Desire Learn Overview

Quickguide: Homepages and Widgets

The Course Home page is the first page that you and your students will see when you enter your course. It is comprised of boxes of content called widgets. (See Figure 1 for a description of the default widgets.) You can add, remove, and customize these widgets and create custom widgets, which can contain any information, multimedia, or quicklinks you want to display to students as soon as they enter your course. You can also set your homepage to display another section of your course or an external website instead of widgets.

How to Access Homepages and Widgets

1. From any page in your course, click Edit Course. 2. Click Homepages.

In This Guide
Creating a New Course Homepage Setting Your Homepage as Active Creating a Custom Widget Editing Custom Widgets Setting Your Homepage to Redirect

Creating a New Course Homepage

The default course homepage is shared universitywide and cannot be edited directly by instructors. You must create a copy of the homepage in your course and edit the copy. Note: Your new homepage will not appear in your course until you make it active. See the instructions for setting the homepage as active below. 1. From any page in your course, click Edit Course on the right side of the navbar. 2. Click Homepages (Figure 2). 3. Click the Copy icon beside the Course Default homepage (Figure 3). 4. Click Copy in the confirmation pop-up. You will see a new homepage added to the list. 5. Click Copy of Course Default to edit your new homepage. 6. Give your homepage a name (required) and description (optional). 7. Click Save.

News: Allows you to write course announcements that students see as soon as they enter your course. Updates: Automatically shows course activity you have not looked at yet. For example, you will see a notification for unread discussion posts and ungraded dropbox assignments, and students will see a notification when you have entered feedback. Events: Shows any events you have entered or deadlines and start dates you have selected to show in the calendar. Role Switch: Allows instructors to see the course as a student. Students do not see this widget.
Figure 1

Figure 2
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Screen captures are presumed to be fair use for copyright purposes and are not covered by this license.

Desire2Learn Quickguide: Homepages and Widgets (Page 2 of 5)

8. Click the Content/Layout tab to add, remove, and rearrange widgets (Figure 4). A homepage is divided into three columns in the middle and a header and footer that span the width of the page on the top and bottom, respectively. Widgets can be placed in any of these five areas.

Figure 3

Add a Widget
Note: Do not add the LOR widget to your homepage. It will cause a system error when you or your students try to access the course. 1. In the area you want to add a widget, click Add Widget (Figure 5). You will see a list of all of the widgets available to your course, including Desire2Learn system widgets and custom widgets that you have created, listed in alphabetical order. Note: See the Creating a Custom Widget section below for directions on creating your own widget. 2. Select the checkboxes next to the widgets you want to add to the selected area. 3. Click Save. 1. Click the down arrow next to the widget you wish to remove. 2. Click Remove from Homepage (Figure 6). Note: This will not delete the widget from the system. You will still have access to the widget if you want to re-add it to your homepage or copy it to another course. 1. Click the down arrow next to the widget you wish to move. 2. Click Move Up or Move Down to move the widget above or below other widgets in the same area. Click Move To to move the widget to another area.

Figure 4

Remove a Widget

Figure 5

Move a Widget

Modify Widget-Specific Display Settings

Certain widgets, such as the Events and News widgets have specific display settings you can access through the Homepages tool. These allow you to control how much content is displayed in the widget.

Figure 6

Desire2Learn Quickguide: Homepages and Widgets (Page 3 of 5)

1. Click the down arrow next to the widget you wish to modify. 2. Click Edit Display Options (Figure 7). Note: If the Edit Display Options option does not appear, it means there are no display options for this widget. 3. Modify the display options. For example, you can change how many items to display in the News widget. 4. Click Save.

Figure 7

Customize Widget Appearance

You may want to modify the appearance of the box around your widgets if you want to visually emphasize a particular widget or apply a distinct visual style to your homepage. 1. Click the down arrow next to the widget you wish to modify 2. Click Customize (Figure 8). 3. Customize the widget border. By default, widgets have a one-pixel border. To remove the border, deselect the Display widget as a box checkbox. To add a thicker border, select 2 px solid from the Box Style drop-down menu. 4. Customize the widget title bar appearance. To hide the title bar for the widget, deselect the Show the title bar checkbox. Select the title bar background color. To see more color options, select Custom Color and click the down arrow (Figure 9). In the widget title text box, enter the widget title to be displayed to students. From the Title Color drop-down menu, select a text color. 5. Click Save.
Figure 8

Setting Your Homepage as Active

When you have finished editing your homepage, you must set it as active in the main Homepages page. To return to the main Homepages page, click Homepages at the top of the page.

Figure 9

Desire2Learn Quickguide: Homepages and Widgets (Page 4 of 5)

1. Click Set next to the homepage you want to set as active (Figure 10). 2. In the confirmation pop-up, click Set Active. Note: After you have set your homepage as active, any changes you make to the homepage will be immediately visible to students.

Creating a Custom Widget

1. From any page in your course, click Edit Course on the right side of the navbar 2. Click Widgets (Figure 11). 3. Click New Widget. 4. Enter a name (required) and description (optional). Note: This description appears in the Manage Widgets page and is not visible to students. 5. Click Save. 6. Click the Content tab (Figure 12). 7. In the contents text box, enter the content you want to display to students. This can be text, images, links, or content embedded from an external website. See the HTML Editor quickguide for more information on creating content in D2L. 8. Click Save.

Figure 10

Figure 11

Editing Custom Widgets

Edit a Custom Widget
1. From any page in your course, click Edit Course on the right side of the navbar 2. Click Widgets (Figure 11). 3. Click the edit icon next to the widget you want to edit (Figure 13). 4. Use the tabs to edit the widget properties and content. 5. Click Save on each tab on which you make changes.
Figure 12

Delete a Custom Widget

Note: Deleting a widget removes it from all homepages created within the current course. 1. Go to the Manage Widgets page.
Figure 13

Desire2Learn Quickguide: Homepages and Widgets (Page 5 of 5)

2. Click the delete icon next to the widget you want to delete (Figure 14).

Setting Your Homepage to Redirect

You can set your homepage to redirect to another page so that when students enter your course or click Course Home from within your course, they will be taken to a different page. You can redirect students to another D2L tool or to an external website. 1. From the Manage Homepages screen, click New Homepage (Figure 15). 2. Give your homepage a name (required) and a description (optional). 3. Select Set my homepage as a tool or URL. 4. Select the site you want your homepage to redirect to. To set your homepage to redirect to another D2L tool, click Make this homepage a tool. Then select the tool you want to redirect to from the Tool drop-down menu (Figure 16). To set your homepage to redirect to an external website, click Make this homepage a web page. Then, enter the address of the website in the URL field (Figure 17). Note: The website you enter will appear in a frame under your course navbar. Students will still be able to use the navbar to navigate the course. 5. Click Save.
Figure 17 Figure 16

Figure 14

Figure 15