[Pages] Numerical page ID's

[celia_fdez7]

Problem statement:

The ID's of the pages are generated with the title of these, this causes problems when linking pages in other resources, because if at any time the title of the page changes the link to it will not be correct.

Proposed solution:

The page ID's should be numeric and not modifiable, instead of being generated with the page title, as are the ID's of the activities or tests. If the ID's of the pages were created by a non-modifiable numeric code we would have the advantage that, when a page changes its title, the links would still point correctly to the linked page.

User role(s):

admin,instructor,student,ta,designer

[AllisonHowell]

Thank you for submitting this idea @celia_fdez7! I'm happy to report that we are actively working on this problem and are hoping to address it without losing the title-based urls that so many of our users find useful. In fact, we recently solicited feedback from the community to help us settle on our solution. Check out this blog post here. 

Given the above, I will be marking your idea as "will not consider." I hope this will be welcome news! 

[celia_fdez7]

Hello @AllisonHowell ,

Thank you very much for your answer and for the news that this idea is being worked on. May we know if there is any way to follow up more closely this case?

[DanBurgess]

Problem statement:

Canvas uses the name of a page as the identifier in the URL. This is unlike other objects in Canvas such as assignments, quizzes, and discussions which use a numeric identifier. When a page name is changed, any references to the page via a URL link placed elsewhere become invalid.

Proposed solution:

Change the identifier to a numeric value that is not dependant upon the name of the page. At the very minimum, alert instructors that changing the page title will cause issues with the existing link to the page. Note: A similar idea was put forth several years ago: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/Update-ALL-links-when-Page-name-changes/idi-p/... This is idea proposed updating all the links when a change is made. While this idea might have involved a significant amount of effort, perhaps taking a phased approach where at least initially providing a warning message if a name is changed could be done with relatively little effort.

User role(s):

admin,instructor,ta,designer