Rich text editor colour palette lost colours

[Andreas_Hopf]

The top five colours in the colour palette disappeared (macOS, Windows; Safari, Chrome, Firefox). The palette is a rectangle cropped by the top row of colour swatches. How do we get the full palette back?

Also, once our teachers' laptops are restarted, palette colours set manually by using the palette icon have disappeared. Having to redo our eight colours really is a nuisance and waste of time.

[NoahBoswell · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Andreas_Hopf ,

Thanks for asking on the Instructure Community!

This is currently a known issue. You can view more information here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Known-Issues/Default-colors-in-the-RCE-color-picker-do-not-meet-c...

Thanks!
Noah

[MissKim-1]

Thank you.

We've been using the lighter colors to highlight text, but now it seems we can’t use them for highlighting anymore. I understand why they were removed for general text usage, since they don’t meet accessibility standards. However, highlighting itself is still WCAG-compliant, so we should still have the option to add those colors to our palettes and keep them available for that specific purpose.

Otherwise, it feels like we’re being penalized for using a feature the way it was designed, just with a little extra style.

Any chance they will bring the colors back for those of us who use the highlighter function?

Cheers,

KM

[CoryLBougher]

Since this upgrade, I have not been able to save custom highlight colors. I was able to once in Chrome but none in Firefox (even that one previous custom color is only available in on browser, not the other). 

I understand light colors against a white background creates accessibility issues but only having dark highlights on dark text is not accessible either. 

[Andreas_Hopf]

It's not just that - having to redo all (in our case eight) custom colours after a teacher restarts the laptop is very cumbersome, much extra work.

[dbrace]

For what it is worth, it appears that these extra options should be returning back to production. I do not have confirmation from anyone but the lighter-shades of colors are options in Canvas' beta environment.

-Doug

[ProfMartin]

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@dbrace wrote:

For what it is worth, it appears that these extra options should be returning back to production. I do not have confirmation from anyone but the lighter-shades of colors are options in Canvas' beta environment.

-Doug

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How does one get access to this Beta environment?

[dbrace]

Hi @ProfMartin,

There are two ways of answering that:

1. contact your institution's Canvas team
2. check out the  How do I access the Canvas beta environment as an instructor? - Instructure Community - 727  guide
   1. you might want to consult with  What are the release schedules for beta, production, and test environments? - Instructure Community...for more information about timing
   2. in that guide, there is a "What is the Beta Environment?" section to explain the beta environment's purpose

-Doug

[profkateg]

I contacted support about this thinking that this might be just me, but was told that the only "fix" right now is to select custom colors in the RCE. As mentioned, this is not sustainable, as we'll end up having to constantly reselect colors.

Their reasoning seems to be increasing accessibility, but what this will do is cause instructors to select their own highlight colors that may or may not be WCAG compliant for contrast. I agree that removing the medium darkness colors was a good call, as many of those did not have sufficient contrast. However, by removing the set of very pale colors, Canvas is creating more work for instructors and causing a possible accessibility issue when instructors select their own highlight colors. 

[ProfMartin]

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@profkateg wrote:

I contacted support about this thinking that this might be just me, but was told that the only "fix" right now is to select custom colors in the RCE. As mentioned, this is not sustainable, as we'll end up having to constantly reselect colors.

Their reasoning seems to be increasing accessibility, but what this will do is cause instructors to select their own highlight colors that may or may not be WCAG compliant for contrast. I agree that removing the medium darkness colors was a good call, as many of those did not have sufficient contrast. However, by removing the set of very pale colors, Canvas is creating more work for instructors and causing a possible accessibility issue when instructors select their own highlight colors. 

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I agree. Removing those top, plae, highlighter colors will definitely lead to more work for instructors AND the inevitability of instructors choosing the wrong highlight colors and creating inaccessible content. I used those to highlight black text successfully and was compliant every time. I hope Instructure will look at this thread and rethink the removal of the highlight colors.

[Andreas_Hopf]

We are a large industrial design and architecture education in Scandinavia, and paternalistic "compliance" enforcements are absurd - plans of new urban developments, home furnishings, or excavators, designed by students, use all the colours in the world, as do the teaching materials. My photos and videos from a site, course learning materials, are also not re-coloured "compliant", just as the colours of fine art or the colours in nature are not "compliant" either. The chore to redo all colours for text, highlights, etc. after each new log-in or laptop restart is well out of order. Those who must use compliant colours should have them available. Those who need the colours of the world should be able to retain them.

[dbrace]

This known issue has been resolved.

Add back the Lightest color row and white block fo... - Instructure Community - 649271 .

[ProfMartin]

Does this mean our light highlighter colors are back and not just in the beta environment?

[Chris_Hofer]

@ProfMartin ...

Yes, I just checked my own sandbox course, and here are the color choices I now see:

You should also see these in your own school's Canvas "production" environment.