Releases Q&A: 2021-10-16 Navigation (Sticky Navigation Menu)

[erinhmcmillan]

Looking to discuss this feature from the 2021-10-16 Release Notes? Post a reply and start a conversation!

POSTING GUIDELINES

• This topic is for feature discussion only—please share use cases, best practices, etc. regarding this feature
• Please thread replies as much as possible to keep posts organized

WHERE SHOULD I POST...?

• Idea enhancement feedback to product managers should be submitted in ideas.canvaslms.com (though linking to the idea here so others can find it is welcome)
• Bug reports should be submitted to Canvas Support—bugs will not be triaged in this thread

[chriscas]

Is it possible to have some kind of indicator on these menus (especially course navigation and global navigation) to show when some items might not be shown because of the browser height?  We already have quite a few complaints about "missing" items on the global nav menu which are actually there but the user needs to scroll down to see them.  The issue is especially problematic on macOS because scrollbars are hidden by default, so there is absolutely no visual indication of whether users are seeing a full menu or not.  I'm concerned that making other menus sticky is going to exacerbate this problem.  I know at it's core this is more of a system/browser issue than anything, but it would be great if Instructure could find some way to address this by forcing scrollbars to appear or having some kind of arrow at the top/bottom of menus.

-Chris

[pecchiog]

We deal with similar issues here when fielding questions. l agree with all the above sentiments and concerns shared above. 

Here is what works for us:

* Canvas is essentially a big webpage, so reloading typically resolves any navigation item appearance issues.

* LTIs that are only used by sub groups should be added at the sub account level so that everyone in the instance isn't burdened with seeing them. This shortens the list and mitigates the issue with visual space.

* Items in navigation that are NEVER visible to students, but ARE visible to teachers, should have their own icon similar to the eyeball icon for hidden from students. This way, I never need to worry about configuring the visibility of these items (like Grade Sync, Edulastic...etc.)

[stimme]

It seems that the sticky course navigation menu will virtually always have a scroll bar for our teachers. For the same reasons Chris explained above, I'm worried that this will confuse a lot of them on their way to the Settings page.

Beyond the potential for confusion, having a scroll bar in a secondary leftside navigation menu is quite unappealing visually. I think Mac hides scroll bars due to the fact that they aren't very pretty (personally I set them to show always because scroll bars are very useful).

I think that a "Back to the Top" link/button that floats at the top of the page when one has scrolled down a long page in Canvas would provide a more pleasing solution.

[dtod]

"having a scroll bar in a secondary leftside navigation menu is quite unappealing visually"

No kidding...ugh

[JacquelineKauza]

I agree with the above, having a second scrollbar on the left-hand side of the screen is a real eyesore. I'd love an option to switch off this "sticky menu" feature or at least get rid of that scrollbar. It's going to make navigation a pain from an instructor standpoint. 

[dtod]

This is what I see in beta. Multiple scrollbars on a smaller resolution/screen. Ugh...

[anagui81]

Really Instructure? This is the best that developers could do??

[wcuFerni]

There has to be a resolution for this, this looks terrible. 

[rislis]

My teachers hate this. It's difficult to navigate back and forth. What was the logic for the change? Wish it would be something we could turn on and off in settings.
Our recommendation was to rearrange course navigation titles to make the highly used items at the top.

[goodbookmom]

At the top of this new sticky nav, in small letters it now displays the term of the course I'm looking at and this label is also "sticky" so that it doesn't scroll off the page. However, I rarely need to be reminded what term I'm looking at. I need to see what class I'm looking at and have the class name not scroll off the page. I'm forever scrolling up and down to remind myself which one of my classes I'm working in. Why on earth would we need to know what term we are looking at?

I've submitted an idea for having the term label changed to the course name or code: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Make-Class-Name-quot-Sticky-quot-so-it-doesn-t...