Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-12-10)

[#1]

Upcoming Canvas Changes
Turnitin API Deprecation: December 31
On December 31, Turnitin will discontinue the Canvas API integration and will only support the LTI integration. If you are a Canvas admin whose institution is using Turnitin and have not yet enabled the Turnitin LTI for your account, please contact your Turnitin account representative for your external app credentials. The Turnitin LTI can be configured for your account as shown in the External App URL lesson. For additional questions, please see the Turnitin Canvas integration page or contact your Canvas Customer Success Manager.
Canvas Commons: January 3
On January 3, Canvas Commons will automatically be enabled for all institutions. If you are a Canvas admin and your institution currently has Canvas Commons turned off and you do not want to enable Commons, please contact your Customer Success Manager to opt out.
Canvas Authentication Passwords: January 7
On January 7, passwords for Canvas authentication will require eight characters instead of six characters. Institutions using other external authentication methods will not be affected. The eight-character length requirement only applies when a user creates a new password or resets a password. Existing six- and seven-character passwords will not be affected unless the password needs to be changed or reset.

In this production release (December 10), admins can set grading period start dates to 12:00 AM, find courses by sort options, and view terms by active and past terms.

Instructors using grading periods have additional close date verifications in assignments and the Gradebook. Users with instructor roles can also receive group announcement notifications without being enrolled in a course group and can automatically assign groups by section in the People page.

For all users who have customized their Courses list, Canvas automatically adds all new enrollments as a favorite.

Users who can manage Outcomes will notice a placement change for the Manage Rubrics button. All users will also notice small updates in Files and in Rich Content Editor links, as well as a global font update throughout Canvas.

Users who have permission to add and edit LTI tools can enable the Microsoft Office 365 integration.

Production release notes also include fixed bugs.

​

Canvas New Feature Screencast (2016-12-10)​

Next release schedule (modified for the upcoming holidays)

• Beta release and notes: December 19
• Production release notes: January 2 (two weeks later)
• Production release and documentation: January 7

Production release notes indicate Canvas updates that will be included with Saturday’s release and are subject to change. New features may differ from those available in your beta environment. Learn more about the Canvas Release Schedule.

Account-level features are not available in Free-for-Teacher accounts.

For advanced CSS and JS users: This release includes changes to Canvas that may or may not affect custom styles and code in custom applications. Please make sure to test your Beta instance for any customization conflicts.

• New Features
• Groups
• Microsoft Office 365
• Updated Features
• Courses
• Files
• Multiple Grading Periods
• Notifications
• Other Updates
• Course Import
• Outcomes
• Rich Content Editor
• User Interface
• Fixed Bugs

  New Features

  < BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

Groups

Group Assignments by Section

When instructors create a group set from the People page, the group structure supports randomly assigning students to a group by section. This feature allows instructors to specifically limit groups to users within a specific section. Section assignments also support instructors in large or cross-listed courses.

When this option is selected, students are only grouped together with students from their own section. The section designation is available as part of a new group set page and selecting the option to split students into a specific number of groups.

The option is also available when groups are created manually. In the settings menu for the group set, instructors can choose to randomly assign students in groups. Note that with this option, the checkbox to require members to be in the same section is selected by default.

Notes:

• This feature is currently not available when creating a new group set in an assignment. However, creating a new group set with the self sign-up option has not changed and includes the option to require students to be in the same section.
• If a student is in multiple course sections, Canvas generates the group assignments based on the student’s first section enrollment.

Canvas Community contributions: Automatically assign groups within sections of a course!, Randomly assign groups within the same section within a linked (joined) course​

Microsoft Office 365

Canvas supports an LTI integration with Microsoft Office 365 in Assignments, Collaborations, Modules, Course Navigation, and the Rich Content Editor. This integration allows students and instructors to use, create, share, and collaborate on Office 365 files within Canvas. Users can also view their OneDrive files directly in Canvas.

• Office 365 is only available to institutions with Office 365 education or business accounts who have created user accounts for their students.
• The Office 365 LTI is not available for users with personal Office 365 accounts.
• Microsoft Office 365 requires the Microsoft Office 365 LTI app, which can be added to an account, sub-account, or course. The LTI can be configured manually by users who have permission to add and edit LTI tools.

For more information about Microsoft Office 365, please view the Canvas Release: Microsoft Office 365 LTI document.

