By Paul Janzen – September 25, 2015
*** Important Update ***
The Quicklink information provided in this blog is still accurate. However, D2L is now recommending developers implement the Brightspace LTI Content Item Message (Quicklink) integration.
What is a Quicklink?
The definition of a Quicklink can be found in the Brightspace Glossary. This definition is accurate, but it doesn't highlight the fact that the Quicklink's menu is available to Instructors in many high-use locations in the Brightspace UI. Instructors use Quicklinks all the time (even though they might not even know what a Quicklink is).
The two most common places you will find Quicklinks are in the Content tool's "Add Existing Activities" menu...
... or in the Brightspace WYSIWYG editor (it is the third button in the menu)...
Creating a Quicklink Remote Plugin
Adding your LTI Tool to the Quicklinks menu is quite simple. Login to Brightspace as an Administrator. Click on the Admin Gears and then select Remote Plugins.
Next click on "New Remote Plugin" and select Plugin Type = Quicklinks. This is what you will see:
Simply enter in the Name of your solution (this is what Instructors will click on in the Quicklinks menu) and your LTI basics (URL, Key and Secret). The Quicklinks Remote Plugin also allows you to include your own branding Icon URL to highlight your solution in the UI. Don't forget to make your Remote Plugin available for use in Courses throughout your Brightspace instance!
Once added, your Quicklink Remote Plugin will appear at the bottom of the list of Quicklinks menu items. When an Instructor selects your Quicklinks Remote Plugin a new modal window will appear and the LTI launch will occur within this window. Your LTI interface must then provide the Instructor with a means of selecting an item to get linked in their Brightspace course.
Follow the Recipe
The next step is for you, the developer, to create a Brightspace Quicklink which opens the selected item. If you are linking to a web resource not protected by LTI, then following the Valence Reference documentation for Remote Plugins will work for you. In this case, no API calls are required.
If you are using LTI to protect the selected item then you will have to follow these steps:
- Follow the API Cookbook: Adding a LTI Link into Course Content. Follow all of the steps outlined in that API Cookbook article... except for the last one. So, create an External Learning Tool Link, and then create an associated Quicklink.
- Grab the lti_presentation_return_url property from the Remote Plugin's LTI launch. All you will require from this value is its root URL (you can toss away the query string).
- Build a ReturnURL value based on the following: [Root URL of the lti_presentation_return_url property] + '?quicklink=' + encodeURIComponent('[URL of Your QUICKLINK]') + '&title=[Text Title of the Link]' + '&target=NewWindow'
- Redirect the browser (using Javascript) to the ReturnURL that you built in step 3.
Step #3 is the key step here. Keep these things in mind as you build your ReturnURL value:
- Unlike the Insert Stuff Remote Plugin, for a Quicklinks integration you do not have to modify the URL of the Quicklink.
- The Title value is what end-users will see as the text of the Quicklink
- Target options are: SameFrame (take over the frame under the Navbar), WholeWindow (take over the current browser window), or NewWindow (open a new tab/window to render in).
Creating a Quicklinks Remote Plugin is very easy to do and its usability benefits will be appreciated by Instructors.