JSHack: A floating toolbox for Blackboard portal pages

-

In my last post Let me show you our Blackboard I described a number of customisations and features I had added to our Blackboard environment.

 In this post I'm going to share with you the "floating box" I added to the bottom right corner of Blackboard portal pages.  This simple add on uses JSHack.  JSHack is very simple to install.  Once you have it you can simply upload the zip file below and enable it.


Sam Cole assisted me with the styling and gave a lot of useful feedback whilst I was developing it.

 The download link is at the end of this article.

Use Case


 Keep in mind that since we do not licence the "community" aspect of Blackboard we have much less flexibility over what we can add to portal pages.  We can only have the My Institution and My Courses default tabs, with very limited customisation.

 I wanted staff and students to more easily discover two important tools that make improve the Blackboard experience:
  1. Enabling terms to allow the courses to be broken down by academic year in the My Courses box.
  2. Upload a user avatar.


Solution

Having experimented with different possibilities to do this I settled on a collapsible menu type arrangement in a fixed location.  I also added links to get help and support and to other related services.

Here is a demonstration.

Customisable

The HTML is simple and easy to customise or extend to suit your purposes.


<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="${resourcePath}/mlebox.css">
<div  class="MLEbox">
<button class="MLEcollapsible">Upload your avatar picture</button>
<div class="MLEcontent">
  <p><a href="/webapps/blackboard/execute/myPlacesSettings?command=edit">You may upload a picture to represent yourself in Blackboard.</a></p>
</div>
<button class="MLEcollapsible">Improve your course list</button>
<div class="MLEcontent">
  <p><a href="/webapps/portal/execute/tabs/tabAction?tab_tab_group_id=_1_1&forwardUrl=edit_module%2F_4_1%2Fbbcourseorg%3Fcmd%3Dedit&recallUrl=%2Fwebapps%2Fportal%2Fexecute%2Ftabs%2FtabAction%3Ftab_tab_group_id%3D_1_1">Follow this link, then tick <b>Group by Term</b> and select the <b>Submit</b> button to organise your course list by academic year.</a></p>
</div>
<button class="MLEcollapsible">Need help?</button>
<div class="MLEcontent">
  <p>Visit the <a href="https://elearn.southampton.ac.uk/" target="_blank">iSolutions elearn site</a>:<br /><br />
  <a href="http://elearn.southampton.ac.uk/blackboard/student/" target="_blank">- Blackboard help for students.</a>
  <br /><a href="http://elearn.southampton.ac.uk/blackboard/staffindex/" target="_blank">- Blackboard help for staff.</a><br /><br />If you cannot find the answer there, please <a href="http://www.soton.ac.uk/ithelp" target="_blank">raise a ticket.</a></p>
</div>
<button class="MLEcollapsible">Other useful sites</button>
<div class="MLEcontent">
  <ul>
        <li><a href="https://my.southampton.ac.uk" target="_blank">MySouthampton</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://go.soton.ac.uk/365" target="_blank">Office365 and Email</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://www.efolio.soton.ac.uk/" target="_blank">eFolio</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://timetable.soton.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Timetable</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://mytime.southampton.ac.uk" target="_blank">MyTime</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://www.sussed.soton.ac.uk" target="_blank">Sussed</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://vevox.app/#/" target="_blank">Join Vevox Session</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://www.susu.org/" target="_blank">SUSU</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>
<script>
var i,coll=document.getElementsByClassName("MLEcollapsible");for(i=0;i<coll.length;i++)coll[i].addEventListener("click",function(){this.classList.toggle("active");var a=this.nextElementSibling;a.style.maxHeight=a.style.maxHeight?null:a.scrollHeight+"px"});
</script>
</div>

and the CSS is also very simple and easy to change to suit your purposes.  I have set it to disappear on a smaller screen where there is less space.

