Removing the "View All Pages" button

(1)
When you set up a course for anyone on the web to view various pages using the "Make this course publicly visible (student data will remain private)"  feature in the course settings, and you disable the Pages in the Course Navigational links.  The "View All Pages" button will still show to all who access the page.  If a user clicks on the button, it returns the user to the home page and informs them the page has been disabled.

 

Please add logic that when the Pages feature is disabled in the navigational section, the "View all button is disabled in the top of the page.  Currently if some is viewing pages from the module section, this heading is not shown.

 

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61 Comments
G_Petruzella
Community Champion

This makes sense, and (to my layperson's eye) would seem relatively simple to implement.

awilliams
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Agreed  @robert_wakelyn ​, this should be how it works imho.

jrd
Community Explorer

Now, this really makes sense in more ways than one!

mlattke
Instructure
Instructure

I agree with this change.  If you have hidden the pages navigation, then you don't want user to go to a random list of pages.  This is confusing for the user.  I love many of the new look changes to Canvas that have happened over the last year or so and having a list of the pages is a great change from the old sidebar page list, but the View All Pages button should not be visible to all users all the time.

BKINNEY
Community Contributor

Maybe this needs to be moved to bug reports.

kona
Community Champion

We've talked with Canvas and they don't consider it a bug. sadpanda​

BKINNEY
Community Contributor

Oookaay. I guess I will vote for it, then.

kona
Community Champion

LOL... 🙂

r_v_jones
Community Contributor

As has been said already. If you have removed the page link then having the View all pages is pointless.

I think it would be a useful course setting option to either enable or disable as required.

robin_galloway
Community Participant

We also spoke to our CSM about this problem yesterday and shared the screenshots below. This creates confusion for students in any course when the instructor has purposely hidden Pages from course navigation. When students view an individual page via a module they are invited with cookie crumb navigation and a big View All Pages button, then they encounter a confusing error telling them "this page has been disabled for this course". If you hide Pages from Navigation, that button and the cookie crumbs should not provide a link to the user that they are not permitted to view.

screenshot1.png

screenshot2.png

jared
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

It makes sense to me that if you have hidden the Pages tool link from the nav bar, "View all pages" should be automatically hidden.


Or, it could make sense to simply remove "View all pages" entirely and rely on the Pages tool link in the nav bar for course designers who want to make all pages accessible to students.

The best available workaround would be to have your institutional admin hide the "View all pages" button using global CSS or Javascript. This would apply to all courses within the institution (or department, if applied at a Sub-Account).

allison
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Thanks everyone for your feedback! This interaction is on my radar and I have scheduled a conversation to explore this further with our UX team after InstructureCon. In the meantime, please help me define the problem(s):

As a student navigating a Canvas course, if the Pages feature is disabled in the course, I shouldn't be distracted by buttons or links that redirect me to the Pages index page.

-I shouldn't see the "View all Pages" button above any content page in the course.

-I shouldn't see the "Pages" breadcrumb link above any content page in the course.

Does this accurately reflect your ideas?

mlattke
Instructure
Instructure

Thanks, Allison, for responding to this!  That is so great!!

I think that accurately reflects what is wrong with the current scenario. 

However, I think my preference, FWIW, would be to have the Pages button on the sidebar go to list of pages (rather than the front page that I then have to click another button to get the list) and to remove the show all pages button all together. 

As a teacher I can either show or hide the button on the sidebar if I want students to see all the pages.  The button at the top takes up extra real estate, bumps page content down, and doesn't seem to add any value (IMHO).  Nor does it seem consistent with the rest of the Canvas navigation (individual quizzes don't have a show all quizzes button and individual discussions don't have a show all discussions button).

Just my two cents....hope that helps!

kona
Community Champion

YES! This is definitely what we are thinking! 🙂

I would also have to agree with the Pages link on the sidebar go to a list of pages rather than the Homepage. That makes no sense at all!

mpoole
Community Explorer

​yes!  When I click the pages link on the sidebar I want to see all the pages and/or create a new page. Hitting the front page adds annoying extra steps.

As long as I retain the ability to set a page as the home page, I don't need a pages first page. That function is achieved by modules or landing page navigation.

robin_galloway
Community Participant

Yes, Allison! What you wrote precisely defines the problem. Thanks for your attention to this!

And I think Michelle Lattke also made a good point about the View All Pages button being inconsistent with other areas when she wrote:

Nor does it seem consistent with the rest of the Canvas navigation (individual quizzes don't have a show all quizzes button and individual discussions don't have a show all discussions button).

BKINNEY
Community Contributor

The View All Pages button is a really non-standard piece of UI, no matter when or where it appears. In my opinion, the best workflow would be if there were never a VAP button, and that when you click on the Pages button, you see BOTH the Home page and the Pages Table of Contents. The TOC could sit beneath the Pages menu item, and only be revealed when you are in Pages. The same should be true with Modules. I want to be able to see what is in the module without leaving the page I'm currently on.

Assuming that isn't going to happen, though. I'll add my vote to Allison and the others. It would be better to go directly to the full list than to the home page if there's no way to present the menu in context.

A lot of people are migrating to Canvas from Sakai. In Sakai, one of the tools that gets the most use is Files. Because the Sakai Files tool is far superior to Canvas' same-named tool, people struggle to replicate the functionality they are used to having. In fact, for users on our campus who use Files as their primary tool, I don't recommend migrating at all. They are better off in Sakai. If Pages had a decent way to structure a table of contents and present that to readers in context, it would leapfrog Sakai, and take the pressure off of Files.

allison
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

I spoke with our UX team this morning and they have committed to look into this further. No promises on if or when we would make a change, but at least they will consider their options.

Let me state the other use case that has emerged from this discussion. Please tell me if I am accurately representing your idea:

As an instructor, if I click on a feature link in the course navigation, I should see the index page for that feature instead of a child page of that feature.

-I shouldn't see the currently active Front page when I click on "Pages" in the Course Navigation

-I should see the Pages index page when I click on the "Pages" link in the Course Navigation

Is this what the voters on this thread want? Can anyone think of a situation when you would *not* want the Pages link in the Course Nav to behave this way?

This is great feedback. Thanks again!

kona
Community Champion

Yes, this is what I think should happen!​

curtain
Community Participant

Yes, this is the right solution for us for this behavior