Adding external link icon to links that open in a new tab

[aspenwal]

Hi, community! I've scoured the posts for an answer, however, it seems like most people are asking how to remove the external link icon. I want to add it.

Our practice is to have any link that takes you outside Canvas open in a new tab. And for WCAG compliance, we also want to alert students about opening a new tab. Canvas automatically adding the external link icon for external links works great. 

My issue is when we use links that contain the same domain as our Canvas instance, like links to articles from our library. We consider these external links, but Canvas treats these as internal links, so they don't get the same "external link" treatment as a link to cnn.com would. 

We're currently manually adding the target and a title attribute (title="External Link") to cover WCAG, but I'd like these links to look the same as the other external links and have the icon and built-in compliance.

Does anyone know what triggers Canvas to recognize an external link vs. an internal one? How can I add this icon myself? 

Thanks for any help!

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

That's a good question, @aspenwal. I did some testing including looking at the HTML for a page with true external and assumed internal links, and I could not find anything to force the appearance as you describe. To make things consistent for your students who are privileged with sight, I would add an image.

I am going to mark my reply as a solution but I hope that others in the Community will share a better solution. 

[aspenwal]

Thanks, Gregory! I appreciate your reply, and it does seem like this is a fair solution. I had really hoped for a "just add this class" solution, but it doesn't seem possible with the way Canvas scans the links in pages and determines what is internal vs. external. I've tried adding the SVG icon manually, but that doesn't seem to work either.

Take care,
Amoreena