[ARCHIVED] Canvas and Windows 10

[rbeyers001]

How do I download Canvas on my Windows 10 Laptop.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rbeyers001  Welcome to the Canvas Community.  Thank you for posting your question.  I'm not really sure I understand your question.  Canvas is a web-based product, and so there isn't really anything to "download" in terms of the actual Canvas interface.  You would normally log in to your school's Canvas environment via a web browser (Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are your best choices here), and then you would access your courses that way.  The only things you might have to download are materials for your course...such as PowerPoint presentations, documents, etc. that might be provided by your instructor (if you are a student).  Otherwise, all other parts of Canvas are readily available to you after you log in.  I briefly looked at your school's website to see if I could find any information for you, and I came across this page: Frequently Asked Questions | Wilmington University.  It looks like there's a lot of great information for you to look through.  I hope it will be of help to you.  Thanks Robert...

[rbeyers001 · Accepted solution]

I guess I'm still learning the differences between a cell phone app to call canvas and my new PC laptop where you have a browser to bring up to access the internet. I guess I was thinking how would I get the app for my laptop so I could just click on it and bring up canvas, like the cell phone. My last PC was windows XP. But I have this new one with win10 and it looks so much like a cell phone screen, well, thats what I was thinking.

Thanks for the replly.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rbeyers001 ...

Ah!  Thank you for the additional explanation.  That makes more sense now.  To my knowledge, there is no Canvas app for you to download on your Windows 10 laptop.  Just download either the Mozilla Firefox or the Google Chrome web browser (I prefer Chrome) to your laptop, and then sign in to Canvas using your school's Canvas URL.  Which browsers does Canvas support?‌ and What are the basic computer specifications for Canvas?‌

And, if you don't have the mobile app installed on your phone yet, here are a few additional Guides for you:

• How do I download the Student app on my Android device?
• How do I download the Canvas Student app on my iOS device?
• How do I download the Teacher app on my Android device?
• How do I download the Teacher app on my iOS device?‌

Let us know if you have other questions about this, Robert...thanks!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rbeyers001  Welcome to the Canvas Community.  Thank you for posting your question.  I'm not really sure I understand your question.  Canvas is a web-based product, and so there isn't really anything to "download" in terms of the actual Canvas interface.  You would normally log in to your school's Canvas environment via a web browser (Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are your best choices here), and then you would access your courses that way.  The only things you might have to download are materials for your course...such as PowerPoint presentations, documents, etc. that might be provided by your instructor (if you are a student).  Otherwise, all other parts of Canvas are readily available to you after you log in.  I briefly looked at your school's website to see if I could find any information for you, and I came across this page: Frequently Asked Questions | Wilmington University.  It looks like there's a lot of great information for you to look through.  I hope it will be of help to you.  Thanks Robert...

[rbeyers001 · Accepted solution]

I guess I'm still learning the differences between a cell phone app to call canvas and my new PC laptop where you have a browser to bring up to access the internet. I guess I was thinking how would I get the app for my laptop so I could just click on it and bring up canvas, like the cell phone. My last PC was windows XP. But I have this new one with win10 and it looks so much like a cell phone screen, well, thats what I was thinking.

Thanks for the replly.

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rbeyers001 ...

Ah!  Thank you for the additional explanation.  That makes more sense now.  To my knowledge, there is no Canvas app for you to download on your Windows 10 laptop.  Just download either the Mozilla Firefox or the Google Chrome web browser (I prefer Chrome) to your laptop, and then sign in to Canvas using your school's Canvas URL.  Which browsers does Canvas support?‌ and What are the basic computer specifications for Canvas?‌

And, if you don't have the mobile app installed on your phone yet, here are a few additional Guides for you:

• How do I download the Student app on my Android device?
• How do I download the Canvas Student app on my iOS device?
• How do I download the Teacher app on my Android device?
• How do I download the Teacher app on my iOS device?‌

Let us know if you have other questions about this, Robert...thanks!

[Bulldog]

Hello, It would be nice in my opinion to have a desktop app for Canvas much like the mobile app. Is this something that Canvas may work on in the future?  Currently I have to login to my school's website and then go to Canvas which could be made easier if there were a desktop based app that simply allows you to launch directly into Canvas and quickly allow me access to my classes.  I know there are probably bookmarks and such that I could create, but it would be nice if it were a standalone app that could be installed in the Windows environment.  Would be happy to test if the team is working on something already, if not, how do we make recommendations outside of this forum?

[chalk]

Heya!

I'm just a university student that also has to use Canvas for classes, but I thought you might find this helpful. Even though Canvas for PC is only on the web, you can still open your courses straight from your desktop. By creating desktop shortcuts to the browser pages, it works almost like having a desktop application - and you get to cut out the middleman.

Here's a great resource I found on how to do that:

How to create desktop shortcuts on Windows 10 | How-To Geek 

The info is about halfway down the page. Since you can do this with any link, you could make individual shortcuts for each of your classes if you wanted to!

Hope this helps. -A

[lalee24601]

Chris' advice should work. I just started using Canvas on my Surface Pro 7 and can easily access both teacher and student accounts. Good luck!

[sbridge]

Can you use the Surface Pro pen in speed grader.  To have better functionality we need the APP, the web based Canvas doesn't work well with the SPro pen.  My Samsung note works great for anotating in in Speed grader but its too small.  My Surface Pro is larger and has a pen but doesn't work well in web version. I need the "App"

[benprytherch · Accepted solution]

Seconding sbridge's post, us Windows users need either:

a) An app version, not in a brower, or
b) A functional freehand annotating tool in speed grader that works in a browser.  The current one simply does not work.  Every time you make a mark, a box comes up with a save/delete option, making it *impossible* (not difficult, impossible) to write.  The "workaround" is to hold down a the mouseclick button on the pen, which means that the pen cannot be lifted.  

I'm using a Wacom One tablet.  Again, the problem is not that the freehand annotation too in the web broswer simply doesn't work as well on on an iPad.  It is that it utterly unusable.

[lmrezac]

Yes, I absolutely agree with benprytherch, using a surface pen on my surface tablet trying to grade using speedgrader through the browser version of canvas speedgrader (docviewer?) is absolutely terrible.  I must use connected cursive letters for every word and the save/delete option box is constantly in the way.  Since it doesn't work, but I still want to annotate by hand and not type,   I have to 

1. Download the files to the Surface. 

2. Unzip the files.  

3. Open them in explorer

4.  Mark them

5. Save each one

6. Rezip

7. Upload

In each step, there's likely something that can go wrong, so it's very frustrating.  Please make a windows app so that grading is as easy as for those using an android or ios app.  

[NICHOLASTAM]

Completely agree with this I just discovered that iOS and Android has note-taking capabilities for all PDFs uploaded from the class. This is an awesome feature but assuming not everyone has access to an iOS/Android Tablet makes it very difficult to accomplish digital note-taking. Having a web-based browser option or PC-compatible app with the annotation feature, while being able to upload/download the PDF with the newly embedded annotation, would make this app so much more accessible and desirable to use.