Say 👋 hello to BusyBee, your AI-powered learning & teaching companion for Buzz. Learn more!

Administrator

How do I customize Main Menu entries?

  • Updated:
    info
    Created:

Buzz allows you to customize the entries that appear in your Main Menu.

Add Main Menu entries

To add a custom entry:

  1. Open Domain Settings.
  2. Click Add under Menus.
  1. Provide:
    • The ID associated with the entry.
    • The entry's desired placement Order in the Main Menu ("0" = top placement).
    • The entry Title as you want it to appear in the Main Menu.
    • The entry's URL if necessary. You can use the replacement variables defined below to customize this URL further.
    • The desired Icon; click Choose to select your icon (review your icon options).
    • An indication about whether you want to the entry Enabled, to Open URL in external window, to Require the user to choose a course, and/or Do not allow the user to choose a course.
    • The Applications (Admin, Parent, Student, or Teacher) for which the entry should appear (optional).
    • The Rights users need to access the entry (optional).
    • The Domain userspaces in which the entry should appear (optional).
  2. Click Done.
  3. Save.  

Set up deep linked menu items

Externally-linked customized menu entries (managed by Menu Entries - Custom in this section) can use ID queries to recognize and display "deep linked" items within that external link.

To configure this, add {{QUERY-[INSERT DESIRED ID LABEL]}} to the end of the URL you provide. For example, if you use https://custom-chat-application.example.com/{{QUERY-messageid}} as your menu entry URL, Buzz will:

  • Load https://custom-chat-application.example.com when a user selects that entry from the Main Menu.
  • Load https://custom-chat-application.example.com/123456789 when a user is provided with this URL: https://custom-chat-application.example.com/messageid=123456789

Replacement variables for custom Main Menu entries

Custom Main Menu URLs allow for dynamic replacement variables that automatically replace a variable code (options listed below) with a desired value drawn from user, course, and/or domain information.

Use any of the following replacement variables by enclosing them with double curly brackets (e.g., {{TOKEN}}, {{USERID}}, {{ADMINDOMAINID}}):

  • APP: Determines which app (Student, Parent, Teacher, or Admin) is active when the menu is launched and displays it.
  • TOKEN: The xLi authentication token for the currently logged in user. When using this variable, the URL must be secure, starting with https.
  • USERID: The ID for the currently logged in user.
  • USERDOMAINID: The domain ID for the currently logged in user.
  • USERSPACE: The userspace for the customization domain, or the domain userspace visible in the top level URL.
  • ENROLLMENTID: The ID of the currently selected enrollment.
  • COURSEID: The ID of the course associated with the currently selected enrollment.
  • ADMINDOMAINID: The currently selected domain ID in the admin app.
  • QUERY-<param>: The value of the top page's query parameter with the case-sensitive name of <param>. The application only replaces this variable if external is not set to true.
  • USERFIRSTNAME: The firstname of the currently logged-in user, or empty-string if the user has specified hidefullname from external web sites.
  • USERLASTNAME: The lastname of the currently logged-in user, or empty-string if the user has specified hidefullname from external web sites.
  • USEREMAIL: The email address of the currently logged-in user, or empty-string if the user has specified hideemail from external web sites.

Custom Main Menu entires open in iframes which don't follow Buzz's idle timeout reset parameters. Buzz supports a postMessage API that allows these integrations to reset the idle timeout: How do I keep idle timeout updated in iframes?

Edit Main Menu entries

To edit an existing entry:

  1. Open Domain Settings.
  2. Click Override under Menus.
  1. Select the entry you want to edit from the Type dropdown.
  2. Provide:
    • The entry's desired placement Order in the Main Menu ("0" = top placement). To leave the entry in it's current placement, don't edit this field.
    • The Title you want to appear in the Main Menu (this replaces the title you selected in Type).
    • The desired Icon; click Choose to select your icon (review your icon options). To keep the current icon associated with the entry, don't select a new icon.
  3. Keep the Enabled box checked (unchecking this box hides the entry).
  4. Click Done and save your Domain settings.

The edits now appear in the Main Menu in your domain.

Hide Main Menu entries

To hide an existing entry:

  1. Open Domain Settings.
  2. Click Override under Menus.
  1. Select the entry you want to hide from the Type dropdown.
  2. Uncheck the Enabled box.
  3. Click Done and save your Domain settings.
forum

Have a question or feedback? Let us know over in Discussions!

Articles in this section

See all 140 articles

Related articles