Remove colour overlay from course cards that have an image

[stuart_ryan]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

Howdy all,

Firstly I have to say the new course cards image feature is awesome and a great leap forward. I have been using it a bit now and have a small request for a future revision.

When a course is given an image for the course card on a user's dashboard, I would really like to see the colour overlay removed (so that the image does not looked washed out with the user selected colour).

Ideally, I would love to see this configurable on an account level rather than an individual course level, but that is just from an administrator's perspective.

Just to visualise this more, the current behaviour with a couple of different colours:

And the ideal/requested behaviour:

Additional thoughts:

I do realise the colour is important for a few different areas in relation to the course, so perhaps the bottom bar could be extended as a border around the entire card (just as one example).

Many thanks  team,

Keep up the awesome work!

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2017-05-13) 

[SHEBENE]

I'm glad that students can still adjust their own color, I do wish we could default the overlay to off if desired but in regards to the course card image itself I would hate to see that be a user decision. I always approach things with "what if they're in kindergarten?" and being able to push down the course card image by the teacher is pivotal in being able to say with confidence that "you can click on the picture of the panda to get to our course". I see adults that need that visual cue actually so I love being able to put a picture on my course that they all end up seeing.

[johnmartin]

Wait...  @stuart_ryan  ... what?

That "opt-out" option is insanely dumb. Come on Canvas designers! You're so much better than this!!!

[johnmartin]

Smart idea laurakgibbs, but it shouldn't have to be an instructor-led activity. It's a course branding issue that should be left to the instructor or program to determine!

[kevin1]

 @stuart_ryan ‌ - I am in complete agreeance with you! I would love to be able to turn this off as a default option, while allowing faculty and students to enable the color overlay if they'd prefer. laurakgibbs‌ was kind enough to tag me in a feature idea this morning related to exactly this. So I encourage everyone to go vote!

Link: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-11051-canvas-beta-release-notes-2017-05-01#jive_content_id_... 

Kevin

[laurakgibbs]

Well, truth be told, I like the idea of students branding their own courses. 

But then, my goal is to be like the Cheshire Cat and just "disappear myself" from the classes as much as possible. 

I don't feel a strong sense of ownership about my classes, much less about class branding. I want the students to feel like they own the course. And so let them brand, just like they brand their own blogs. 🙂

[laurakgibbs]

I figured that would be your take on it, Kevin! Either way, I am glad that there is some way to remove the color overlay... plus, this new improvement will be a way to promote the course card feature to more instructors. I got really positive feedback from the students about the use of course cards (I configured mine immediately... anything was better than the generic color blocks). Hopefully lots of faculty will start using them. It's fun to pick!

[kevin1]

We've definitely seen more courses utilizing this. I am unsure if there's a way for us to identify overall usage, but I would definitely be interested in that. This could be a "fun tip" that we share at the start of each semester!

[laurakgibbs]

Ha ha, exactly! You could have people send in / tweet their course cards and do a gift card drawing or something. Drawings are fun! 🙂

[James]

 @kevin1 ,

If you're looking for whether or not a teacher is using the course card image, the Get a single course endpoints of the Courses API allow for include[]=course_image. It doesn't appear to be available under the Accounts API with List active courses, so you would need to iterate through all of the courses to get it.

I can't show an example of what the information looks like, every time I try to upload an image to my course, it complains that there was an error uploading the image.

[laurakgibbs]

 @James ‌ did you try the Flickr? I love the way people can grab an image from Flickr based on a Flickr search. I had fun just searching and browsing and choosing my images from Flickr. 🙂