  Updated Features

  < BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

Courses

Course Auto-Favorites

For users who have customized their Courses list, Canvas automatically adds all new enrollments as a favorite. This change helps Canvas users locate new courses in the Dashboard and the Global Navigation Courses menu. Customizing a course list means a user has clicked the All Courses link in the Courses menu and manually favorited at least one course in the Courses list.

Favorite courses in the Courses menu and the Dashboard are still ordered alphabetically by course role and course name. Courses with instructor roles are listed first, followed by TA roles and any other custom instructor-based roles. Courses with student roles are listed last. If the Courses menu includes a large number of courses, the Courses menu includes a scrollbar. There is no limit for favorited courses.

• For students, courses are not set as a favorite until the course is published. (Students cannot favorite unpublished courses.)
• For instructors, courses are set as a favorites as soon as they are added to the course.
• Courses for all roles remain a favorite even when the courses are concluded, but the course can be removed as a favorite at any time in the Courses list.

Note: This change does not affect users who have never customized their courses list, where Canvas automatically displays up to 12 courses alphabetically by role in the Dashboard and in the Global Navigation Courses menu. The Courses list is not affected and no courses are marked as favorites.

Canvas Community contributions:

Sort Order Menu

The Course Filtering sidebar in the account-level Courses page includes a sort menu. This change helps admins sort courses more easily according to their preference. Courses can be sorted in four ways:

• A–Z (by course name, ascending)
• Z–A (by course name, descending)
• Oldest to newest (by course creation date, ascending)
• Newest to oldest (by course creation date, descending)

Note: The Course Filtering sidebar also displays in the Settings page, but the filtering options only work in the Courses page.

Term List Order Update

The Terms drop-down list groups terms into active and past terms. This change helps admins locate a specific term when an account includes multiple terms. By default, courses are shown from all terms.

Active terms have terms with active dates. Past terms have end dates in the past. Terms within each group are ordered alphabetically.

The Terms menu is updated in the following locations:

• Account level: Courses page sidebar (Course Filtering section) and Add New Course window (via the + New Course button)
• Account level: Users page sidebar (Choose Term section)

Canvas Community contributions:

Files

Name Confirmation Check Mark

When a user creates a folder or renames a file, the text field includes a check mark to save the folder or file name. Previously files and folder names were only saved by clicking the Enter key on the user’s keyboard. This change improves accessibility and clarifies the process for creating a new folder name or renaming a file.

Canvas Community contributions:

Multiple Grading Periods

This feature is used with the Multiple Grading Periods feature option, which can be enabled by an institutional admin in Account Settings.

Account Updates

Default Start Date

For new grading periods in a grading set, the start date defaults to 12:00 AM.

Note: This change does not affect existing grading periods, which still display the default start date as 11:59 PM.

This feature resolves a fixed bug in Canvas:

When an admin created a grading period and tried to set the start date to 12:00 AM, the grading period readjusted back to the default of 11:59 PM. Canvas code has been updated to support 12:00 AM for start dates in new grading periods.

Time Zone Display

Grading periods reflect the time zone of an admin’s local account. If an admin has set a user time zone to be different from the account’s default time zone, the Grading Periods page displays the time adjusted for the admin’s user account time zone.

When a grading period is edited, the admin’s local time zone is displayed compared to the account time zone.

Close Date Course Verification Updates

Assignment, graded discussion, and quiz due dates, Gradebook default grades, and Gradebook curved grades validate grading period close dates. Grading period restrictions only apply to instructors; they do not apply to admins.

Assignment Due Dates

When Multiple Grading Periods are enabled in a course, the Assign field in assignments, graded discussions, and quizzes cannot be edited by an instructor for anyone who already has the assignment due in a closed grading period.

Instructors can continue to add additional differentiated assignments with due dates outside the closed grading period. The Assign field validates the due date against the closed grading period and requires the assignment date to be past the date of the closed grading period.

Assignments with due dates in open grading periods cannot be edited from an open grading period to a date in a closed grading period. However, the due date can be edited to any date within an open grading period.

Note: This change does not apply to availability dates, which can be set to overlap a grading period.

Gradebook Default Grades and Curved Grades

When an assignment is in a closed grading period for at least one student, the Gradebook menu disables the options to set a default grade and curve grades. These options are also not available in the Individual View Gradebook.

Student Grades and Assignment Group Weights

In the Student Grades page, if a course includes weighted assignment groups, assignment groups are only displayed in the sidebar if the groups are active as part of a selected grading period. An assignment group displays if the group has at least one assignment due for the student in the selected grading period. Instructors can also view the individual grades page for a student by clicking the name of the student in the Gradebook.

