Grading on iPad with Canvas Teacher app - any way to minimize the Grades-Comments-Files pane?

[dpesetsky]

When grading in the Canvas Teacher app on the iPad, I can push the grades-comments-files pane out of the way in portrait view.  But the minute I rotate the iPad to landscape, it becomes a pane taking up 1/3 of the screen — and I can't see any way to minimize it.  This makes landscape view, which I prefer, almost useless. Am I missing something?

[rseilham · Accepted solution]

@dpesetsky,

Unfortunately, it's not possible to hide this pane in landscape on the iPad. I suggest you create a new feature idea for the community to discuss. If you post an idea, please post the idea back to this discussion. Thanks. 

[watsonnk]

Hi @rseilham , Seems strange that this has to be considered as  'feature request' rather than a bug fix as  - I'm just seeing this for the first time, same as @dpesetsky , it completely defeats the purpose of using landscape mode if we lose 1/3 of the screen width ... so effectively the same physical width as portait mode.

Any chance of a simple bug fix?  Feature request timescales for implementation are excruciatingly slow for something like this.

Best regards,

       Nigel W.

[Mark_BH]

I see this conversation hasn't been active for about a year, but there is a workaround that makes the grade/comment/files pane go away, and least on my 7th generation iPad. With a student submission open in landscape mode, hit the "top" button so the iPad goes to sleep. When you wake it up with the home button, the grades/comments/files pane is minimized at the bottom of the screen.

Not elegant, but effective. It seems to me that a long downward swipe on the grade/comment/files pane would be a natural UI action for this outcome.

[jozsefdavid]

Hi @watsonnk !

Thank you for the question. I am the product manager of the mobile apps.  Unfortunately, this question is a bit more complicated than it seems at the first sight. A bug in my dictionary is a deviation from an existing and expected behavior. In this case, this feature never existed so that is why we can't qualify it as a bug. But it really does not matter how we call the task/issue I think.

A quick hint why it is complex:

• Portrait mode:
  • up/down swipe means open or close the panel.
  • left/right swipe means switch students to next/previous
• Landscape mode:
  • left/right swipe means switch students to next/previous
  • so left/right swipe cannot easily hide/show the side panel without confusion

Obviously, there are workarounds like exact open/close buttons, but it requires more thinking. I am pretty sure that most of us wouldn't be happy if we wanted to hide the side panel and accidentally we changed the student or the opposite. 

We'll discuss it soon with the team and look at the options, so hopefully, we'll have more positive answer soon. 

[watsonnk]

Hi @jozsefdavid ,

Thanks a lot for the reply!  Agreed, the exact meaning of bug depends on the user, for something based so much on gestures, non-intuitiive behaviour felt like that to me.  The swipe up in portrait mode to be honest is more of a nuisance, it is very easy to brush against it and open the grade/comment panel unintentionally, and at least for me it is more convient to actually click to open the required panel to access the comments/grade when needed. If the same could be implemented for portrait mode, this would allow left/right swipe to access the next student.  The gestures to move between students without 'Done' action is essential given the large time penalty incurred when reloading all of the students (submitted scanned images of work).

All suggestions very much appreciated - but not being able to use the fraction of the screen in just one of the two orientations seems far from ideal.  Reminiscent of using rubric-based marking in Speedgrader on the web interface, a fixed fraction of screen real estate is not under the control of the user. 

Being able to resize freely the comment/feedback panel in portrait mode would also help as a partial workround if less work too.

All the best,

   Nigel

[LisaGordis]

I agree with Nigel--one reason I want to use landscape mode is that I keep accidentally opening the comments pane in portrait mode. Thanks!

[mrhemtulla]

any movement on this? it's been 3 years and as far as I can tell the "fix" is now that the comment pane is permanent whether in portrait or landscape mode and there's no longer any way to make it go away! When I'm marking up student papers I don't want to lose 1/3 of my screen, my eyes are not up to the task of reading miniscule print... 

[RMBuck]

It's now been nearly three years since @jozefdavid posted his reply and there is still no resolution for this issue. Is there anyone in the Canvas community who can provide an update?