Gradebook Column width does not stay as set

[scott_hogan]

When I adjust the width of columns in gradebook they do not always stay that width when I return to gradebook later.  How do I 'freeze' them?  (This happens a lot!)

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi @scott_hogan ,

Thank you for posting on the Instructure Community!

I understand what you mean.... and yeah, these changes are temporary only. It appears that there is currently not a way to keep the adjustments you made with the gradebook columns. 

I hope this helps, even though this is probably the response you weren't hoping for.

All the best!
Noah

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi @scott_hogan ,

Thank you for posting on the Instructure Community!

I understand what you mean.... and yeah, these changes are temporary only. It appears that there is currently not a way to keep the adjustments you made with the gradebook columns. 

I hope this helps, even though this is probably the response you weren't hoping for.

All the best!
Noah

[MrsS-08]

I wish this was an option as well. Or, the ability to mark and assignment on the teacher end in the gradebook view as "done." I use the column width as this indicator. Things like changing late deductions--I'm a public high school teacher and weekends, unscheduled week days of school, IEP extended time, etc. don't count against a student. I use the auto features of marking an assignment missing and late because it helps keep students on top of their work, but I have to manually adjust every single late assignment for every single student.

I have to keep the designation of "Late" on an assignment, even if excused absences, extended time, etc. gets them to "zero" days late so that I can easily count how many times a student was late on assignments for IEP goal reporting. (Some students have a goal of "90% of assignments on time" or something to the like.) For auto-graded assignments, I don't know if I've addressed it unless I look at the comments. I put a comment of days late, minus days absent or extended time so I know it's done, and the parents, students, intervention specialists, etc. know if the student is losing late points or not and why. It's time consuming to keep re-checking comments on each late assignment.

When I'm done doing all this, I adjust the width of the column to be very narrow. It used to be here and there they would return to the default width upon refreshing the page or opening it again later. Now, it's almost every time. But they'll randomly stick to narrow still at times. Just less often.

I feel like there is some action that causes these to stick, but I can't pinpoint it. Things like using the sort, filter, or navigation between columns and rows. Time before refresh. Totally unrelated and random, but something causes it to stick.

If anyone sorts out an action that makes it stick, please post! 🙂

[scott_hogan]

I now switch to Firefox as my browser to set column widths, then go back to Chrome for daily use.  The column changes made while using Firefox will stay set.

[scott_hogan]

I now switch to Firefox as my browser to set column widths, then go back to Chrome for daily use.  The column changes made while using Firefox will stay set.

[James · Accepted solution]

@scott_hogan 

When you change a column width in the gradebook, it sends this information back to Canvas and it should be permanent. Back in 2020, there was a question about the [ARCHIVED] Gradebook Column Width where people thought that the change was specific to the browser, which would make the results temporary if the browser settings were cleared. In some cases, settings were stored in the local storage area of the browser, which mean that they were specific to that browser on that machine. I clarified that is not the case with the column widths, but that the information is indeed sent to the Canvas servers where it is maintained. That thread has been archived as outdated, but that is mostly a case of removing old information from the Community as opposed to the information being incorrect. 

It is not temporary as others have written and what someone accepted as a correct answer.

This can be confirmed if you make a change in one browser and then it shows up in another. When I went into Firefox after making a change in Chrome, the width had been adjusted.

However, I did notice that when I was changing column widths, there was a noticeable delay and even though I changed the widths on two columns, only one of them got sent to Canvas. Chrome has been acting sluggish within Canvas recently in other areas, so I don't know if that was an issue. I though that perhaps it was too small of a change to register, but I reloaded the gradebook and even a 1 px width change registered.

Here is what my testing shows.

It does not start the adjustment until you release the mouse (as expected).

It has to change the size on the screen before the change is written to Canvas. I had one column that was down to 15 px wide and I changed it to 157 px. It adjusted the width on the screen in multiple stages, adding a few pixels at a time. I didn't have a stopwatch on that, but you could see it re-adjusting multiple times.

• I then changed it from 157 px to 41 px. Even though it updated the screen right away, it took 22.49 seconds before the change was sent to the Canvas servers.
• Changing it from 41 px to 42 px was almost immediate (I didn't have time to start the stopwatch).
• Changing it from 42 px to 400 px took 71.25 seconds.

It seems that the more change you make, the longer it takes before the change is sent to the Canvas servers.

My guess is that you made a change in Chrome but that it took so long for Canvas to make the change that you had moved on before the change got sent.

Then I switched over to Firefox and changed the width from 400 px to 91 px. The change was immediately to Canvas and the width was reflected when I reloaded the page in Chrome.

Chrome seems to be taking a long time to change the columns when Firefox isn't. I don't know the reason for this -- whether a bug in Chrome or Canvas -- but it helps explain what you are seeing.

If you want to make the change in Chrome, you need to be beyond patient for large column resizes.

One thing Canvas could do is send the change back to the server before the screen size updates. I don't think that's the real solution because it doesn't fix the sluggish behavior in other places and that is the real problem. When I go to make a post in a discussion with as few as 30 responses, it takes a couple of seconds for Canvas to make the post, update the screen, and then jump to where it thinks I should be (which breaks accessibility because I've already moved on to where I want to be).

I did load Canvas in an incognito window in Chrome to make sure it wasn't one of my extensions causing the problem. It suffered from the same delays as a regular Chrome instance.

[MrsS-08]

I love this response! You are speaking my detail-oriented and problem-solving language, ha! That is very interesting about the timings and widths.

We use ProgressBook in my district and we have encountered similar sluggish updates using Chrome for the last couple to few years since they went to an auto-save as one tabs through fields vs. "Save" button. I've not tested any other browsers on that platform, but I get the feeling it's something in Chrome.

I've started doing small width adjustments, trying to remember not to refresh the page too soon, and leaving the tab with the Gradebook open after I'm done updating things vs. immediately closing it. It still isn't a perfect science, but it has definitely helped. I wish there was a way to update each assignment vs. the whole page, but that idea has been previously shot down in the suggestions area.

I don't use discussion posts often, but I'll have to try to remember that hiccup also. I encounter something similar with comments in the Speed Grader, newly in the last few months. The Gradebook comments are ok (except it takes out line breaks on the first posting 😑 ...but weirdly not edits), but the Speed Grader auto-saves while typing and takes the cursor out of the box. There have been so many bugs with assignment comments since they've been made rich text vs. plain text.

I wish they'd recruit me for UX/UI development and testing, ha.

Thanks for the robust testing and tips!