Notifications

Instructor Role Group Announcement Notifications

Instructors, TAs, and other custom instructor roles can receive notifications for course groups. This change allows instructor-based roles to receive notifications without being added directly to a group. To receive a notification, the instructor, TA, or custom instructor-based user must be enrolled in the course and must enable announcements in their notification preferences.

Group announcement notifications are managed through the Announcement and Announcement Created by You notification preferences under the Course Activities heading. If a user with an instructor-based role has selected to never receive announcement notifications, they will not receive them from group announcements.

  Other Updates

  < BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

Course Import

Common Cartridge Compliance Import Process

Canvas has updated the import process for common cartridge files. Canvas provides improved messaging for common cartridge options that Canvas does not currently support during the import process. This change helps users understand how imports are converted in Canvas or which files are ignored. For instance, when a user imports a file with a pattern match question, Canvas generates a message notifying the user that the question was converted to a Fill-in-the-Blank question.

Outcomes

Manage Rubrics Menu Placement

In both the account- and course-level Outcomes pages, the Manage Rubrics button has been moved inside an Outcomes menu. This menu will be used to add additional features in a future Canvas release.

Users who do not have permission to manage rubrics cannot view the Outcomes menu.

Rich Content Editor

Minimize Preview Link Placement

When an instructor adds a file to a Rich Content Editor window and selects the option to auto-open the link’s inline preview, the content displays a Minimize Preview link. This link has been moved above the preview window. This change improves accessibility and also allows users to minimize the preview without having to scroll past the document window.

Underlined Hyperlinks

When hyperlinks are added to the Rich Content Editor, the links are underlined by default. This change improves accessibility and also aligns with standard HTML practices of underlining links in course content for all users.

Users who want to underline all non-user-generated content outside the Rich Content Editor can still enable the High Contrast and/or Underline Links user feature options.

This feature resolves a fixed bug in Canvas:

When a user created hyperlinks in the Rich Content Editor and a user did not enable either the High Contrast or Underline Links user feature options, the links were not underlined by default and users were unable to find the content links. Canvas code has been updated to underline all hyperlinks in user-generated content regardless of the user feature options.

User Interface

Global Font Update

The default Canvas font in web browsers has been updated from Helvetica to a modern typeface, Lato. This change helps improve typography standards in Canvas and across all Instructure products. Lato is an open-source font that supports over 100 Latin-based languages and over 50 Cyrillic-based languages (including Greek and IPA phonetics). Additionally, Lato improves legibility for all font sizes and provides better visual hierarchy in Canvas typography. Lato uses numeric weight sizing, which will provide additional font functionality in future releases, and supports four weights: Lato Light, Lato, Lato Bold, Lato Italicized, and Lato Italicized Bold.

This change may affect instructors who have designed course content to match Helvetica. Instructors may need to update their course content accordingly.

Notes:

• Lato is not currently supported when editing content in the Rich Content Editor. However, the font will update once the content page is saved.
• Lato is only available in Canvas web browsers and is not included in the Canvas apps.
• If Lato cannot be supported in a web browser, Canvas reverts to a secondary sans-serif font of Verdana, Arial, or Helvetica.

  Fixed Bugs

  < BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

Accessibility

Assignments

The Assign To field indicates the entries for whom the assignment is assigned. The button label is read before the delete label.

Discussions

In the Discussions Index Page, the Subscribe/Unsubscribe icon is toggled by the spacebar or Enter key.

Learning Mastery Gradebook

Each outcome group is treated as an individual interface element and announces whether the group is expanded or collapsed.

The Export Report button retains focus in the button and is accessible to screen readers.

Pages

When a user edits a page, the Cancel button is accessible to keyboard users and cancels the page edits.

Rich Content Editor

Hyperlinks in the Rich Content Editor are always underlined by default regardless of the High Contrast or Underline Link user feature options.

Scheduler

Appointment group calendar sections can be selected by keyboard users and screen readers.

Appointment group headings are only underlined when users have enabled the High Contrast user feature option.

Settings

When a user tabs through the External Apps page, focus is retained in the View Placements button.

User Interface

The Terms of Use page displays the Submit button to the right of the Cancel button for consistency across Canvas.

Announcements

Announcements List

The Announcements page displays all announcements for a course.

Explanation: When a course had a large number of announcements and a user viewed the page in a small browser window, students were only able to view a Loading icon until they scrolled down the page. Canvas code has been updated to trigger announcement displays for paginated announcements and always show content to students. If there are no announcements to display, the page displays that information accordingly.

