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) 

[johnmartin]

Hang on — there's development availability to turn off White, but not enough to remove the color overlay completely (leaving the perfectly adequate bottom color bar)? Hmm....

[Renee_Carney]

 @johnmartin ​

I'll refer back to my December Update

December 2016 update from Renee Carney

Greetings All.

I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge that we know this idea has gone a while without an official comment.  It is not that we are ignoring it.  We are looking through the many use cases shared and discussing potential solutions.  We do not have anything scoped at this time, but we would like to leave this idea in 'gathering information' a while longer - as we truly gather more information on it.

Thank you.

A quick adjustment was made to help people with a potential simple mistake.  We're still exploring a more robust solution.

[deangelisa]

I was using #FFFFFF as background color and now it became a "not valid color" !!!! Why that change was introduce? I understand the problem of the calendar, but that had a solution, the colored "lamination" over the class icon has not!!!! I have 4 courses in CANVAS going to 8 and the icons are helpful. Please put back #FFFFFF.

[deangelisa]

Never mind. I found a workaround.

[garrett_william]

What was your work around?

[laurakgibbs]

I am also curious about the workaround; I switched a light grey, but I really don't like it at all, and if there a practical solution for the white calendar text, I would be glad to know about it. Oh wait, I guess it won't help at this point if Canvas has disallowed the white overlay.

Which shows how ridiculous this whole overlay business is: if Canvas can disallow white, why not just disallow every single overlay color or, in other words, STOP applying the overlay. 

If people want a color overlay (for marketing/branding purposes I guess?), then they can use Photoshop, put the overlay on their image, and upload their image. Fine; that's their choice.

Forcing an overlay on every image is just silly. I want to use the image that I upload, not an image doctored by Canvas.

[garrett_william]

I agree. I think the implementation ideas at the top of this thread are pretty sound. The overlay actually prevents me from branding because we have a multicolored logo and the overlay prevents me from utilizing it. Ideally I would have a picture with logo branding for each course card. This would help students in my district differentiate between which courses are offered Face to Face and which courses are offered through our virtual program. 

[johnmartin]

Yes, @Adrian De Angelis, please share!!

[deangelisa]

If I tell the workaround CANVAS might make another change making the workaround unworkable. This is a strange "community" where we have to provide the ideas that may or may not be implemented while our colleges pay the bill for a service that is given in an "as is" basis while CANVAS implement changes at will, with or without consensus.

The compartmentalization of issues, one at the time in multiple threads, and making these changes depending on the "popular vote" around an idea, disempower the course designer in favor of the convenience of the code writers of CANVAS.

A desirable technical issue is either doable or undoable based on knowledge of the technical issue and not the number of people that vote for that issue. CANVAS offers a quasi-clean interface from the point of view of the student with severe limitations for the implementation of instruction in the teacher's side of the equation. I am deeply disappointed. CANVAS was going to be a step forward, and it is not.

[deangelisa]

If I tell the workaround CANVAS might make another change making the workaround unworkable.