Is it possible to create an LTI Course Navigation placement that behaves like Canvas default menu items?

[joel_duffin]

When we install an LTI tool that we want teachers but not students to see, we use the following:

<lticm:options name="course_navigation">
<lticm:property name="default">enabled</lticm:property>
<lticm:property name="text">Tool</lticm:property>
<lticm:property name="url">https://tool.atomicjoltapps.com/lti_launches</lticm:property>
<lticm:property name="visibility">admins</lticm:property>
</lticm:options>

That creates a course menu item that teachers can see but students don't. However, it is colored black. That makes teachers think that it will be visible to students (because the built in Canvas course menus that are black are visible to students).

In addition, if you go to the Course Settings, Navigation, and move the menu item from enabled down to disabled, then it won't show up for teachers. In contrast, moving built in menus, disables them only for students and makes them display in gray.

Am I missing something? I'd like to install the tool in a way that the course menu behaves like the built in Canvas course menus.

[pklove]

I cannot check right now, but I try visibility=members and default=disabled.

[ColinMurtaugh · Accepted solution]

Hi Joel --

We solved this using some Javascript that we added to our theme. It's not ideal in that it requires that we explicitly list all of the tool names that we want to modify, but in practice it's worked out ok.  

Here's the code that we use -- you'd need to tweak it a bit for the specific tool names that you want to have appear grayed-out:

canvas-branding-global/left_nav_tool_visibility_indicator.js at master · harvard-canvas-branding/can... 

--Colin