API

Conversations API

In the Get a single conversation endpoint, conversation is returned for the current user.

Explanation: When a user created an API call to list a single conversation, the user expected the conversation to be generated for all users. If the user was not a participant in the message, Canvas generated a page error. Canvas code has been updated to clarify that listing a single conversation is for the current user only.

Users API

The List the ToDo Items endpoint returns results for auto-assigned peer reviews.

Explanation: When a non-group assignment was set up for an automatic peer review and a student submitted the assignment, the ToDo API endpoint generated an internal server error. Canvas code has been updated to return results for the endpoint. This change was deployed to production on November 22.

Assignments

Coming Up Section

In the instructor Dashboard, the Coming Up section displays assignments only assigned to one section.

Explanation: When an instructor assigned an assignment to only one section, the due date did not display in the Dashboard Coming Up section for the instructor. For graded discussion assignments, the graded discussion also did not display in the Discussions page. Canvas code has been updated to display assignments in the Coming Up section in the Dashboard even if only one section is assigned to the assignment.

Attendance

Badges

Attendance only displays badges that are included for a course.

Explanation: When a user viewed badges for attendance, sometimes Canvas displayed all course-level badges for the account, even if the badge was not being used in the course. Canvas code has been updated to only display badges in the course.

Calendar

Admin View and Varied Due Date Events

Admins can view events with varied due dates in the Calendar.

Explanation: When an admin tried to view events for a course calendar, the admin was not able to view events that had varied due dates. Canvas code has been updated to display course events to admins. Calendar events can also be viewed in the Syllabus.

Student View and Unpublished Courses

Unpublished courses do not display to students in the Calendar.

Explanation: When a student was enrolled in an unpublished course but already had an active enrollment in another course, the unpublished course displayed in the Calendar list and generated an error message when accessed.

Time Zones

When a user edits times for a calendar event, the times are validated against that user’s time zone.

Explanation: When a user edited the times for a calendar event, the times were not validated against that user’s time zone. Canvas code has been updated to validate times against the current user’s time zone.

Trust Accounts and Student Groups

Students can only view group calendar events within the account where the course resides.

Explanation: When a student with courses in multiple accounts tried to view the Calendar, the Calendar generated an error if the Calendar view displayed a student group calendar with a group event. This behavior affected students who were enrolled in a course located in another account through a trust setup. Canvas code has been updated to only display course groups within the account where the group resides. Canvas currently does not support trust accounts within the Calendar.

Course Import

Blackboard Module External URLs

Nested external links from Blackboard are imported as Modules External URLs.

Explanation: When a user imported a Blackboard course with nested external links, the external links were not imported into Modules. Canvas code has been updated to fix importing nested module items from Blackboard.

Course Card Image Settings

Course card image settings are included in Canvas course exports.

Explanation: When a user exported a Canvas course, course card image settings were not included in the export. When a user imported the course, the course card image was not displayed. Canvas code has been updated to include course card image settings as part of course exports.

Module Item State

When a user copies Modules content from one course into an existing course, the draft state between course items are retained.

Explanation: When a user copies Modules content from one course into an existing course, the draft state between course items sometimes became mismatched, causing items to be published or unpublished in other areas of Canvas. Canvas code has been updated to sync workflow states in course imports.

Dashboard

Student View To Do List

Student View includes the To Do list in the Course Home Page sidebar.

Explanation: When an instructor enabled Student View, the Test Student’s Course Home Page did not display the To Do list. Canvas code has been updated to display the To Do list in Student View.

Discussions

Group Discussions

Group discussion attachments are retained for a designated group set.

Explanation: When an instructor created a group discussion and later changed the group discussion from one group set to another, any attached files in a discussion post as part of the first group set were also included in the changed group set. Some discussion attachments did not display correctly in SpeedGrader. Canvas code has been updated to fix discussion submission attachments when switching a group discussion to another group set.

Large Courses and Save and Publish Button

In large courses, the Save and Publish button publishes discussion topics.

Explanation: When an instructor in a large course created a discussion and clicked the Save and Publish button, the button generated an error. The discussion topic was created but the instructor was not redirected to the Discussions Index Page. This behavior only affected discussions. Canvas code has been updated to improve performance for publishing discussions in large courses.

Enrollments

Observer Roles and Deleted Associations

Observers are only enrolled in a course if they are associated with a student.

Explanation: When an observer is removed from a student enrollment, the observer was still being enrolled in a future course where the student was enrolled. Canvas code has been updated to not auto-add observer enrollments for deleted associations.

