Grey background appears behind some content in FireFox

Problem:  When viewing materials in FireFox, the white background sometimes does not extend far enough down.  This causes text to be presented on a grey background and thus be less readable.

Solution:  As a workaround, using Chrome or another supported browser when viewing a course appears to address this issue.  In the meantime, we are attempting to document replication steps which can be provided to the vendor for a resolution.

Distorted equation images

Problem: Mathematical equation images generated in the text editor are occasionally appearing corrupted or distorted.  These images can be generated using the built-in equation editor, or by using “MathJax” notation and surrounding LaTex text with double dollar signs.  This may occur during equation placement in tests, discussions, or elsewhere in a course.

Solution:  While a fix is being investigated, equation images can be generated using external tools, then uploaded and embedded into the text editor.

Resolved: Emails sent from announcement tool may contain HTML tags in message body

Problem:  When creating announcements and checking the “send email” box, the resulting email message body may contain HTML tags.  This has been confirmed to occur when using “Smart Text” with the text editor off, but may happen with the visual editor as well.

Solution: There is no solution available at this time, however Bb has indicated that this is resolved in a future release.  The workaround is currently to avoid using HTML formatting where possible when creating announcements that need to be sent as emails.

Resolved: Discussion board text overlaps when viewing threads in “maximized view”

When viewing a discussion board thread with a significant number of entries, the text overlaps with the entry listing, causing the entry to be difficult or impossible to read.

This is an identified bug. A resolution has not been identified yet for a future release. To prevent this from happening in the meantime, switch out of “maximize” view when viewing threaded discussions. This can be achieved by clicking the “minimize” button to the upper right of the discussion thread:

Inconsistent Font Formatting Problems in Bb Text Boxes

Update: You can now place content copied from word using the “Paste From Word” Mashup.  Find out how.

Sometimes, when text is copied from MSWord into a Bb text box, e.g., a content item, it may have uneven formatting. For instance, paragraph text or spacing may be at different sizes and difficult to reformat.

This is because the text from MS Word contains hidden formatting code that often conflicts with Bb. (While this also happened with the previous version of Bb, it seems to be occurring more frequently in Bb9.)

There are a couple of solutions to controlling the text format.

The most simple solution is to skip MSWord, altogether. Instead, type your text in a plain text editor such as NotePad (in Windows) or TextEdit (in Mac) with no formatting. Then, paste this into the Bb text box and format it with the Bb formatting tools, such as bold, italics, and bullets, seen in image below.

If you have to use MSWord, just know that if you paste that text directly into Bb, you may have formatting problems. The only way to fix them is to “clean” your text of its hidden formatting code (see below) and then re-format it again using the Bb format tools.

The Method for “Cleaning” Text is different for Windows and Mac Users

Windows Users:
Open the program, Notepad. (This is installed on all Windows computers) Copy the desired text from your MSWord document (.doc or .docx) and paste it into Notepad. Notepad doesn’t retain that hidden formatting code, so it’s essentially “cleaned.” Now, highlight and copy the text from Notepad and paste it into your Bb text box. Use the Bb formatting tools to create a finished page.
Mac Users:
Open the program, TextEdit. (This is installed on all Mac computers, found in Applications.) Before anything else, you’ll need to change one of the TextEdit preferences.Follow these steps (shown in this illustration)
1) Click Preferences   2) Choose Plain Text    3) Close Preferences

Now, copy the desired text from your MSWord document (.doc or .docx) and paste it into TextEdit. This effectively “cleans” the text of the unwanted, hidden code. Then, highlight and copy the text from TextEdit and paste it into your Bb text box. Use the Bb formatting tools to create a finished page.