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How do I open the DesignPLUS Sidebar?

Learn how to access the sidebar while editing content in Canvas.

Please consider these two important questions:

  1. Does your Canvas instance have DesignPLUS installed?
  2. If so, have you been given access to use it?

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you may proceed with the instructions in this article to help you load the DesignPLUS Sidebar.

If you're unsure about either of these two questions, you are welcome to try following the instructions below.  If it doesn't work, it's safe to assume that you do not have access to DesignPLUS.  Contact your Canvas admin for details.

Launch button

Depending on your institutional settings, your DesignPLUS Sidebar launch button may appear automatically when you edit Canvas content, or it might be hidden from users by default. If you do not see the launch button while editing Canvas content, then you'll need to use a keyboard shortcut to initiate the DesignPLUS Sidebar.

  1. Edit a content item in Canvas (page, assignment, etc) or create a new content item.*
  2. Look for the DesignPLUS launch button (a rocket ship icon) in the top right corner of the editor screen.
    launch_button
    1. If visible, select the launch button to open the sidebar. 
    2. If not, refer to the article Keyboard Shortcuts to unhide the sidebar.

*The sidebar will not load in every instance of the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE).  Please see the article, "Where can the RCE tools be used?" to learn more.

After using the keyboard shortcut to load the sidebar, you can navigate to User Settings and enable "Show Launch Button" to pin the launch button for yourself for the future.  When this setting is enabled, you won't have to repeat the keyboard shortcuts next time, because the launch button will now be visible by default whenever you are editing content.