[SpeedGrader] Allow HTML in Assignment Comments

[cranero]

In providing feedback to students in the Assignment Comments area of an assignment, I often provide URLs to students.  Currently, the comments area is text only so students cannot click on the URL to go to the website.  Instead, they need to manually copy and paste the URL to make it work.  It would be nice to have some HTML functionality here.

[nathan_franck]

Yes, agreed, adding url links and bitmojis to messages and assignment comments would be a great feature. I wonder why it still hasn't been addressed.

[JSahms]

When leaving comments for young children that are non-readers, the feedback is not valuable if it is words they cannot read.  Please allow images to be left as comments so even the youngest Canvas users can benefit from feedback.

[grant_larsen]

Pictures, links, equations, all these things would be very helpful to be able to leave in feedback.

[shorts]

This feature request has been commented on for over 5 years now. Why is it not open for voting?

At the very least, live links would be really helpful. But I also like the simple text box for comments; I would not want to have a big bulky rich text editor for comments. Nor would I want to loose the capability for this comment text to display in the grades page for students and things like that. If we could just get capability of these places to recognize a link as a hyperlink, that would be a good step. 

[MPF007]

I am somewhat confused as to why such a good idea, and one which shouldn't be to difficult to implement, is taking so long to action or open a vote on.  This would be such a useful function, especially if it "opens in a new tab" rather than ambushing the tab you are currently using.    

[jayoder]

Please let this become a thing! I want to post tutorial videos from YouTube or links to Google Docs! This would be a so helpful!

[jbrown]

Yes, enabling the rich content editor for SpeedGrader comments would be ideal. Another problem we are seeing with adding URLs to comments is that they sometimes get truncated after saving the comment--making the URL not work even if copy-pasted to a browser. This is so last century! 

[L_Knight]

If you post comments in the RUBRIC comments area, then those comments have the ability to use a clickable URL. The regular comment area below the rubric still doesn't appear to allow clickable URLs. 

[tatee1]

This would be a great option for both instructors and students, making it seamless to access the referenced link.

[danaleeling]

Even just a rudimentary implementation of markdown in comments would go a long way to addressing the uses expressed in this topic. I have to imagine there are markdown packages which could be implemented to generate this capacity without having to code from scratch. On essentially a single programmer iNaturalist did this on a site with millions of comments in a few months of work. Canvas with its far larger teams cannot get this done in five years?

I am old enough to have lived through three generations of LMS platforms holding the market lead. Each platform eventually stagnated and was then run down by a more capable, more nimble platform. I have the sense that Canvas may have peaked and is in a maintenance mode, with the bulk of the effort now devoted to acquiring and integrating potential threats. Just wondering out loud.

Making comments more supportive of rich text would have a strong positive learning impact. Links that work are so necessary now. Not just for iPads, but all the students out here in the non-western world, where students access Canvas from cell phones. Link selecting and copying is not possible.