External App

LTI Height Selection and Modules Footer

Specifying selection_height for LTI iFrames does not affect the Modules footer.

Explanation: When a user customized an assignment LTI tool configuration to have all placements, set a selection_height, and added the assignment as a module item, the assignment content overlapped the Modules footer. Canvas code has been updated to fix the Module navigation placement when selection_height is set for an assignment.

Global Navigation

Help Menu Course Names and Special Characters

Special characters in a course name are not displayed with HTML encoding in the Help Menu.

Explanation: When a course name included special characters, students who accessed the Help Menu to ask an instructor a question viewed the course name symbols with the HTML encoding. Canvas code has been updated to display the course name instead of HTML characters.

Grades

Gradebook History

Instructors can view the Gradebook history for a course.

Explanation: When an instructor tried to view the Gradebook history, Canvas intermittently generated a page error. Canvas code has been updated to correctly load Gradebook history in a course.

Groups

Trust Accounts and Group Users

Instructors can add students to a group if the student is in a trust account.

Explanation: When an instructor tried to add a student in the unassigned list to a group, the student could not be added and Canvas generated an error. This behavior affected students who were enrolled in a course located in another account through a trust setup. Canvas code has been updated to add unassigned students to a group if the student is in a trust account.

Learning Mastery Gradebook

Account-Level Rubrics and Outcomes

When a course uses account-level rubrics and outcomes, the the Learning Mastery Gradebook in the course displays results data.

Explanation: When a courses used account-level rubrics and outcomes, the Learning Mastery Gradebook did not display relevant learning mastery data regardless of source. Canvas code has been updated to add missing outcome links from the account level to the course-level Learning Mastery Gradebook.

Modules

External URLs in New Tabs

When users access an external URL configured to launch in a new tab, browsers redirect users to a page where they can launch the link outside of Canvas.

Explanation: When a user tried to open an external URL module item in Safari, Canvas was not able to display the link. Canvas code has been updated for Safari to model other browsers and redirect to a launch page where the users can access the link to the external URL content.

Prerequisites and Special Characters

Special characters in prerequisite title module headings are not displayed with HTML encoding.

Explanation: When an instructor created a module with a title that included special characters and set that module as a prerequisite to another module, the prerequisite title included the special characters instead of HTML encoding. Canvas code has been updated to display the title in the prerequisite field instead of HTML characters.

Multiple Grading Periods

Default Start Date

The default time for grading period start dates is 12:00 AM.

Explanation: When an admin created a grading period and tried to set the start date time to 12:00 AM, the grading period readjusted back to the default of 11:59 PM. Canvas code has been updated to support 12:00 AM for start dates in new grading periods.

Notifications

Concluded Users

Concluded users do not receive assignment notifications.

Explanation: When an instructor created an assignment with differentiated assignments and some user enrollments were concluded, concluded users were receiving assignment notifications from the course. Canvas code has been updated to not send assignment notifications to concluded students.

Grade Weighting Changes and Deleted Assignment Groups

Deleted assignment groups are not listed in grade weighting change notifications.

Explanation: When an instructor deleted an assignment group in a course, the deleted assignment group was still included in grade weighting change notifications. Canvas code has been updated to not include deleted assignment groups in notifications.

Outcomes

Outcome Calculations and Multiple Assignment Types

Outcomes correctly calculate results for multiple artifacts and assignment types.

Explanation: When an instructor aligned multiple artifacts with an outcome that averages scores in its calculations, and one of those artifacts was a quiz linked to a question bank, the score of the quiz was used instead of the actual mastery score. Canvas code has been updated to fix calculations for outcomes aligned to multiple assignment types.

Permissions

Send Messages Permissions and Existing Conversations

If the permissions for users to send messages to individual course members and/or the entire class are disabled after conversations have been sent, users cannot respond to any existing messages in both course or group contexts.

Explanation: When an admin allowed students to send messages to individual course members and/or the entire class and later disabled those permissions, users could still reply to any existing conversation messages in both course or group contexts. Canvas code has been updated to respect permission changes and not allow replies in existing conversation message threads.

Quizzes

Access Codes

When students are required to use a course access code for a quiz, the course access code generates only one quiz attempt.

Explanation: When a student was required to use a course access code to take a quiz, students could click the access code submit button multiple times, which would create more than one attempt to be generated for the quiz attempt. Canvas code has been updated to disallow multiple access code submissions.

[DrNufer]

Good updates.  Thank you development team!  Kaizen onward!

[abunag]

Autofavoriting new courses is an autofavorite of mine.

