External Tool Link Selector
An extension to standard LTI, external tools can be configured to allow selecting custom links to be added to modules or used for external tool assignments. When a tool is configured, if the user goes to add a link to a module or select a link for an external tool assignment, they'll see the tool with a special "find" icon on it. Clicking this tool will pop up a dialog and load the external tool inline. The tool should direct users to select or build a resource. The tool will then redirect the user to the LTI success URL with some additional parameters. Canvas will use these parameters to create custom URL that will be used as the link.
URLs returned in this manner will not circumvent the standard LTI URL/domain checking procedure, which is important to remember when returning URLs to add to the course. In general, it is best to make the these type of tools as domain-matching tool and only return URLs whose domain matches the tool's specified domain.
When tools are loaded as link selectors, Canvas sends an additional parameter to notify the tool of the directive, "extcontentreturntypes=selectlink". When a tool receives this directive, it means Canvas is expecting the tool to redirect the user to the LTI success URL with some specific additional parameters. These additional parameters tell Canvas what URL to select, as listed below. Remember to URL encode parameter values such as url.
Possible Redirect Parameters
to embed an lti link:
| return_type=lti_launch_url | (required) | |
| url=<url> | this is URL that will be used to load the external tool | (required) |
| title=<text> | this is used as the 'title' attribute of the inserted external tool link | (optional) |
| text=<text> | this is the suggested text for the inserted link. If the user has already selected some content before opening this dialog, the link will wrap that content and this value will be ignored. | (optional, defaults to 'link') |
examples:
If the launchpresentationreturn_url were
http://www.example.com/done, possible return URLs could include:
- http://www.example.com/done?return_type=lti_launch_url&url=https%3A%2F%2Fothersite.com%2Flti_link
- http://www.example.com/done?return_type=lti_launch_url&url=https%3A%2F%2Fothersite.com%2Flti_link&text=other+site+link
- http://www.example.com/done?return_type=lti_launch_url&url=https%3A%2F%2Fothersite.com%2Flti_link&title=link
Settings
All of these settings are contained under "resource_selection"
url: <url> (optional)
This is the URL that will be POSTed to when users click the button in any rich editor. It can be the same as the tool's URL, or something different. Domain and URL matching are not enforced for editor button links. In order to prevent security warnings for users, it is recommended that this URL be over SSL (https). This is required if a url is not set on the main tool configuration.
icon_url: <url> (optional)
This is the URL of the icon to be shown.
text: <text> (optional)
This is the default text that will be shown if a user hovers over the editor button. This can be overridden by language-specific settings if desired by using the labels setting. This text will also be shown next to the icon if there are too many buttons and the tool is available in the "more tools" dropdown. This is required if a text value is not set on the main tool configuration.
labels: <set of locale-label pairs> (optional)
This can be used to specify different label names for different locales. For example, if an institution supports both English and Spanish interfaces, the text in the link should change depending on the language being displayed. This option lets you support multiple languages for a single tool.
selection_width: <number> (required)
This value is the explicit width of the dialog that is loaded when a user clicks the icon in the rich editor.
selection_height: <number> (required)
This value is the explicit height of the dialog that is loaded when a user clicks the icon in the rich editor.
enabled: <boolean> (required)
Whether to enable this selection feature.