[Modules] Accurate Breadcrumb Trail in Modules

[lwuest]

It would be great if the breadcrumb trail would follow your navigation correctly when you are working in modules rather than switching to "page", "discussions", "assignments" or whatever you click on. Would it be possible to add a "modules" breadcrumb?

[James]

Sorry,  @Ron_Bowman ​, I don't know what you mean by a forked breadcrumb trail. Do you mean that you get one set of breadcrumbs if you click from within a module and a different set of breadcrumbs if you click from, say, the Assignments page?

As in one of these two depending on how you got there?

• Course Name >> Modules >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Discussions >> Discussion 1

Why not just add the source of the link? There are lots of ways that students can get to assignment information. Let's just consider a Discussion.

• Course Name >> Modules >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Assignments >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Syllabus >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Grades >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Syllabus >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Discussions >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Coming Up >> Discussion 1
• Course Name >> Modules >> Discussion 1
• Calendar >> Discussion 1
• Coming Up >> Discussion 1 (from the activity stream page)

And that doesn't include links from pages, which are outside any of those systems. But the list does serve to illustrate the silliness of breadcrumbs.

As for my own use, I do find that I use the breadcrumb as intended. For example, if I'm editing an assignment, I click on the Assignments in the breadcrumb rather than the Assignments on the navigation link. It's less distance traveled by the mouse.

Aside from the UX experience, which should be a top priority, the structure of Canvas is very much designed upon that left navigation bar. The URL mimics where you're at (for the most part). Assignments have /assignments/ in the URL, Quizzes have /quizzes/ in the URL. This is also the API structure used. Most of the API calls are simply to the URL with /api/v1 thrown in there. You can link to anywhere in the course and it knows what to do with it based on the path to get there. The current breadcrumb is a more human-readable form of the URL. It shows your location, not how you got there. Again, I'm not saying that there should or shouldn't be breadcrumbs. I'm just saying that it might be hard to overhaul, especially since the location always exists and who idea of who owns this content doesn't always exist.

However, for those who want to get rid of breadcrumbs without waiting for Canvas to do it, you can modify your global CSS file and add this:

#breadcrumbs { display: none; }

[Ron_Bowman]

 @James ​

(note, I may have a partial response show up from when I tried to respond through my email - one wrong key stroke and off went my incomplete response)

My comment on forked breadcrumbs was meant as a joke as in a way to satisfy every ones preferred way of using them.  Something like the following (Note I am not recommending this at all, it just seemed to me at the time that this is where it could go)

suppose you are at: home > module1 and you select an assignment from that module.  the breadcrumb would then be

              module1 > file1

             /

home >

            \

             files > file1

of course you would then have further forking and pruning of the trail depending on what was being selected.  

I have to agree with you now about silliness of breadcrumbs after looking at it for a while.  I think what I said earlier is probably going to hold true for someones position on breadcrumbs - it all depends on how you set up your course and really how a person is thinking about how they want the course accessed.

[jeneweij]

I agree - this would be very helpful.

[e01166]

One of my teachers called me this morning and related the frustration with being bounced to the Pages view because the breadcrumbs didn't really provide a trail of access. I definitely support improvements here.

[e01166]

I'm new to Canvas. I haven't yet found a reason I would want students to ever go to the Pages list. I don't like it much when working on the classes either. I can see it might be useful if pages are all named very deliberately.

[ukhikmat]

I agree with you, it is easy to get lost since on the top of the navigation a link can send you to a different location.

[DaleDrees]

Agree - Definitely needed, especially for anyone new to Canvas that does not understand how to confidently navigate yet.

[cwruck]

Our new UI, which will be available on production behind a feature flag before the start of the 2015-2016 school year, will have improved breadcrumbs. They will, as you say, "follow your navigation correctly when you are working in modules".  If you go check out the new UI in beta right now, you won't see this yet, but it's in our queue to get finished before we go to production at the end of the summer.

[kona]

What?? What?? Seriously?? That is unexpectedly amazing news! 

[DaleDrees]

Fantastic!