@media only screen and (min-width: 1024px) {
    .MLEbox {
        position: fixed;
        bottom: 20px;
        right: 30px;
        width: 21%;
        background: white;
        padding: 15px;
        -webkit-box-shadow: 31px 40px 58px -41px rgba(153, 144, 153, 1);
        -moz-box-shadow: 31px 40px 58px -41px rgba(153, 144, 153, 1);
        box-shadow: 31px 40px 58px -41px rgba(153, 144, 153, 1);
        border: 1px solid #cdcdcd !important;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible {
        background-color: #002E3B;
        margin-top: 5px;
        margin-bottom: 5px;
        border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;
        -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;
        -webkit-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;
        color: white;
        cursor: pointer;
        padding: 10px;
        width: 100%;
        border: none;
        text-align: left;
        outline: none;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible:hover,
    .MLEcollapsible:focus {
        background-color: #8D3970;
        transition: all 0.5s ease-in-out !important;
        outline: #8D3970;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible:after {
        content: '\002B';
        color: white;
        font-weight: bold;
        float: right;
        margin-left: 5px;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible.active:after {
        content: "\2212";
    }
    .MLEcontent {
        padding: 0 10%;
        max-height: 0;
        overflow: hidden;
        transition: max-height 0.2s ease-out;
        background-color: #fff;
    }
    .MLEcontent a:focus {
        color: #fff !important;
        text-decoration: underline !important;
        background-color: #00131D !important;
        transition: ease-in-out 0.2s !important;
        outline: none;
    }
}
@media only screen and (min-width: 768px) {
    .MLEbox {
        position: fixed;
        bottom: 20px;
        right: 30px;
        width: 15%;
        background: white;
        padding: 15px;
        -webkit-box-shadow: 31px 40px 58px -41px rgba(153, 144, 153, 1);
        -moz-box-shadow: 31px 40px 58px -41px rgba(153, 144, 153, 1);
        box-shadow: 31px 40px 58px -41px rgba(153, 144, 153, 1);
        border: 1px solid #cdcdcd !important;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible {
        background-color: #002E3B;
        margin-top: 5px;
        margin-bottom: 5px;
        border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;
        -moz-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;
        -webkit-border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 6px;
        color: white;
        cursor: pointer;
        padding: 10px;
        width: 100%;
        border: none;
        text-align: left;
        outline: none;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible:hover,
    .MLEcollapsible:focus {
        background-color: #8D3970;
        transition: all 0.5s ease-in-out !important;
        outline: #8D3970;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible:after {
        content: '\002B';
        color: white;
        font-weight: bold;
        float: right;
        margin-left: 5px;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible.active:after {
        content: "\2212";
    }
    .MLEcontent {
        padding: 0 10%;
        max-height: 0;
        overflow: hidden;
        transition: max-height 0.2s ease-out;
        background-color: #fff;
    }
    .MLEcontent a:focus {
        color: #fff !important;
        text-decoration: underline !important;
        background-color: #00131D !important;
        transition: ease-in-out 0.2s !important;
        outline: none;
    }
}
@media only screen and (max-width: 767px) {
    .MLEbox {
        display: none;
    }
    .MLEcollapsible {
        display: none;
    }
    .MLEcontent {
        display: none;
    }
}


Notes

  • The floating box appears on the System Admin page.  I have not been able to identify a URL exception to stop this.  Since you can reorder elements on this page this is not much of an issue.
  • There are some accessibility issues I would like to improve when I have time:
    • The tab order could do with some adjustment to make it the last objects on the page to tab through.
    • It is possible to tab through links that have not been expanded.  I need to update the JavaScript to prevent this.
    • Despite the above I have not received any complaints or issues.
I welcome any help, or advice, on this.  Why not have a play and share an updated version?

Download

Filename: MLE-BOX.zip
Size: 3 KB.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should you use Significant Figures or Decimal Places when setting Answer Set options for Calculated Formula questions in Blackboard?

-
Image
Blackboard tests are a hot topic at the moment. I recently recently received a question from Dr Gabriel Weymouth : "I'm positive this is clearly documented somewhere, but I can't find it. How do you make BB apply the correct error margins for calculated formula problems. The logical way of doing it (setting a, say, 2% margin) doesn't work:"
Read more

My updated theme for Blackboard 3800.13

-
Image
As we move to SaaS soon I had to update our theme work to be compatible with the latest SaaS version. So this means I have a nice freshly compiled version to share.  The previously shared version had been lost in the transfer to the new Blackboard Community Site. This explains why I now back up all new posts to both this blog as well as posting on the community site.  A lack of time means that right now I cannot share screenshots of how the new additions to the theme look, but I am providing the source code below so you can experiment with copying and pasting them into Stylus easily, without having to unzip the theme. You can get a good idea of how it all looks by referring to my post: Let me show you my Blackboard . Watch this video for a guide on how to try the theme out without having to install it: Note that the improvement to Review Status required me to apply a separate CSS just for instructors. In Blackboard the review status button has a double purpose when making a test
Read more