Order Discussion Posts from Newest to Oldest

Currently, the discussion posts are ordered from oldest to newest.  A student/professor has to scroll or go to the last page and then scroll to get to the latest post.

 

Canvas REALLY needs to re-order this so that newest discussion posts appear at the top of the first page so that it is easy to find current conversations.

 

This topic had 100+ likes in the old community and I was really surprised not to see it on here already (I searched for this using several different search terms).   I sure hope we don't have to go through and re-idea every single feature request that had at least 30 likes and was years old with no action or response from Instructure.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For more information, please read through the  Canvas Release Notes (2021-06-19).

140 Comments
kboston
Community Novice

There's no question that sorting posts from newest to oldest would be a significant improvement.  Especially with courses that are popular, the strings become very long, and it is incredibly inconvenient to have to click to the last page and then scroll to the bottom to find your post, or comments made about it. 

Sorting posts from newest to oldest would streamline the interface, and make Canvas, which overall is a great system, much better.

Ken Boston

Harrisburg, NE

JBurnson
Community Novice

This would be a huge help for mobile devices.

donaldjo
Community Novice

Because different courses have different needs, I believe this should be an option, but not a default setting.

clong
Community Champion

Agreed! Most recent should be on top by default. I'd also lobby that this be applied to the way the syllabus​ is sorted.

TDennis
Community Novice

Definitely!  I've thought this for ages.

brendaa
Community Contributor

We just moved to Canvas and faculty who used Discussions in our pilots really did not like the fact that the most recent posts were on they bottom.  In a large discussion this meant a lot of scrolling.  This is doubly annoying on a phone.  Please make the sort an option.

criggall
Community Novice

I would love to see the most recent submissions at the top of the page.  Also, I would like to see it so that if someone responds to a thread, that entire thread is moved to the top.  Or at least make this an option.

tdelillo
Community Champion

I voted this up, but I agree that it should be an option, not a total change.

chriscas
Community Coach
Community Coach

I don't mind this being an option, but it definitely shouldn't be the only way the discussion is presented.  It can make sense to see new posts, but for someone joining a discussion when there are already 50 posts made, displaying them in newest-first order really makes the discussion hard to get familiar with.

Beth_Young
Community Contributor

It would be great if users could sort and re-sort the discussion posts in an order that makes sense for them. Sometimes I might want to see them oldest to newest. Other times newest to oldest.