[rgibson1]

Is it me, or does every sprint now contain at least one update to Groups.....?

[jason_hill]

Super stoked for this release!

[shane_ohara]

Excellent release! Thank you.

[PSU_Tony]

Good stuff!

[SethBattis]

Love the auto-favoriting. Lots of good updates!

One note on the midnight grading period start: I've got a ticket open with support about the fact that I've noticed that, while you can set your end and closing times to 12am in the datepicker, they get automagically converted to 11:59pm in the actual entry field. This causes me some anxiety, since there's no warning that this is going on, and setting the time to 11:59pm on a date when I expected 12am makes the grading period end or close almost 24 hours later than expected.

My preferred fix would be to assume that everyone knows how clocks work and have y'all stop monkeying around with the datepicker. But, failing that, there really needs to be some sort of a warning to the admin that what they entered in the datepicker is not what is being entered in the entry field. Or (and this goes against my wish for you to stop monkeying with the datepicker), if you're going to default to 11:59pm, roll the date back a day, so it's off by a minute, not a day.

[ccalderon]

Yay for auto-favorite and checkbox when adding a folder!! Early Christmas gift!

[stephanie_pope]

This is a great release! Here here to the advanced course filter! I would love a button at the bottom of the list that says, "View remaining Courses."

[orwinr]

Okay, late to this party due to a death in the family. I just looked at the groups by section in beta. I love this as it was something I have wanted for a long time. Unfortunately, I think I might have found a problem with the functionality. For example, let's say you have a course with 160 students all enrolled automatically into a single section. As an instructor, I have managed to get some TAs to help out and I want to make it easier for them to grade a particular set of students. So, I manually create 5 sub sections breaking the students into those 5 sections. Now each student is a member of the large automatically created section and one of the sub sections, so they are enrolled in 2 sections. I believe this is where the problem is.

In my sandbox site, I have students enrolled into more than one section for grading purposes. Currently I have 11 sections, yeah I know it is a bit extreme but I was testing a bunch of theories. When I logged into beta today to test the new group functionality, I didn't say to add 11 groups to the group set, I tried with 3. This is the error I received:

Okay, that's cool and makes sense. I have to create a group for each section. I entered 11 and clicked save. This is what my screen shows now when I click on that new group set:

The randomly assigning students bar never goes away and I have no way to delete the group set. I refreshed the page went to other pages and it just stayed the same.

Now, after I log out and then log back in, this is what I see:

The group set that was hung up is now completely gone!

Given my experience, I would assume this is a problem because students are in more than one section. I don't know how feasible it is, but would it make sense to add some logic that checked to see if students were enrolled in more than one section and tell the user that automatic group population isn't possible with students in more than one section? The other option is create an interface that allows instructors to select which sections will be used to automatically create groups. I like this second option more because it provides more flexibility in group creation and still allows students to be in more than one section.

[aleverton]

A little late to the party but also want to note that the change in font is NOT more clear but LESS clear. I have production and beta open side by side with the same size windows and the lettering in beta is fuzzy and imprecise. For a low-vision user, this will be a nightmare. For me, it's a nightmare! After looking at this for just a few minutes, my eyes are blurry! I would rethink this option.

[lane_worrall]

I meant to add this to the Canvas Beta Release Notes (2016-11-28), but is there any chance of a Terms menu being added to sort the Courses list under Enrollments on the user account details page rather than having them sorted alphabetically?

[lmd5]

I added a comment on the beta release notes about the sort functionality of the course search.  I cannot get the sort to work on my computer at all.

No matter what sort option I get, I see the header refresh in the browser, but the listing stays the same.

I've tried it with firefox 50.0.2 and Chrome Version 54.0.2840.98 (64-bit).

If I scroll down, I do see there are other courses....

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Lane,

The Enrollments section wasn't in the scope of this project, but I've made a note of it and am working with our product team to get it in a future release.

Thanks,

Erin

[60640769]

We create buttons using the style guide​ and the buttons don't look great with the hyperlink underline change:

As you can see the lines are not aesthetically pleasing. I was able to add HTML to the first button "General Course Documents" in order remove the line. I will look into creating a css document to remove the lines, but I think the style guide should be updated so that custom buttons do not include the lines at all. Would that be possible?

[James]

60640769​, There was a similar discussion in the beta release notes about this. I posted the CSS that will get rid of the underlines in buttons, or at least get you most of the way there. But the people commenting there agree that the buttons shouldn't have the underlines. And ishar-uw​ makes a good point that they're not actually changing the links back to the default behavior, but they're forcing the underline to be on, breaking the customization that people might have done within their own browser by choosing not to underline links.

