Learn Algolia, Firefox and Lighthouse

Cascading Style Sheets bring order and beauty to our applications.

CSS Media queries are heavily used across web pages for different reasons, such as make your web pages responsive, but what if we can use them to improve web accessibility as well?

In this video, I’m sharing How to use CSS Media Queries for web accessibility in your web app, combining the user preferences choice with `prefers-color-scheme` media query and enabling dark mode in your web app.

Create a Dark Mode Theme in Your Web App Using CSS Media Query

Firefox DevTools has an awesome feature that helps you determine Inactive CSS, to know why it's inactive, it gives you hints on how to fix it, and even links to documentation for additional help.

Understand why CSS has no effect with the Inactive CSS rules indicator in Firefox DevTools

The Chrome Developer Tools (DevTools for short), are a set of web authoring and debugging tools built into Google Chrome.

chrome-devtools

The axe browser extension (for Chrome and Firefox) is an immensely helpful tool for auditing web pages for accessibility defects.  This extension is powered by the same rules engine developed by Deque Labs in their axe-core open source library which also powers the react-axe development tool.  Each reported defect offers a ton of information about the defect, why it's a problem, severity level, groups impacted and ways to fix the defect.  This can be a great resource for learning more about how to write accessible code.

## Resources
* [Chrome browser extension](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/axe-web-accessibility-tes/lhdoppojpmngadmnindnejefpokejbdd)
* [Firefox browser extension](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/axe-devtools/)

Use the axe Browser Extension to Audit a Web Page for Accessibility Issues

WAI-ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite, defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. 

aria

tota11y is a great tool to add to your accessibility auditing toolkit.  tota11y is a browser extension available for Chrome and Firefox that helps visualize accessibility violations (and successes), while educating on best practices.  It can make for a really helpful supplement to other accessibility auditing tools.

## Resources
* [About tota11y](https://khan.github.io/tota11y/)
* [Chrome browser extension](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tota11y-plugin-from-khan/oedofneiplgibimfkccchnimiadcmhpe?hl=en)
* [Firefox browser extension](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tota11y-accessibility-toolkit/)

Use tota11y to Visualize Accessibility Issues

Using our accessibility auditing toolkit we can find issues concerning landmark regions in our web application.  The react-axe library will report findings in the JavaScript console of the browser.  We could also run the axe browser extension to see the same results.  The tota11y browser extension will annotate any landmark regions on the page and therefore if none are annotated it may indicate that they aren't any (_NOTE: tota11y will only annotate landmark regions using aria roles and not those using HTML5 elements_).  Finally using the VoiceOver Rotor in Safari will show us whatever landmark regions have been defined in the Landmarks menu. 

Test for Landmark Region Accessibility Issues in React

Today’s users expect great things from their search experiences — speed, relevance, and usability, to name a few. Algolia provides developers with out-of-the-box and customizable search experiences that are a joy to build.

This introductory course on the Algolia search solution focuses on the user-facing part of search. Using the Algolia InstantSearch.js front-end library, we’ll see how to build an engaging search experience in no time. (28 minutes, to be exact.) 

**Prerequisites:** 
You don’t need previous experience with search to follow this course — we’ll use an example index with an e-commerce data set preconfigured. We will work mainly in JavaScript, so basic JS knowledge is expected.

If you want to play with your own index settings and data set, you can [create a free Algolia account here](https://www.algolia.com/users/sign_up/hacker/?utm_medium=link&utm_source=egghead&utm_campaign=education), but this is not required to follow along with this first course. 

Algolia's full suite APIs enable teams to develop unique search and discovery experiences for their customers across all platforms and devices. Type a query. Click a link. Open an app. Everything your customers do sends a signal about what they want. Algolia decodes that intent to deliver the right content - instantly.

algolia

Getting Started with Algolia InstantSearch.js

The stats widget is used to display useful insights about the current results like the number of hits and the time taken to compute the results inside the engine.

