Browser extension to color code different courses?

[ebonakdarian]

Does anyone know of a browser extension that would allow one to color code different Canvas courses, e.g., different sidebar color minimally.  I have at least three different courses on Canvas every semester, it would help if I could distinguish them easily by color. I organize my physical course folders by color, and Excel grade tracking with color tabs. E.g., OS is green, CS I is blue, etc. So, somewhat similar as to how I can customize the appearance of courses on the dashboard.

The other day I posted two announcements for the wrong class <eye-roll>, since my pages are organized very similarly and hence look very much alike. If I could color code them, it would help me avoid mistakes like this.

I found two Chrome browser extensions that allow me to change the appearance/color of Canvas, but it does this uniformly for all of my Canvas courses, so no joy. While I use Chrome most of the time, I'd be willing to use a different browser if I had to for this type of extension.

Thanks ..

[dbrace]

Hi @ebonakdarian,

I cannot think of a way to do it using a web browser extension but combining a few Canvas options together might help.

1. for each of your Canvas courses, design a page to be a color scheme/theme that use to tell them apart and set it as the "Front Page" of the "Pages" area of the course (even if the "Pages" area is not visible to students)
2. use the Canvas "Choose Home Page" feature to set the "Front Page" as what appears when clicking on "Home"

These two steps are described in the How do I set a Front Page in a course? support article.

In the page that you create and set as your "Front Page" (which becomes your "Home"), make sure to provide your students with a link (or a button/icon/image/picture with a link added to it) that can clicked on to get to your actual content. 

Depending on how comfortable you are using Canvas, you may need to refer to the guides below or to your Canvas team or to Canvas Support.

• What is the Rich Content Editor (RCE)? - Instructure Community - 12
• How do I create a new page in a course? - Instructure Community - 1031
• How do I edit a page in a course? - Instructure Community - 791
• How do I link to other Canvas pages in a course? - Instructure Community - 787
• How do I create hyperlinks to course or group cont... - Instructure Community - 618247
• How do I upload and embed an image in the Rich Con... - Instructure Community - 618228

If available to you by your institution's Canvas team, you can use the Rich Content Editor's Icon Builder; just make sure that you follow accessibility guidelines.

Does that help you?

-Doug

[ebonakdarian]

Hi Doug,

That sounds like a great idea, and if I can do this natively within Canvas, that would be my preference anyway. 

I have been using the Front Page in my courses (i.e.. designating a page as front page), but I guess I don't know how I'd change the color scheme for a given page. I don't see any options for this using the Rich Content Editor. Would I have to edit the page in HTML? And would those edits stick? I.e., not reset if I edited the page in the RCE?

Or is there another way to do this that I'm not seeing?

Thanks

Esmail

[dbrace]

Hi @ebonakdarian,

Sorry for the delayed response.

What I would recommend is something similar to what @julian_ebeli proposed with emojis (which is also a possibility).

Technically you could (as long as the code is not stripped out by the powers that be for Canvas) apply code to the HTML of the Canvas page for the front page but that goes above what I would recommend.

What I would recommend is to use graphics/images/pictures/photos or emojis (like the colored circles for something else) at the top of the body of the Canvas page.  If you use them consistently, it can help you tell the different courses apart.

Does that help clarify?

-Doug

[julian_ebeli]

HI There. Not sure If I'm understanding your problem correctly but ...

If you can put your courses in different subaccounts (you might need to create these), you could apply a custom theme to the different subaccounts.

Cheers

[Chris_Hofer]

@julian_ebeli ...

Using sub-accounts also occurred to me as I was reading @ebonakdarian's question.  But, that would require discussions with his school's Canvas administrator(s).  They may already have a sub-account structure set up...that may not be designed to separate out courses by color.  (Sub-accounts are typically used more for departments/school locations/etc.)  It would be an interesting discussion to have, though.

[ebonakdarian]

Basically, right now I have three courses. When I open their pages in separate tabs in Chrome, the all look visually very similar, I'd like to make them a bit more distinctive by changing the color scheme so for one class a blue sidebar (like the default), or another class a green one, and maybe yellow for the third one. So there's a clear visual cue in which course I am.

Re your suggestion: the application of custom themes is something I'd have to ask the admin to do, or is this something I could create (how?) and apply? (This is aside from the subaccounts, I have to read up on those).

Thanks.

[julian_ebeli]

Hi.

Our content guy came up with a way to colour code your courses using emojis.

You can add coloured emoji circles to your course names by editing the course settings (if you have access). You can see these coloured dots in the course dashboard

🔴🟢🟠🔵

In windows, the emoji palette is triggered by the "windows_key+." Once it's visible, type "red" and you will see the red things, or type circle and all the coloured circles will appear.

Cheers

Julian

[ebonakdarian]

Hi Julian, so it would add an emoji (or emojis) to the name of the course? Doesn't seem like I can edit that field under course settings, maybe I'll see if I can in the RCE by editing the page itself.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are suggesting.

I've used Win emojis before with that shortcut, but for some reason (and just as an aside) search doesn't work. Win 10 in case it matters.

I appreciate the suggestions made, gets me thinking about different solutions/work-arounds.

Esmail

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

@ebonakdarian

In theory it could be possible to change the name of a course (or its "Course Code") but the ability to do that might be limited by the permissions/settings put in place by your Canvas team.  It is not possible at my institution because we want course names to be consistent, including course shells that do not have students enrolled in them and that are only used to design a new course.

That did bring up something else that is possible. You could add a course nickname (see How do I view my courses in the Card View Dashboar... - Instructure Community - 618765 ) and the nickname will be used for the Dashboard, Calendar, Inbox, list in the Courses button, the All Courses list, notifications, and in the upper-left corner when you are in a specific course.

In the nickname that you use, you can (I just tried it) add emoji to it.

Think about that and give it a try.

-Doug

P.S. I did try it and every commonly supported method of accessing Canvas (mobile and web browsers) seemed to support emojis in a nickname. https://emojipedia.org shows an example of what each emoji looks like on different platforms/operatings (not specific to Canvas) and web browsers.

[ebonakdarian]

Thanks @dbrace  and  @julian_ebeli  for suggesting emojis - adding this to the nickname worked and it shows in the main course pages. Not quite what I had in mind (I'd have preferred to change the dark blue on the let to a different color) but this will help keep me the courses straight until perhaps Canvas adds an option for customization, or some extension does this. Appreciate everyone's contributions.

Happy Weekend to all.

Esmail

PS: I just added a few more trailing emojis after the nickname, so looks like this may do the trick - thanks again!

[dbrace]

Glad to be able to help you, @ebonakdarian!

-Doug