[lane_worrall]

Awesome--thanks Erin!

[Shar]

Has anyone else noticed the font change while EDITING in Beta? I'm seeing Verdana now instead of any kind of Lato at all with the RCE. HTML Editor is showing Lato though.

Or is this just a glitch on my end?

thanks - Shar

[Stef_retired]

ishar-uw, I just checked in beta, and am still seeing only Lato.

[60640769]

Thanks James, I think we'll go ahead and remove the links for our custom buttons.

I did notice in beta that the standard Canvas buttons are not underlined ( for example "Save", "+ Announcement", "View All Pages" etc ). Is there a reason those buttons are not appearing as underlined as well? It seems inconsistent for there to be a distinction between custom created and Canvas created.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Lisa,

The Find a Course field isn't designed to work with the sort option; either you can filter and sort all courses by term, or you can search for the courses individually. However, I'll see if I can review this behavior with our product team.

Thanks,

Erin

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Daniel,

This behavior was mentioned in the beta notes and I've passed the feedback to our product team. If any adjustments are made they will be available in a future release.

Thanks,

Erin

[erinhmcmillan]

Thanks, Randy. We'll check this out!

Erin

[lmd5]

That's not very useful for large institutions then.  I have some courses that have 50 instances or more already (and we are only in our first term of adoption).  If I can't search, then sort the results, it doesn't help me.  Just sorting on all courses in our institution won't be helpful.  Plus, the sort is located with the filter options.

[60640769]

Hi Erin,

Thanks for all your help on this. I would like some more information regarding the accessibility upgrade of the underlined hyperlinks in buttons. I did a quick check using the built in screen reader on my mac and didn't notice a difference between a button with an underline and a button without an underline. Thanks!

Dan

[Shar]

Here's hoping they catch it in a future release.

I turned on Underline links from my Feature Options settings in Canvas to see what an all underlined world would be like...

And still Canvas buttons are not underlined.

Alas - Shar

[James]

I'm seeing this as well.

Headings are Lato, but regular text within a paragraph is not. There is markup inside what_gets_loaded_inside_the_tinymce_editor.css for h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6 to specify

     font-family: "LatoWeb","Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;

It also specifies CSS for the body, but that portion doesn't include the font-family.

However, content.min.css specifies

     font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;

which is what it's using since there is no font-family in the what_gets_loaded... CSS file.

It would be nice if it was consistent.

[James]

The underlining is only applied to user content, as indicated by being inside a class="user content" or class="mceContentBody" ??? The ??? is because that's what's specified in the CSS, but I don't see it in the document itself, I see mce-content-body instead. I don't know if that's a coming change or a typo, so I didn't change it.

Either way, Canvas Buttons are not inside that class and so it doesn't apply to hyperlinks within their buttons.

I implied from stuff I read (maybe it was overtly stated) that the Canvas Style Guide was for making your applications look and feel like Canvas. I know that people often use it to style their content within Canvas, even if that's not the stated intent. Technically, content on a user page isn't within an application and if you were writing an application, you probably wouldn't include the user_content​ class, so your buttons in an application wouldn't have that.

That said, I'm certainly not defending it and think it should be removed. My Canvas Admin agrees and has directed me to do just that, so we're about to add our first CSS override.

[James]

Good catch on the inconsistency in Canvas' design here.

The reason their buttons don't have underlines is because the .btn and .Button classes have a text-decoration: none; in them to override underlines on hyperlinks within buttons. The problem is that ​.user_content a​ has a specificity of 11 and ​.btn​ has a specificity of 10, so the ​.user_content a​ wins out. If you specify .​user_content a.btn​, you get a specificity of 21 and so it overrides Canvas' rule. Thanks go to the Specificity Calculator for doing the calculations.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Dan,

Currently Canvas has some buttons functioning as buttons and some buttons functioning as links. The ones that function as links will show the underline but the others will not. This behavior is being reviewed repeatedly by our accessibility team, who has been working with our UI team to improve all functionality in Canvas. We have some icon replacements coming up soon that will update the entire icon set and allow our teams to create UI elements with consistent functionality focused on accessibility. So long story short you may be seeing some buttons that are opening modals (windows) and not pages. Rest assured this will all be improved soon.

Thanks!

Erin

[erinhmcmillan]

Thanks, James. I've passed this on to our design team, as this is something we've started to see but not consistently.

