Changing the placement of a Edu App (prebuilt LTI)

[clong]

Hi All, I've just installed Zaption from the App Center at the account level and noticed the app was placed in:

• Course Navigation
• Editor Button
• Assignment Selection
• Link Selection

Any ideas on how I can remove it from the course navigation so it won't appear in all courses?

[James]

 @clong ​,

If you feel like giving them the protest vote of "how dare you take over my entire system?" then if you remove the App, it disappears from those places you listed. Then you can go over to your testing instance and play around with it.

The other thing I noticed is that on the apps screen, there was an edit button for Zaption next to where it said it was an editor button, course navigation, etc. I don't have Zaption, so I'm shooting in the blind, but on another app (I think maybe the redirect tool) I noticed that when I went in there, I could figure out from the configuration what parameters were needed to make it act in each mode.

A third possibility, and maybe the most realistic one, is to set the navigation tools using the API: Navigation Tools​. I would start with the Course Navigation Links. The first paragraph there says "External tools can be configured to appear as links in course-level navigation. If the tool is configured on an account, any course in that account or any of its sub-accounts will have the link added to the course navigation. If the tool is configured on a course, then the navigation will only appear in that course."

While the descriptions are contained on the Navigation Tools page, you actually use the Edit an External Tool API call to make the changes. The settings are explained under the Create a tool, but it looks like you want course_navigation[default]=0

[RobDitto · Accepted solution]

Provided courses aren't already working with this tool, here's a manual version of  @James ' approach which you could try:

1. Customizing the tool's XML configuration
2. Deleting the app from the account where you originally deployed it
3. Adding the app again, this time By XML using customized XML (rather than By URL)

To do step 1, start with the XML currently returned by the vendor's EduAppCenter link:

https://www.zaption.com/lti.xml

Copy that into a text editor.  Inside this HTML element (similar to an HTML tag):

<lticm:options name="course_navigation">

...

</lticm:options>

Add this line:

   <lticm:property name="default">disabled</lticm:property>

After re-adding the app, the effect will be that Zaption starts out as a hidden tab in Settings > Navigation.

Since we don't use Zaption currently at our institution, I don't know for sure that the steps above will work.  However, this same technique has worked with other XML tools we use here.  You may want to check with Zaption, both about compatibility with the "default"=disabled property and about long-term maintainability in case they need to revise their standard XML configuration in the future.

[vkg]

We've used the same approach as Rob -- I usually generate the base XML with XML Config Builder and then add in any properties that aren't covered by the Builder just by editing the text.

Only problem is that you can't seem to edit the XML once you've installed the tool once -- you can only delete the tool through the UI.  I suspect your only option if you needed another revision would be to use the API.

[clong]

Thanks so much  @James ​  @RobDitto ​ and  @vkg ​. Your fast response and clever solutions made this very easy for me to do.

All of the methods would work, but I decided to do the custom "paste" XML option as Rob described. With the API I believe we would have to run it everytime we created courses, which we do not really want to do. So I modified the XML and then used the code below and all is Most Excellent

<cartridge_basiclti_link xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imslticc_v1p0" xmlns:blti="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsbasiclti_v1p0" xmlns:lticm="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imslticm_v1p0" xmlns:lticp="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imslticp_v1p0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imslticc_v1p0 http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/lti/ltiv1p0/imslticc_v1p0.xsd http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsbasiclti_v1p0 http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/lti/ltiv1p0/imsbasiclti_v1p0.xsd http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imslticm_v1p0 http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/lti/ltiv1p0/imslticm_v1p0.xsd http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imslticp_v1p0 http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/lti/ltiv1p0/imslticp_v1p0.xsd">

<blti:title>Zaption</blti:title>

<blti:description>Zaption makes video come alive in the classroom.</blti:description>

<blti:icon>https://www.zaption.com/img/lti-icon.png</blti:icon>

<blti:secure_icon>https://www.zaption.com/img/lti-icon.png</blti:secure_icon>

<blti:launch_url>https://www.zaption.com/basic_lti</blti:launch_url>

<blti:secure_launch_url>https://www.zaption.com/basic_lti</blti:secure_launch_url>

<blti:extensions platform="canvas.instructure.com">

<lticm:property name="tool_id">zaption</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="privacy_level">public</lticm:property>

<lticm:options name="course_navigation">

<lticm:property name="url">https://www.zaption.com/basic_lti?nav_launch=1</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="text">Zaption</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="visibility">admins</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="default">disabled</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="enabled">true</lticm:property>

</lticm:options>

<lticm:options name="editor_button">

<lticm:property name="enabled">true</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="url">https://www.zaption.com/basic_lti?browse=canvas</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="icon_url">https://www.zaption.com/img/lti-icon.png</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="selection_width">550</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="selection_height">650</lticm:property>

</lticm:options>

<lticm:options name="resource_selection">

<lticm:property name="enabled">true</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="url">https://www.zaption.com/basic_lti?browse=canvas</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="text">Tour Selection</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="selection_width">550</lticm:property>

<lticm:property name="selection_height">650</lticm:property>

</lticm:options>

</blti:extensions>

<cartridge_bundle identifierref="BLTI001_Bundle"/>

<cartridge_icon identifierref="BLTI001_Icon"/>

</cartridge_basiclti_link>

[James]

 @clong ​,

Glad you got it figured out.

For people reading this dialog in the future, the API call should have been a one-time thing since you installed it at the Account Level and by setting the default, it would automatically use that value for all new courses. Now, whether or not it actually went through and modified each course to include it is another question -- but I'm guessing it didn't, that would be a lot of calls to make.

[karl]

All the replies in this thread are spot on. I just want to add that any time we consult with third parties who are building tools for Canvas, we strongly advise them to disable the course navigation extension by default to create an opt-in experience vs. and opt-out experience for Instructors. I'll make a note to get this updated in our documentation in the future.

[tjones1]

What if an extra step was added to the Add APP process that let you modify the install.

After the config.xml loads, check boxes would show the options.

The user could uncheck Course Navigation before the final install.

[clong]

Nice suggestion  @tjones1 ​ :smileyplus: