[ARCHIVED] Design Tools (Kennethware) - Persistence of Designed Pages

[rake_9]

We have have had Design Tools (apparently aka Kennethware;  @kenneth_larsen  available to our users during the the pilot phases of our Canvas adoption.  As we move into full adoption, we are needing to decide whether to continue to provide Design Tools. 

A key factor in making this decision is what happens to Pages that have been created using Design Tools if, at some point in the future, Design Tools were to go away?

Our assumption is that Pages created with Design Tools would continue to function for students, until the instructor tried to edit them.  The pages would "revert" to the closest properties then available.  Is that correct?

Thanks,

Valerie

[kenneth_larsen]

 @rake_9 ​,

It is possible that Canvas could change things so drastically that I will stop supporting the open source version of Design Tools. However, Design Tools are used to create HTML content in a structured and repeatable way. Once that HTML is created, it is what it is and will remain that way until edited. If Design Tools were to go away, the content created with them would remain and as long as you keep the CSS in your global CSS sheet it will continue to display with the theme styling. Should Canvas change things sufficiently that Design Tools will no longer function, the only potential loss is some of the dynamic elements created after the content loads (accordions, module details, quick checks, etc.) Each of these items is created in a readable way in the HTML and then rewritten for the end user using JavaScript so that the content will still be readable and accessible even should the rewrite stop working.

Hopefully that answers your question, if not ask some more and I will try to further clarify. Also, in case you are not aware, version 3 of Design Tools is available as a SaaS solution through Cidi Labs.

[John_Lowe]

 @kenneth_larsen ​, in this new SaaS model, if a school decides to stop using Design Tools, would the hosted CSS go away too -- breaking everything that was ever created with Design Tools?  In the self-hosted model, as long as we keep the global CSS in place, things stay around even if we no longer use the JS.  Can you elaborate on how that might (or might not) change with the SaaS model?

[kenneth_larsen]

With the SaaS model, if a school decides to stop using Design Tools, they would be given the hosted CSS as it stands at that point and would need to either add it to their Canvas stylesheet or host it on their own servers and continue to import it into their Canvas stylesheet. Once again, they would no longer have access to the JavaScript that makes the more dynamic elements work, but the styling and content would remain. Cidi Labs is still trying to work out the exact details but that was my recommendation.

There has also been some talk about trying to create a self contained JavaScript file that an institution could host and still provide those dynamic elements for already existing content, but the feasibility of that one is still under consideration.

[Robbie_Grant]

 @rake_9 ,

We are giving the Canvas Admins area a little bit of love (especially questions that are really, really old) and just want to check in with you.  This will also bring this question new attention. 

Were you able to find an answer to your question? I am going to go ahead and mark this question as answered because there hasn't been any more activity in a while so I assume that you have the information that you need. If you still have a question about this or if you have information that you would like to share with the community, by all means, please do come back and leave a comment.  Also, if this question has been answered by one of the previous replies, please feel free to mark that answer as correct.

Robbie