[ARCHIVED] Incorrect Text File Display

morgana
Community Novice

This has been reported before, but at least in the Q&A forums, the issue originally posted by  @hasti  is marked as "Answered", but this issue has not been addressed.  That question is here (https://community.canvaslms.com/message/101218-file-preview-showing-incorrect-file-contents )

If I make a text file with the following contents:

3 4
1 2 3
3 2 1
2 1 3
3 1 2

and put that file in the Files area of my course's Canvas page, then I click on the file, it displays like this:

3 4
1. 2 3
3 2 1
2. 1 3
3. 1 2

That is unacceptable - the displayed contents don't represent the contents of the file at all!

An even crazier example - here's my simple text file:

10 10
1 1 1 1 1 5 5 5 5 5
1 1 1 1 1 5 5 5 5 5
2 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4
2 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
4 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 2
4 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 2
5 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 1 1
5 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 1 1

and here is how Canvas displays it:

10 10
1. 1 1 1 1 5 5 5 5 5
1. 1 1 1 1 5 5 5 5 5
2. 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4
3. 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4
4. 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
5. 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
6. 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 2
7. 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 2
8. 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 1 1
9. 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 1 1

This has been a known issue for nearly 2 years, and it causes significant problems for my course every .. single .. semester.  Please get this fixed.

Typically, I put these text files in the Files area, and then link to them in an Assignment page.  This is no longer possible though, because there's no way that I have found to get the actual file contents from the assignment page.  I can't even just tell my students to right click on the file and download it because it tried to download an HTML file instead of my text file.  The only option I have is to give the students access to the folder with the text files and have them click on the three dots and them select "Download".  If my assignment has many such txt files, this is a hassle for the students and just seems painfully unnecessary for something as simple as just displaying a plain old text file.  

Canvas:  its been almost two years - please fix this bug.

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