[Inbox] Add rich-content editor to Conversations

As a user, I would like to be able to use the rich-content editor to compose messages in the Conversations inbox. This would enable me to create Conversations that are on par, formatting- and content-wise, with Announcements. (Students seem to read Conversations messages more diligently than Announcements.)

 

transferred from the old Community

Originally posted by: Mia Nolan

Special thanks for contributions by: Stefanie Sanders

230 Comments
michelli
Community Explorer

Thank you @nburruss. And to add insult to injury, I was just invited to complete a survey that claimed to value my views and then refused my input!!

AngieR
Community Member

As an instructor, having the rich text editor available for Canvas messages would enable me to reply to students questions with course links, images that show up in line with my text, etc.

Nancy_Webb_CCSF
Community Champion

At the least, having the RCE in the Inbox would allow the auto-save feature to work on messages!  And yes, it would be extremely helpful to allow HTML (links etc.) in conversation messages.

john_gorman
Community Member

The Canvas email system--Inbox--is incapable of any text modification (bold, underline, text size and color, Italic, etc.),  In our graphically sophisticated world, this is an important part of the communication skills that are a primary PLO for all courses

thrubik
Community Member

I cannot believe that in 2021 this is still not addressed. 

Same editor that is available in, for example, editing page should be used when sending e-mail.

FOREMANSHANNON
Community Explorer

Why is there hardly any formatting or link functionality in Canvas Inbox????

VHDL2STA
Community Member

The Canvas Calendar has the Rich Content Editor (RCE) which can be used in many wonderful ways. 

If the RCE can be implemented in the Canvas Calendar then surely Canvas R&D should be able to implement RCE in the Canvas email environment. Blackboard has an RCE-like editor in its email environment and so do many other software email tools.

Not having editing capability in an email environment reminds me of the early days of commercial software, which back then, were obscure, cryptic, and not user-friendly.

TomAffholter
Community Member

I would like the inbox comment control to be RTF so that I can paste from Word or use formatting in my comments.

F1Canvas
Community Novice

It will be great to provide the rich text editor functions in composing and replying messages within Canvas. It will make faculty and students conversation easier to follow.  We are so used to have these function in Blackboard. We would like to see these functions in Canvas as well.

Thanks.

xyzGem
Community Novice

The email feature in Canvas leaves MUCH to be desired. While it is excellent that I can email all students in a class simultaneously, I cannot 1) make any formatting changes (such as text color, bold, underline, italics, symbols usage, etc.), 2) add any hyperlinks, nor 3) conveniently organize responses.

That is, it would be ideal to have formatting options in the inbox feature. It would be ideal to be able to add hyperlinks in the email feature. And it would be ideal for replies to a mass email to not list every recipient's name at the top (because it is extremely difficult to discern who received what email after a while).

Ultimately, it would be awesome if the "inbox" feature simply connected to whatever email account I am sending the email from. When I click Inbox -> Compose -> All students in XYZ class, it would be great if my Outlook email would open with all student email addresses populated in the BCC box.