Allow wrap-around text for content items in a module

[amixon]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

  Idea will be open for vote Wed. July 1, 2015 - Wed. October 7, 2015  Learn more about voting...

Dear Canvas

Recently you updated the number of characters visible in the module main page.  Now all of my assignments are truncated and end with ....

Why would you do this?

Does this look informative to students?  Why is there so much white open and available space between my assignment name and the number of points it's worth?

http://puu.sh/ipNcq.png

Now, I heard it was to make things easier to read on phones and tablets.  Except it's not. Here's my tablet.  This is awesome.  Totally - I like being able to see 10 letters of an assignment.  And since you can't hover on a tablet, why have you done this?

I would like to know who, in their right mind, looked at this and said, yeah.... that looks great!

http://puu.sh/ipNmy.png

I would like to vote on increasing the display size of assignment names in the modules.  Whatever it was before was even too small.  So I don't know if this is a vote on increasing the allowable text letters, or if it increases the width of the pixels used in that category.  No, I don't use the app for Canvas because I don't like how it's set up or organized.  It looks entirely different than the web based version, nothing is indented and so on, so that's not a reasonable alternative request Canvas.

Thanks

April

  Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-08-27)

[DrNufer]

No, you're right.  It is not good to sacrifice real estate and functionality on a computer with monitor for the sake of mobile accessibility.  The response I got from Instructure about this issue: ...the reason the system cuts off the title is because there actually is backend data being stored in that space here on our end. There's been talk about changing the character limit...

[Jeff_F]

I am interested in screen resolution statistics for the instructure.com domain.  That is, what is the frequency distribution for the various screen resolutions.  Surely this is a factor when determining how best to approach responsive design.

[pkittle]

MtSAC is testing Canvas, we are coming from Moodlerooms which in this case is close enough to the Core Moodle to see the same thing - really screws up the page view on a standard PC as well.

Apparently, Moodle/Moodleroom "Labels" as they are called are imported to Canvas which then tries to stick all the text into the limited "Text Header" which simply doesn't work.   I see few faculty that will be willing to even consider Canvas if we show them this - since Labels are a commonly used item to describe content below it.

Trying to show the "good things" about Canvas, but this "Bad thing" is right out there - and they will NOT likely get past this problem/issue.

[nphillips]

We just migrated from Moodlerooms to Canvas. This issue wasn’t nearly the problem I thought it would be. However, I had my team go into all the courses and clean up the labels (it does’t take as long as one might expect). The moodle text headers are also copied into a canvas page, which will be in the module, so all we did is trim out the label (often the label started with “week 1” etc.)

(Paul, if you want to get in touch, I’d be glad to share our experiences and thoughts about migrating—I actually like moodle just fine, but felt strongly Canvas was a much better tool for our institution)

-Nathan

nphillips@marylhurst.edu

[pkittle]

Please do - pkittle@mtsac.edu

I was the (single) person that converted all the Blackboard 8.x shells to

Moodlerooms when we transitioned 4 years ago (just before we found out

BlackBorg had bought them - see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dSmvAFMdB8

Thanks for the offer - I will assuredly take you up on it, Nathan!

Paul

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Paul Kittle, MS, MSLS

Professor

Distance Learning/Electronic Reference Librarian

Moodlerooms SysAdmin

Mt. San Antonio College

B6-208

(909) 274 4258

-

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that

cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go

wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or

repair.

-- Doug Adams

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

[csalazar]

Thank you for pointing out this issue. While adjustments to screen resolution or font size may help some users see more text, it is clear that for many users there is a huge area of "wasted space" that could be used to show more characters in the object names. There have been changes recently made to the Modules page that may have had some unintended consequences. I will have one of the developers look at the page and will check with design to make sure there are no other reasons the pages is being rendered that way.

Look for an update to what we find on this page in the next couple weeks.

Thanks,

Cosme

[kona]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

This really is a pain and anything that could be done to alleviate it would be hugely appreciated!

[kmeeusen]

When we first migrated to Canvas, Module and other module content titles wrapped, and could be as long as you needed. My students loved that I could provide more useful information, especially in the text headers. I really miss that ability.

[elliott]

I logged in here SPECIFICALLY to complain about this issue.  It's absurd that we even have to discuss it.  I try to be detailed with my post titles so that students can easily skim to find exactly what they need, and Canvas completely neuters this effort.  Ridiculous.

This is a simple issue that could be fixed in less than an hour.

[kmeeusen]

Rob:

While I don't know how ridiculous this is nor how long it will take to fix, I do miss this feature. It was available when we first migrated to Canvas, then after about a year it disappeared with a new release (I think Deactivated user ate it quite frankly), and I have missed it ever since.

I have learned that an LMS is a mightily complex bit of coding, and nothing in it is truly easy to fix; and this is especially true if you don't want the fix to break something else