Allow folders in Pages

[hasti]

The Files section of Canvas allows folders for organizing files. Pages does not. Why the awful inconsistency in the user interface? I currently have 30+ pages that I've created in - all in flat directory structure. I'd like to be able to organize them, you know, like Files and stuff I have on my computer.

Comments from Instructure

Please refer to the update from the product team here. 

[deppeler]

"Faculty might start developing their courses in Pages"

I thought that is what Canvas aspires to provide as management tool.  Now, I understand that you are concerned about students seeing pages directly.  I don't understand why some instructors should not do this if it works for their class.

However, the first thing I did was "hide" pages from students so that I could use them for my content in development and that spanned different semesters.  Having Folders is a critical organization tool.  Thankfully, I do not have to rely on Canvas, as my personal file system allows folders, so I put my stuff there and copy back and forth to canvas as needed.   Oh, but I do I wish I did not have to do this copy in/out of Canvas just to keep my page list short (<50 or suffer page load delays).

Count me as one who wants, dare I say, "needs folders for my pages sanity" !

[hasti]

This idea has a score of 871 and has had 122 comments on it. As far as I can tell (based on the info provided by browsing the "Top 10% by Vote"), this is the highest score of any idea. While not "universal", it would certainly seem that a lot of people are in favor of this. I personally would like to see Canvas put some efforts to addressing the issues that are in this top 10% (including this top 1% idea).

[bryan_biggers]

 @hasti ‌, laurakgibbs‌,  @deppeler ‌, and any others I'm missing... I respect your opinions where you disagree with mine. Have a great day!

[scottdennis]

Hey  @hasti ‌,

Just in case you missed it, speaking of the top 10% of feature ideas; we published a blog post recently, to do with a few changes we are making to make it easier to see which things we are working on and what we are planning with regards to the highest voted ideas in the community.

[jonesn16]

First, I completely agree with you that having a way to quickly locate what you need in the Pages area is critical. Currently there's room to improve that in Pages. 

Next, I'd like to unpack two other parts of what you wrote.

• I don't think that Canvas aspires to let faculty design their course literally anyway they want, and I feel like that's what you implied. I wrote this a couple hundred comments ago on this idea, but one of the strongest selling points of Canvas for me is that it encourages good design choices and discourages bad design choices to some extent.
• You wrote about uploading things from your computer to the Pages area. Would you care to talk about why you chose not to use the Files area to upload things from your computer, especially since you can make folders in Files?

[laurakgibbs]

Unfortunately, there are also lots of good design choices that Canvas discourages... This is very top-down, teacher-directed design. For that type of course, Canvas encourages good choices.

For those of us who operate with different teaching goals and philosophies, Canvas can feel pretty stifling.

That's why I use Pages only to embed dynamic content that I manage elsewhere (I can't imagine trying to do serious content management in Canvas), and that's also why I use a blog network as the heart of my classes: the most important content in my classes is content created by the students. And they deserve more than a discussion board IMO. 🙂

[hasti]

Any chance Canvas could provide a way to sort that top 10% list by # of votes? That would be a useful sorting metric for me (and then I'd be more likely to check out some of the most popular ideas). Instead I can only sort by title (useless unless I happen to know exactly what I'm looking for phrased in exactly the correct way) or date (which mainly allows me to see how long some of these most popular ideas have been ignored by Canvas).

[scottdennis]

Hey Beck,

Yep, that is very doable: Canvas Studio - this sorts added a limit by content type to ideas only, which then automatically sorts by vote count.  I'll see if we can't get the sort that the button links to, to filter down to just ideas.

[hasti]

Something's wrong with Canvas' support site then. Here's how I found the Top 10% by Vote list:

1) I select the help question mark icon from within Canvas and select "Search the Canvas Guides"

2) That takes me to this page and from that I click the Home option at the top.

3) That takes me to this page and from that I click the "Share Ideas" button in the middle of the page.

4) That takes me to this page and from that I click the "Top 10% by Vote" button the right.

5) That takes me to this page and from that I have no option to sort by score.

How am I supposed to find the page you linked to without knowing it ahead of time? Especially since the page I ultimately landed on looks like the page your link directs me to.

[deppeler]

I respect your opinion. I am just concerned about any efforts to lobby directly against folders for pages.  This "feature" is needed for our course offerings.

[scottdennis]

Hey Beck,

I noticed the same thing today and questioned the designer about it.  This lead to us discovering that Jive appears to be reverting button links to older links. We added the filter by item type language back in but I'm not confident it will stay there going forward. In the meantime, if the content isn't filtered down to just ideas, you can still get to the correct sort you are looking for by clicking on the "Top Ten Percent by Vote" button and then clicking on the filters for ideas:

If you click to filter by ideas only, they will by default be sorted by vote count.

Oh, and the best way to keep informed about updates and changes in Canvas Studio and interactions between Community and our Product team would probably be to follow the Studio blog: https://community.canvaslms.com/community/ideas/blog 

Regards

[pamela_oliver]

Those unsorted pages are one of the most horrible aspects of Canvas. It can be a nightmare with a large complex course.

[kmstephenj_tape]

I agree with this idea.

By being able to organize pages you won't have such a long list and it will make it easier for you to find what you need in the future.

Thank you!

[kalli_phister]

I'm a new teacher and this is my first time creating my own Canvas course. I've only had my course for about 3 weeks and I can already tell that this would be a huge help to me and my students.  I'm a very organized person, so this would make navigating through my course so much easier and faster!

[johnmartin]

Totally right  @jonesn16 !  @deppeler  — Canvas is an exceptionally-constrained design environment! And "to some extent" this *does* provide continuity across classes for students who access it. Of course, there's room for (lots of) improvement, and room for debate on what's best for a variety of courses. Hence, these forums 🙂

[johnmartin]

Thank you  @scottdennis !

[gareth_beague-f]

I teach reading, math, and writing to students in four different grade levels.  It would definitely make more sense  to create a folder for each grade.  My lesson plans submissions would be better organized.

[gareth_beague-f]

Can you please explain how to create folders in Files?  I'd really appreciate it.

[scottdennis]

Hi Gareth,

This guide article is targeted to instructors: How do I create a folder in Files as an instructor? but it says, "Folders can be used to organize files in your course, group, or personal files." which I take to mean that all users can do in personal files as rights are tied to courses vs user accounts.

[deppeler]

I do upload files to files area. I would like to use the Pages to create "pages" instead of having to use Google Docs, or MS Word to create "pages" and then have to upload to files in the event that I must edit the source docs.

-Deb