[ARCHIVED] Links to Another Canvas Item

[ldprogrammers]

I haven't found a way yet to create a page inside of my canvas course and provide a link to another course item such as a discussion and have it behave nicely inside of the mobile app.  It works great in a regular browser.  But in the mobile app, it opens another browser window instead of staying in the app.  I know I can write the link so it behaves in the mobile app by changing the href but then it breaks in the regular browser.  How do I make links like that intuitive based on a regular browser versus the app?

[rseilham]

Are you using Android or iOS?

[ldprogrammers]

I believe this happens in android and iOS apps.  We need a way that we can have a link inside of a page to another item and allow it to be dynamic so it behaves no matter if the user is on one of the mobile apps or using a full browser.

[rseilham]

I don't have this issue on the iOS (3.8.4) or Android (4.3.1) version of the app. Are you using the latest versions?

When I link on a page to a specific discussion it takes me there in the app. This works when I hard link or use the Insert Content into the Page menu.

Maybe you can share some screenshots or a video.  Thanks.

[ldprogrammers]

This is what happens....we are inside of the app on my iPhone.  We have an external page that is iframed into a page or just linked out.  On that external page, we provide a link to the assignment we want to refer to.  I know that there is a way to make a link that opens in the app, however, we need to have something dynamic so that the link will work in the app or in a regular browser.

How can I determine if mobile app use canvas-courses:// or if a browser use: https://?

Start in the app....

Go to the content page on that is on an external site:

Click on the link to go back to assignments on the content page and it opens the entire canvas website and does not recognize that it is in the app.

[bkraus]

That's an interesting use case we hadn't considered. There should be something that we can do to route you to the native experience. I agree that that would be a lot better of an experience, especially for those teachers that are heavily using pages to link to other items in their course.

[ldprogrammers]

If I can just get something into the header, I can create a php program that the user links to and allow the php program to read the header information and determine the redirect to the proper url.  But I need a way to determine if it is the app or a regular browser.

[bkraus · Accepted solution]

I think the ideal solution would be for the mobile app to detect when the user taps a link, and resolve that URL if possible to an in-app URL which would route the user to the correct location in-app. It should be pretty feasible, and would make it so that all existing pages across Canvas would automatically work, without change.

[ldprogrammers]

Would that work if the link is in an external site that is iframed into the canvas page?

[bkraus]

It sure would.

[ldprogrammers]

Ok....do we need to put this as an enhancement to be voted on in the regular ideas area?

[bkraus]

I will go ahead and make a ticket in our backlog for this work. I'll discuss this with my Product Manager and get this prioritized. Thanks for finding this and suggesting this improvement!

[rseilham]

Thanks Ben!

[ldprogrammers]

Thank you!!!!

[ldprogrammers]

Ben - Just wondering where this was?  I haven't been in the app lately to check.  Our mobile team just asked me.