Headers can be used to subdivide the activities in modules, but each header makes the module longer and longer. To reduce scrolling for students, I suggest allowing the headers to be expanded and collapsed
Yes - this would help some with modules that have a lot of information in them. I would like this as well as the sub-modules idea that has been in discussion now for 5 long years.
Absolutely agree – and I would like to add that any item which has more indented items directly below it should be able to collapse and expand such that its "subordinate" items are hidden/shown.
But why wait for 5 years plus for Instructure to get a move on – check out this brand new Chrome extension ("Canvas Modules Compactor") that I wrote the other day which adds exactly this functionality along with collapse-all features on the module and page level:
(Note #1: this extension in absolutely free of charge, so this message is not a commercial in any way. Note #2: if you have been one of the users of the Canvas Quick Student View (CQSV) extension, which was also written by me, you will recall that Instructure added CQSV's functionality to the standard Canvas platform late last year – ie, it seems to help them get going with implementing a feature if a lot of people use an extension adding that feature.)
I will have to look at that in more detail when I have some time. I briefly watched the video and it does work like what I would like. My one worry is if I set up my modules that way, and the students do not use the extension. Then what do they see versus what I see. Is it a bigger mess for them while it is somewhat neat and orderly for me.
Also, this extension is for chrome only and I have students using several different browsers. So that would be an issue as well - although they may not be opposed to using chrome (I do not know) if it is helpful for them.
Still - great job on providing a solution that has not been available.
Can you write an extension that would move the icons from the left of the filename to the right of the filename? That would make the indentation look much cleaner - the icons always mess me up looking at them first instead of the filename.
Yes, the crux is of course that the extension only affects computers that have installed it. On the other hand, the people who do not install it are not worse off than they are today. It is important to note that each time the Modules page is loaded, it gets fully expanded, and compaction will only occur following action from the user. That I think is important in view of concerns that students might have problems finding items if a collapse feature is installed.
It would be quite easy to port the extension to Firefox. As for other browsers, I have not looked into those.
An extension that moves icons to the right of the text would probably be quite easy to write as well. I could include that as an optional extra feature in a future version of the present extension.
Dan - thanks for the information. My concern with students was that If I used this very nice feature that I would create more content in the module because it was easier for me to see and organize. Then the students would be left with a much longer list of content to go through.
I will probably still use it because it is so nice.
By the way, it is too late now, but I broke a rule of not running extensions that I cannot verify for safety. I had this very bad thought that someone could read the forum, come up with an extension that would fix the problem(like you did) and then put in malicious code with the extension (I believe your code to be safe). It would be nice if there was a way for people like you to have their script files (like James Jones) or extensions (like yours) blessed in some way by Canvas so that any user of Canvas does not have to worry about the safety of the code.
I think on the contrary that if one uses the extension, there will be more incentive to structure the items with indentation in a nice and orderly fashion since that is necessary for the "compaction" to work, while it also makes for better overview without the extension.
As for safety, I would think that Google checks that rather extensively before the extension gets posted on Chrome Web Store. It happens that they deny some permissions because they think they are not justified, so there actually is some manual checking. This extension has no "extra" permissions at all and the actual code (apart from the imported jQuery API) is very short – don't know if that might put your mind at rest 🙂
@dan_baeckstrom I've installed the extension and it looks great! I'll be suggesting it to my students. I look forward to seeing this incorporated into Canvas for everyone.