Erin

[jason_hill]

I've just been playing around in PROD with the new changes, and HOLY WOW! The interface looks so much fresher with the new font! I love it. And the new course filtering options will change the lives of admins everywhere. Very Happy!

[hesspe]

For the auto-favoriing feature, it seems like the following is the case:

- Once "favorited", a course is never automatically removed from the "Courses" list

- Sort order of the Courses list is: Primary sort key: Role (Teacher, TA, others, Student); Secondary sort key: Course name (alpha)

That means (ignoring the role of roles for the moment) an OLD course that sorts high alphabetically will be listed above - possibly far above - a NEW course that is alphabetically deprived.  After a while with every new course getting auto-favorited, unpruned course lists are going to get way long, and new courses will be scattered from beginning to end of the list, interspersed with old and very old courses. That won't seem like much of an improvement over how things are now - in some ways it will be worse.  Hopefully this will be fixed soon somewhat along the lines of  @lane_worrall ​'s eminently logical proposal.  Of course people can go in and unfavorite their old courses, and some will, but experiences says that many will never get around to it.  Or am I missing something?

[rgibson1]

We had a frantic call to the Helpdesk today following the sprint. It seems the favorite courses were turned OFF. The person thought the courses were deleted. I know this sprint included a new option to flag new courses "on". Why would it turn existing courses off? And I'm wondering more tickets are coming.

[hesspe]

How about if a user's "Courses" list were divided into "Active Terms" and "Past Terms. Now that you're doing that in the filtering-by-term pull-down menu  in the Courses and Users search, you could "reuse the code"! (As a non-programmer, I have the luxury of seeing these things simplistically.)  That would go a long way toward increasing the utility of the "Courses" list for those who now have or will have lots and lots of old courses in their lists.

[dpeterso2]

I do not find the new font to be attractive or readable. Also, italicized bold font appears italicized but not bold. Please go back to the old font.

[tdelillo]

FYI, we've just discovered that Term List Order update has an unexpected side effect, at least in our instance. When we manually create courses, the term previously defaulted to "Default Term" (which is what we want). With the update, the default term it grabs is the first one in the new "Active Terms" category in the filter list. Therefore, everything is defaulting to CE Fall 2017 because it is alphabetically and numerically the first of our current/future terms.

I submitted a ticket, and was told that if we want the Default Term to show up by default when creating new courses, we need to add a character (like a number 1) at the beginning of the term name to force it to the top. I am not please by that response.

[abunag]

Interesting - I'm not seeing the same performance.  Is there an SIS number attached, or dates you've added, for Default Term?

[abunag]

 @tdelillo  Actually...I did see this performance in one spot.  We normally create new courses using the "Start a new course" in the Dashboard, and that has no issue.  However, if I use the "+ New Course" button in the Admin->Courses menu, it uses our alphabetically-first term (which is currently CPCE 2016-2017).

[danklosterman]

I agree. I wish we had more control or options over the stylistic choices you make for us.

[tdelillo]

Thank you  @abunag ​ - I should have specified the method I was using.

[hesspe]

For a Canvas course with 2 sections where Section 1 has 60 students, and Section 2 has 68 students:

I created a group set and chose the options:

- Split students into 6 groups;

- Require group members to be in the same section

It worked but:

- 2 groups had 30 students (all from section 1);

- 4 groups had 17 students

Is there a way to get the groups resulting from this process to be close to equal in size?

Thanks!

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Peter,

Do you have students in more than one section? If a student is in more than one section, Canvas makes the assignment based on the first section where the student is enrolled.

Hope that helps,

Erin

[hesspe]

Erin, Thanks for the quick reply.  All students are in only one section. I downloaded the grade book and checked the CSV file with a formula to confirm that.

[cms_hickss]

Has anyone else noticed their Users' Page Views are no longer there? And that the option to download doesn't work either?

[shane_ohara]

My page views are present and the download function works just fine.

[cms_hickss]

Weirdly. The page Views for myself are not there, but I can download them. This is what I see:

On a student I received a similar blank area (as above) but the download gave this:

[shane_ohara]

Sounds like you should report this oddity to Support. I would turn another browser as well. I am running the latest version of Chrome without those issues.

[cms_hickss]

Already opened a ticket. Just wanted to see if we were the odd guys out (and hey during our last day of finals) or if there were others...

[hesspe]

It seems to often require a screen refresh for me before they'll show.  I see the heading bar, but no rows underneath, until I refresh. (Haven't needed to refresh to see the page views in the Admin interface).