Inform users about the current result set with Instantsearch JS Stats widget

When you have a large result set for a specific query and usually not displaying more than a few dozen simultaneously. Pagination is a popular widget that allows the user to switch between pages of the results.

Paginate Large Sets of Algolia Data with Instantsearch JS Pagination widget

When performing a complex query, based on several active facets and filters, its tedious for the user to start from scratch if she has to unset all refinements one by one. Thanks to the clearAll widget, this task becomes a one click action for the user and is trivial to implement for us developers as it requires no configuration.

Reset all active refinements with the clearRefinements Instantsearch JS widget

The range input is a simple but useful widget that allows a user filter the results by selecting a numeric range with a minimum and maximum input. In an e-commerce website for instance, this widget would be useful to limit the results where the price is comprised between $X and $Y.

Refine a dataset using a numeric range in Instantsearch JS with the Range Input widget

The hierarchical menu widget is used to create a navigation based on a hierarchy of facet attributes. We generally implement it for categories with subcategories.

Browse results based on a hierarchy of Facets (HierarchicalMenu) in Instantsearch JS

Searching is obviously not limited to inputting text in a searchbox. If your dataset allows it Algolia can leverage of attributes and values. To make use of those facets on the front end, one of the most common widget that you can find in a search UI is the refinement list. With this widget, the user can filter the dataset based on facets. This widget only displays the most relevant facets for the current search context.

Filter Datasets with Facets using Instantsearch JS to add a Refinement List

Every  good search UX make users understand instantly why a given hit is being displayed as part of the result set. One way to achieve that is to highlight the keywords from the query directly inside the Hits. This is built in the API JSON response and in this video we’ll explain how to leverage it easily.

Highlight Keywords in Query Results using the Instantsearch JS Hits Widget

Displaying barebones Hits won’t catch your user’s attention. The UI is key to provide a good search experience and hits are the meat of this experience so they need extra attention. By using Mustache templating we’ll see how to display rich results to your users. 

Display Rich results with templates in the Hits widget for Instantsearch JS

In this lesson we’ll build a search experience reduced to it’s 2 essential components : a search input and the displayed results. As simple as it is, to build this from scratch would require a fair amount of work. Between listening to the input, making the api call, parsing and displaying the result... To build this using Algolia’s Instantsearch library requires a few lines of code with simply two widgets: the Searchbox and the Hits widget.

Search an Algolia Index with Instantsearch JS searchbox and hits widgets

All Instantsearch widgets are added to the page in a similar fashion and they also share a number of common options that we’ll cover in this video. We will be playing with a dummy menu widget that won’t be part of the final project just to showcase all those options.

How to Add Instantsearch JS widgets and their common attributes 

The first step to implement Algolia on the front end using Instantsearch : importing and setting up the library with your credentials. This is what will allow the library to initiate the connection to Algolia servers and the first step to complete before adding some useful widgets.

Set up the Instantsearch JS Library

We now have a good understanding of the API Response structure, we could go playing with instantsearch JS library right away, that said this Library is building on top of the JS API Client. To get a better grasp on how it works at a lower level, let’s play first with raw hits straight from the JS API client, we’ll take care of better UI with Instantsearch JS right after that.

Leverage the Algolia JS API Client to Display Raw Hits from the API Response

Before playing with Instantsearch widgets and build a rich search experience, the fundamental step is to understand what the library will be dealing with. In this lesson we we’ll cover the anatomy of the JSON search API response send back by Algolia for each search query and how it can be used.

Anatomy of an Algolia Search API Response

Using the Lodash library, we’ll see how to split large amounts of data from a local MySQL database into smaller chunks and push them to an Algolia index.  

Push Chunks of Large MySQL Data to an Algolia Index with Lodash

We’ll learn how to push a small amount of data from a local MySQL database to an Algolia index. The first step is to connect to the DB using the `mysql` package, then select all records from the DB and finally push them to Algolia using the JS API client.

