Dropdown on the Navigation bar for modules

[reghoffman]

Does anyone have a way to create a dropdown menu under MODULES on the navigation bar? I'd like to toggle through and not have to keep using the back arrow and clicking on module again. PowerSchool has a great navigation bar where you can see the pages and see the current page you are on. It is easy to navigate week by week.

Thanks for any ideas.

[katiehamilton · Accepted solution]

Hello @reghoffman !

Thanks for reaching out to us in the Community!

I understand that you would like to create a customizable dropdown menu under the Modules tab in the course navigation bar. Unfortunately, this is not an option that is available to our users at this time. 

The only customizations that are available for the course navigation list include disabling course navigation tabs for students and - with the use of the redirect tool - creating custom navigation tabs. However, the redirect tool may or may not be available for you to use, depending on whether it shows up in the apps area of your course settings.

If you would like to see this feature implemented into Canvas, I highly recommend creating an Idea in our Community. You can do so by following this guide.

[reghoffman]

Thanks for letting me know. I'm really surprised this is not a priority in the navigation of modules for Canvas to improve. I use PowerSchool and Blackboad and they both have dropdown navigation for modules while you are viewing a page so you have easily access the content in different modules. It is very cumbersome in Cavas to have to hit the back arrow every time you want to see the module list again.

reg

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi there, @reghoffman ...

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but does your school have DesignPLUS from Cidi Labs?  They have a little "hidden gem" in their software that looks something like this on a Canvas page:

In the above example, I just put in a bit of code at the top of my page which added that gray button.  When you click on the button, a little drop-down opens.  You can see that I have two modules...one named "Chris" and another named "Cathy".  The "Chris" module has a bunch of links to all the content I've built within my "modules" page...but I can access it directly from this page because of the "hidden gem" code snippet.

DesignPLUS is a paid product, so if you are not a Canvas administrator for your school, you'd need to have a conversation with folks at your school to see if that would ever be an option for your school.

Again, not entirely sure if this is sort of what you are looking for...but I thought I'd share this with you...just in case.

[KrisBunker]

We have Cidi Labs, but I'm unable to find how to add this dropdown menu. Would you be able to point me in the right direction as to how to add this to a Canvas page? Thanks!

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @KrisBunker ...

There are a bunch of "hidden gems" for Cidi Labs listed here:

Hidden Gems: DesignPLUS User Guide (instructure.com)

Look for the one called "Course/Module Navigation Button" which is currently the third item in the list.

Hope this helps!

[KrisBunker]

Excellent - thank you @Chris_Hofer!

[reghoffman]

I think this may be what I'm looking for but not sure what you mean by you can't access it directly when you are on the "Course Module Navigation Page" you are showing. This would only be helpful if you can look at a page and then open a drop down menu to go to the next page in your module or to a different module. 

If you look at the attached, I can be on a page in PowerSchool, but then easily look at all my "modules" / weeks and access them. In Canvas every time you click on a Module and go into it a page, you have to go back to the the navigation bar and click on module to start all over again...

regina

[Chris_Hofer]

Good morning, @reghoffman ...

I think you and I are on the same page.  Take a look at my screenshot again that I posted a few days ago.  At the top right corner of the page titled "Course Module Navigation", you'll see a gray button called "User Guide Navigation".  If users were to click on this gray button, that drop-down menu would appear.  In my case, it would show a module named "Chris" and a module named "Cathy".  In my screenshot, I click on the module named "Chris" to display all the content pages that are in that module...which you could jump to at any time.  This is all part of that "hidden gem" that is included with DesignPLUS from Cidi Labs.

If you don't have this product from Cidi Labs, another option for you would be to navigate to your "Modules" page in your course.  Then, instead of left-clicking on your pages, you could right-click on a content page to open it in a new tab.  (Or, an even quicker keyboard shortcut is to hold your Ctrl key and then left-click ... which also opens up a new tab in your browser.)  That way, you have your "Modules" page always open in the background, and when you are finished viewing a page in your course, you can close that tab to return to the "Modules" page.  Not sure if this is the most ideal for your situation, but it might be a good work-around for the time being.

Hope this information will be helpful to you.

[reghoffman]

Thanks Chris. If that dropdown is clickable then yes that would solve my issue. I have been doing the right-mouse click to open in a separate window, but it is not ideal. 

I'll ask my school about the DesignPLUS.

Thanks again!

regina