Gradebook Section Loading
This change was deployed to the production environment on May 2.
Instructors can view all student information when loading the Gradebook by section.
Explanation: When an instructor tried to view the Gradebook by a specific section, the Gradebook was not able to complete the loading process and display all student grades. This behavior affected courses that included at least 11 assignment groups and a large number of students in the course. Canvas code has been updated to display all section data in the Gradebook for large courses and assignment groups.
Grading Schemes and Decimal Ranges
If a grading scheme range ends with specific decimals, student grade assignments are applied from ranges within the course grading scheme.
Explanation: When a grading scheme range ended in 54.3, 54.5, or 55.5, and a student's final grade in a course was exactly one of those percentages, the final grade assigned was the grade associated to the previous percentage range. Canvas code has been updated to assign a final grade according to the grading scheme.
Help Menu
Course Context and Instructor Messages
When a student sends a message to an instructor through the Help Menu, the subject line includes the name of the selected course.
Explanation: When a student opened the Help Menu and sent a message through the Ask Your Instructor a Question link, the subject of the message showed multiple course names if the instructor shared multiple enrollments with the student. However, course names were not affected in any notifications generated directly through the Conversations Inbox. Canvas code has been updated to show the correct course association when a message is generated from the Help Menu.
Modules
Module Links and Collapsing Content
Collapsing a module with multiple module items does not affect links to content within the module.
Explanation: When an instructor created and published a module with enough module items to scroll down the page and added a link to another module later in the course, collapsing the module preceding the module link and clicking the link caused the page to re-scroll to locate the linked module. Canvas code has been updated to always ensure the target module from a link is always visible.
Notifications
Pages
If a user has enabled the Course Content notification setting to ASAP, notifications are sent when an instructor edits a course page.
Explanation: When an instructor edited page content in Canvas and selected the Notify users that this content has changed checkbox, users who had enabled the Course Content notification as ASAP were not receiving notifications about the updated page. Canvas code has been updated to generate notifications about updated pages for ASAP notifications.
Pages
Pages API
When a user changes the user role(s) that can create, rename, and edit course wiki pages by default in Course Settings, the Pages API does not change the updated date of all pages.
Explanation: When an instructor updated the course settings and changed the user role(s) that can create, rename, and edit course wiki pages by default, the Pages API updated the time of the page edit but not the user who edited the page. This behavior updated the timestamp for all pages in the course but did not update the revision history. Canvas code has been updated to not change the updated_at parameter in the API.
Quizzes
Student Grades and Pending Submissions
Overall grades shown in the Global Navigation Menu do not include partial grades from oustanding manually graded quizzes.
Explanation: When students viewed their overall grades from the Global Navigation Menu, their grades were scored as if any outstanding manually graded quizzes were scored as zero. However, if they viewed their grades from within the course, the quizzes were not treated as being scored as zero unless the Calculate based only on graded assignments checkbox was selected in the sidebar. Canvas code has been updated to not include outstanding manually graded quizzes in a student’s overall grades but still apply the partial quiz grade to the final score shown in the course.
Quiz Questions with Underscores and Numbers
Multiple-Fill-in-the-Blank quiz questions retain correct variables when using underscores and numbers in answers.
Explanation: When an instructor created a Multiple-Fill-in-the-Blank quiz question, any underscores followed by a number inside multiple variables were rearranged in the quiz. All answers entered after the first variable were being moved under the first variables answers. This behavior did not affect any answers that contained a letter after an underscore. Canvas code has been updated to retain answers under correct variables when using underscores and numbers.
Rich Content Editor
ePortfolio Content
This change was deployed to the production environment on May 6.
ePortfolio content is retained after editing content in the Rich Content Editor.
Explanation: When a user edited and saved content in an ePortfolio, the edited content was not retained in the page after refreshing the page. Canvas code has been updated to retain edited content in the Rich Content Editor when page content is saved.
Terms
User Count Removal
In the Terms page, each term no longer shows the number of enrolled users.
Explanation: When an admin tried to view the Terms page, the page timed out if the institution included a large number of enrollments because the page was trying to calculate the number of all enrolled users. Canvas code has been updated to remove the user count for each term in the Terms page. The enrollment count will be replaced with a performance enhancement in available in a future release.