Push MySQL Data to an Algolia Index from the JS Client

When we import assets in React components outside of the `public` folder that Nitro reads for assets by default when running the development server we need to tell Nitro how to find them with the `devProxy` configuration option.

```typescript
export default defineNitroConfig({
  renderer: './renderer.ts',
  devProxy: {
    '/app/assets': 'http://localhost:5173/app/assets'
  }
})
```

This is ultimately inadequate in scenarios where you want to import assets arbitrarily and have them "just work" but works in a pinch.



Use devProxy in Nitro Config to Serve Static Imported Assets in Dev Mode via Vite

Learn how to use devProxy in Nitro Config with Vite to serve static assets in React components in dev mode.

Start with a basic Vite React TypeScript app and enhance it for production use by integrating Nitro as the server. 

This requires a custom Vite plugin for nitro as well as a custom renderer and manually creating Nitro config.

The other way to approach this would be to add Vite to a Nitro app instead. Same basic result.

The [Nitro config reference](https://nitro.unjs.io/config) is a great read of you'd like to explore more options.


Configure a Vite React TypeScript Application on a Basic Nitro Server

Configure a Vite React TypeScript app by integrating Nitro for production, using custom plugins, renderers, and configs.

Quick Get Started style introduction to Vite using `pnpm create vite` with the React TypeScript template.

See [more in the official docs](https://vite.dev/guide/).

Create a Vite App with the React TypeScript Preset

Quick guide to start a Vite app using React TypeScript template with pnpm.

Over the years, your application have grown huge. Sometimes, really HUGE.

Many developers have contributed to the codebase. One day they pushed one coding style, a different one another day. Sometimes even different patterns and solutions for similar problems.

You want to keep your codebase consistent. In the Angular ecosystem, there were well established patterns for doing things the right way ™️. But the old solutions are being challenged by signal-based approach.

Eventually, you ask yourself the key question: **Should you integrate with the NEW solutions or stick to the battle-tested ones, but already considered LEGACY**?

That's a very good question indeed. Don't rush with architectural decisions 🤓.

## 👉 First, think of what problems you want to solve by introducing the change.

Do you have 1k LoC Angular components? Maybe even 2k? Do you and your team enjoy working with these? 😏

Where does the **domain logic and state management code** belong to - do you have a clear guidance on which code should be put where? Have you spot that different devs implement similar features in totally different ways?

Do you keep on asking the same questions over and over again: **whether this certain piece of code** should be **imperative** (plain old object properties and variables) or **reactive** (streams)? It'd be nice to keep all thinga reactive, but more often than not, it introduces complexity.

## 👉 Second, think of long-term consequences.

You are going to have more than one way to **manage the state**. But is that really an issue? If your codebase is modular, separate modules should not depend on each other in any way. Inner abstractions of one should be invisible to the other, etc.

You are going to introduce a **new tool**. On one hand, you need to learn it, and so does your team. But on the other hand, it's a breathe of fresh air. And it's useful to question the way you've been doing things so far. Maybe there's a more effective way?

You are going to embrace signal-based APIs. And that means taking taking advantage of Zoneless Angular. This means using all modern Angular APIs. And you know that signals are the future. Why would you want to stick to the **less performant, less type-safe, less flexible and, objectively, less effective solutions**?

## 👉 Finally, plan your INCREMENTAL integration.

INCREMENTAL is the absolute keyword here. You don't want to tell your PM you need to stop delivering features because of a refactor.

Actually, there's no need for a "refactor". Just pick the first new feature to be implemented. Or pick the one that needs to be extended.

NGRX Signal Store allows you to create both very simple & small stores, as well as bigger ones. **Composition** is the key here.

