Any Uses Cases?: Canvas as framework/backend with highly customized frontend

[jamie13]

Hi, I was wondering if there were any use cases anyone knew of where Canvas (particularly the open-source version) is being used as the backend framework behind a highly customized frontend/CSS/JS. Curious if anyone has taken the robust features of Canvas to the next level and heavily customized the branding, even to the point of not looking like Canvas anymore. Tried to search this group for such cases or questions but did not find anything.

[bbennett2]

I've only done some work creating some middleware for staff using Canvas data. We needed a way to convert Outcome reports to a number grade in the traditional gradebook. That pulls live data when the teacher loads the page rather than duplicating a database or information anywhere.

What kind of project were you thinking about? It sounds interesting, but I'm not terribly interested in recreating an LMS frontend 🙂

[jamie13]

That sounds similar to some things our development team has done as well. For this project, we are exploring making the UX better by possibly laying a different UI over our self-hosted Canvas. We have heavily customized our version of Canvas by using existing and custom-built integrations and are wanting to make it all more cohesive for the end-users. Still exploring what can be done or what we might want to be done so I'm curious if anyone has anything to share from doing this or something similar already. 

[jsimon3]

We are doing the same as you @jamie13. We have a ton of react modules loading when called. But as to go as far as creating an entire UI I am wincing in pain. I do not have patience for that.