How to make Canvas mobile app show course homepage?

[adavis211]

The Canvas mobile app does not show the course home page.  I have a lot of content links for my students in my course home page, and they were not able to access these links.  In order to access the home page, they had to dig through different menus.  How do I set up Canvas so that the mobile app takes students to the course homepage?

[KristinL]

Hi Ann -

When I open a course in Canvas Student, I immediately see my home page (Pages front page) on the right-hand side of the screen, and the navigation options along the left-hand side. There's also an option to expand my home page to fill the entire screen.

Do you have your pages front page selected as your course home page? (How do I change the Course Home Page?‌)

[adavis211]

Yes, Pages Front Page is my course home page in all of my courses.  My students showed me what they were seeing on their phones, and it is just the navigation bars - no home page.  I did create a workaround by creating a new module called "Student Resources" that I put at the top of the Modules area, and I put the course home page and several other pages in that module so that students have access to the content.  It's kind of clumsy, but at least now they can get to my office hours and contact info.

[rseilham · Accepted solution]

Hi  @adavis211 ‌, 

Yes, what Kristin is describing is the behavior on the iPad. You are correct that the iPhone doesn't show the selected home page for the course, but instead shows the course menu. There is a long history about why this is the desired behavior. When it was the homepage, students couldn't find the menu, when it's the menu it doesn't show the homepage. The compromise is the "Home" box about the course menu to bring more visibility. If you have ideas or how the app could be designed to show the homepage, but still keep the menu visible, I'd love to hear them. I don't have the power to make that change, but it's a great conversation. Thanks!