[ARCHIVED] Using colorful icons in Modules

[Phuong0903]

Hi everyone,

I am using LMS for my online teaching. Since I have too many things (pages, quizzes, links) in Modules, I add icons/emoji in the text header. I take these icons from emojipedia.

They are colorful so it is really easy for students to get access to what they need while browsing in modules. Things like yellow warning signs for deadlines or red fire icons for important notices work so well. But recently, all the icons become black & white ones 😞

Is it something LMS disable? Is there a way to get their colors back?

Thanks!

[nwilson7]

@Phuong0903 Just curious if you have tried on a different browser or are making sure you are using a supported browser.  What are the browser and computer requirements for... - Instructure Community

I ask because we do the same thing and all my emojis are still full color.  I even tried just adding one and it is in color as well.

-Nick

[Phuong0903]

Awesome suggestion. I checked with my android phone (Google Chrome) - all icons look wonderful.

But on my laptop - same: Google Chrome. All black & white 😭

[SusanNiemeyer]

I use a Lenovo PC (Google Chrome), and the emojis have also lost their color for me. 

I'm a member of the FB Group "Teachers Using Canvas" and numerous instructors have reported the same problem. The colors disappeared in the middle of last week. This is a system-wide problem.

[KymBender]

We are experiencing this issue, but only in the latest version of Chrome.

[KelseyParmley]

I have tried on both Chrome and Edge and no colors 😞 

[MrsR_Loves2Read]

I am also experiencing this issue.

[lboettcher]

I am having this same issue. The emojis do not have color in the Modules overview. However, in the right navigation (when items need to be graded), they do have color. This is weird and unfortunate because students really like that little infusion of color and personality.

[josh_miller]

I have a teacher that adds Unicode symbols to their module titles to make them "pop" for the students. Up until today, there were no issues and everything displayed properly. Today (Nov 29, 2021) all the Unicode symbols showed up as grey in their canvas account.

Unicode on Windows Device using Chrome

The students, who use Chromebooks, could still see the color.

Unicode student Chromebook

Another ITF and I have been trying for hours to figure out why the Unicode symbols show up properly on a Chromebook but not on a teacher's Windows device that is using Chrome. We tried it on Microsoft Edge and the colors showed up.

Unicode on a teacher device using MS Edge

When you hover over the Module titles the color shows up when using Chrome.

Unicode color hover using Chrome

When we try student view on a teacher device it still displays as grey.

Unicode student view

The Unicode website still shows colors on its webpage, using Chrome. We tried to copy-paste the symbols again, but they still came up grey. We erased cached for all time and even restarted the computer. There was a supposed tip where you put a Unicode symbol in the title of a document on your desktop to force the computer to "read it" but that didn't work either.

Unicode Desktop

We thought it would have to be a chrome issue, but why would it work on a Chromebook? Is it a windows issue, then why work in MS Edge? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you. 

[RichardKinsey]

Interesting. I was just trying this for the first time...that I ca recall

Prepping for some traing moving from Schoology to Canvas; we thing some color symbols would be helpful. I  a Chat now and:

I was checking if we have a workaround for that, and it seems that emojis are only black/grey when the text is in bold, like in headers. Also, it seems to be related to using Chrome in Windows.

Yes, based on what I found it happens on Windows, but shouldn't happen on MAC. I haven't found an answer for Chromebook.

I was also interested in a Compressed view as default. No on that apparently.

[RichardKinsey]

Interesting. I was just trying this for the first time...that I ca recall

Prepping for some traing moving from Schoology to Canvas; we thing some color symbols would be helpful. I  a Chat now and:

I was checking if we have a workaround for that, and it seems that emojis are only black/grey when the text is in bold, like in headers. Also, it seems to be related to using Chrome in Windows.

Yes, based on what I found it happens on Windows, but shouldn't happen on MAC. I haven't found an answer for Chromebook.

I was also interested in a Compressed view as default. No on that apparently.

[SusanNiemeyer]

My understanding is that a Windows update is the culprit.

That being said, colors alone should never be used as a distinguishing factor. We have colorblind and visually impaired students. Telling students to look for the blue or red circles makes our Canvas sites inaccessible.