[ARCHIVED] WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING??

[lglen]

Why - right before the start of the term - has Instructure FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED HOW CANVAS WORKS!?!?!?

I am RIGHT in the middle of building my courses, and all of a sudden I have to re-learn where the command is to link to a new image. 

The calls to various requirements are nested, so what once took one click now takes two or three.

It took me forever to find the link to "HTML editor" because not only did they change where it is, but it no longer has a label.

I mean seriously!? Who thought these changes were a good idea!? And why - oh! WHY - now????

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello there, @lglen ...

Based on your posting, I assume that you are referring to the change in the Rich Content Editor [Rich Content Editor (All Users)] where you can edit content within your course.  I am also making the assumption that your school's local Canvas administrator or people from your school's Online Learning/eLearning department have chosen to turn on the New Rich Content Editor [New Rich Content Editor (All Users)] for you and your colleagues.  This is not yet a universal changes for all Canvas customers...as your school's local Canvas admin can turn it on for all courses at your school...or they can even let instructors turn it on course by course...or they can choose to not turn on the New RCE at all for anyone at your school.  [As a Canvas admin myself at our Technical College, we have not yet turned on the New RCE for our faculty.  We are probably going to wait until the current RCE is phased out (later this year?) and the New RCE is put in its place.]

Here are a couple documents I've found for you here in the Community that might be of some help:

• Canvas Release: New Rich Content Editor (2020-01-18)
• What is the Rich Content Editor? (this Guide from the current RCE indicates in the blue box: The Rich Content Editor will be discontinued in a future release. Instructors can enable the New Rich Content Editor feature in course feature options.)

My recommendation to you would be to have a conversation with your school's local Canvas admin at your school.  They should be able to provide more details on the reasons for turning on the New RCE (if this was their decision).

Good luck!  Take care, stay safe, and be well.

[lglen]

I feel the need to temper my initial reaction just a bit. Not completely, but a bit.

The new interface absolutely still bites. It's awful. 

But I blamed Instructure for pushing it when we were told by our institution that the change was coming, and I didn't read that e-mail, because - well, how many emails do I get from IT, and they're about pretty innocuous stuff... So I was unprepared for a change that they had, in fact, warned us about.

Anyway, apparently the plan was for Instructure to force this change in the middle of what would have been our term (we're on a "quarters" system), so our IT folks decided to make this change before the term starts. For those of us who have been working all summer to get our courses ready for fall, this change came at an incredibly inconvenient time, and meant that we would be learning a lot of new changes, and many (MANY) of those changes, even once you get used to them, are incredibly inefficient, so you're spending tons more time clicking and menu-ing (I know that's not a word) than under the previous version.

Apparently I was not the only one at my institution with a WT!! reaction, because they have negotiated with Instructure to have until December to force the change. That gets us through our first term, and then we'll have to deal with the cr*ppy new interface at that point. But this time I'll be ready. And maybe, when the complaints start racking up at Instructure, they'll rethink some of these really, REALLY bad decisions about nesting common commands and moving the Rich Text / HTML editor link , and not labeling things...

I'm not going to hold my breathe, but maybe...

So - thanks @Chris_Hofer for your insight. Your message made me go talk to my Canvas wonks, and that's what got them thinking about pushing it now. For the record, one of them told me they agree with my estimation of the changes - they stink! They meant well by making the change now instead of mid-term, but they also managed to buy us some time with Instructure so that we don't have to make that change now until end of term. Perhaps others of you will find a similar negotiation possible. 
Now I'm going to bookmark those links you included so when I get some time (!?) I can bone up on how I'm supposed to navigate the new interface. Thanks for taking the time to respond.