Drag and drop files works from within some modules but not in others in the same canvas course. Why?

[jorossi]

I'm putting a new Canvas course together.  Because of the idiotic non-inclusion of sub-folders in Canvas Modules, I have an enormous number of modules set up in my course.  Because my slide narrations are sometimes spoken quickly, I decided to offer MP3 files for each individual slide of every Chapter lecture so my students can change the playback speed.  Every thing went well until I started adding the MP3-containing Modules. For the first MP3 set for the first module (i.e., "Introduction MP3s"), I collectively dragged and dropped the 16 MP3 files into the Module from the "+"- "Files" pull-down.  Of course, since Canvas is unable to order by whole number value (kinda like Windows 95), the files go into the Module in most-significant digits order (e.g., 11, 12, 13, 14, 1, 21, 20, 21, etc).  For that "Introduction" module, I WAS able to rearrange the files using drag and drop as usual.  When I tried to repeat that process for "Chapter 1a MP3s" (and Chapter 1b, and Chapter 2a), drag and drop wouldn't work.  I tried removing the files and re-adding them and it still didn't work.  After testing other solutions (e.g., not moving the newly created module before adding the files, clicking on "return" after giving the module name and many other potential superstitious behaviors, etc), I tried adding them to the module, one file at a time.  That worked, but there are 26 sub-chapters, each with its own MP3 module, and some of the chapters contain in excess of 26 PowerPoint slides.  It's bad enough to be forced to use drag and drop to rearrange them into correct numerical sequence, but it is taking me about 10min per sub-chapter to load them one-by-one.  Also, I checked the other modules, and everything seems to drag and drop correctly in them.  Does drag-and-drop stop working after some number of Modules are created?  That seems ridiculous, but this is Canvas, after all!

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @jorossi ...

Any chance that you could provide a screen recording of what you are trying to do?  When you said you were in "Modules" and then dragging and dropping into "+" - "Files", that's where you kind of lost me.  I think it would help if we could see an example from your course to help figure out what might be going on.  Thanks.

[jorossi]

In "Files", I have uploaded each Chapter's worth of MP3 files (from the SSD on my computer), in their own folders.  In Modules I have created a Module for each of those "File" folders.  How I get those filkes from each of the "Files" folders is to select the little '+' icon on the upper right header of the Modules screen.  Then, from the drop-down list, I select files and navigate to the "File" folder I want to extract the filenames from.  Then I select all the MP3 files that are in the folder, and select whatever button selects them for sending to the Module.  That's the way I have been doing since 2013 when our school adopted Canvas. 

The problem I am having is inside the Module.  The file names are there with their proper associations (i.e., when I click on the MP3, I can play it from within Canvas).  As I said, Canvas moves the names to Modules but doesn't sort them in any reasonable order (like, numerically).  At that point, the obvious thing to do would be to manually sort them inside the Module.  For all my other Modules, selecting and holding the 'move' icon on the far left of the file name, allows me to move the selected file to a new location up or down within the Module (i.e., drag and drop).  For whatever reason, that doesn't work in the Modules to which I was referring in the initial post.

I went and got the Modules created by selecting one file at a time.  The odd thing, that I didn't find out until after I posted, is that if the files are moved one-at-a-time, the drag and drop process DOES work in the module.  Since 2013, I have been moving multiple files from "Files" to Modules by selecting all the files I want to move from "Files", and the drag and drop process inside the modules has always worked. 

I hope that is clearer.  I have no idea how to do a screen recording from on a PC, without a video card that records the video buffer, and I don't have such a card on my PC.

[chriscas]

Hi @jorossi,

I can't replicate the issues you reported with not being able to move the module content, so I wonder if it could also be browser or operating system specific, or perhaps the issue has been corrected since you posted.

I did want to make one suggestion that could help the sorting for you (you may already know this though).  If you name your single digit number things with a leading 0 (01 instead of 1, for example), they should sort correctly.  I know this isn't as nice for students to read in a module, but it could help you a bit if that's a trade-off that you'd accept.

-Chris