**Start simple**.

Create a `withState` section with the signals that hold the state. That's already reactive. And relatively simple.

```ts
const initialState: CartState = {
  items: ...,
  rebate: ...,
}

export const CartStore = signalStore(
  withState(initialState)
);
```

Create a `withMethods` section to provide ways to change the state:

```ts
export const CartStore = signalStore(
  ...
  withMethods((store) => ({
    addItem(item: ShoppingItem): void {
      patchState(store, (state) => ({ items: [ ...state.items, item ] }));
    },
    ...
);
```

Create a `withComputed` section to provide all derived computations:

```ts
export const CartStore = signalStore(
  ...
  withComputed(({ items }) => ({
    totalPrice: computed(() => items().reduce(...))
    ...
);
```

**Start simple**.

Now you can (literally) **`inject` this code into your existing solution**. All you need is to inject your brand new NGRX Signal Store implementation into a component, or a service:

```ts
@Injectable()
class ExistingBigService {
  cartStore = inject(CartStore)
  //...  
}
```

and that's it! What's beatiful is that NGRX Signal Store should remain an implementation details (of a component, service, etc). It **shouldn't leak outside to the entire application unintentionally**. Small NGRX Signal Stores help us to **keep logic more modular**.

Don't hesitate - give NGRX Signal Store a try! Start with the [_**Scalable Signals Angular Architecture with NGRX Signal Store**_](https://egghead.io/courses/scalable-signals-angular-architecture-with-ngrx-signal-store-a33abd39) course now!

Integrating NGRX Signal Store with an existing Angular application


Integrate NGRX Signal Store into your Angular app incrementally for modular, reactive state management. Improve consistency and performance with modern APIs.

In React 19, managing script tags efficiently within components can lead to performance enhancements and simpler code structures.

Originally, using script tags directly in a React component involved complex setups, like using `useEffect` to dynamically add JavaScript code. For instance, a component might dynamically inject script tags to load external widgets. This approach, while functional, resulted in multiple script tags and duplicate iframe elements. This duplication not only cluttered the output but also negatively impacted performance by loading scripts multiple times.

The workaround for this would be to manually hoist any common scripts and maybe load them when they weren't needed by any components.

With React 19 we now have a more effective method. This involves directly placing the script tag within the React component's return statement. This approach ensures that React handles the script loading, avoiding the duplication of script tags.

By implementing the script tags this way, the loading initiator becomes React DOM, which efficiently manages script loading and deduplication. This setup prevents multiple requests for the same script when the component is rendered multiple times, enhancing the overall application performance.

Furthermore, directly embedding the script tag simplifies the code, making the component cleaner and more maintainable.

Efficiently Render Script Tags in React 19 Components

Learn how to efficiently render script tags in React 19 components to improve performance by avoiding duplicate script loads and simplifying your code.

Let's learn how to dynamically manage title tags in React 19 applications. Rendering `<title>` dynamically is simple enough, however, a challenge arises when multiple title tags are present in the document, which can lead to issues with screen readers and search engine optimization (SEO). The solution presented involves ensuring that only one title tag is rendered at a time by using conditional rendering.

Also we need to make sure to have a single string within the title tag using a template literal, ensuring our HTML remains valid and optimized.


Deduplicate Title tags with React 19

Learn to manage multiple title tags in React 19 dynamically. Ensure accessibility and SEO by preventing duplicate title tags with clear examples.

In React 19, we can easily add a title tag like "Starship Deets" which then appears in the head section of the HTML even when we render it inside our components. This method also applies to meta tags such as character set and viewport settings, which are also lifted to the head section automatically.

This is an awesome feature because it maintains the same composition style we are familiar with in React components. It simplifies the handling of HTML head elements without needing extra setups like `useEffect` for accessing the head section. Even in situations where our components are rendering within a body element, like within a div, we can manage our head content directly within our components. React takes care of hoisting these elements where they need to go.


Hoist Title and Meta tags in React 19

Hoisting title and meta tags directly in React 19 components allows for simpler composition, similar to other React elements. Manage meta and title tags.

<PodcastLinks />

Dax Raad, known for his strong opinions on Twitter, sat down for a chat about web dev, career moves, and building cool stuff. He's not afraid to throw some heat at popular tools like [Next.js](https://nextjs.org/), though he still helps people use it. Dax is particularly excited about local-first development, which he thinks isn't getting enough attention. He argues that sometimes the best web dev move is to step away from web dev entirely and explore other areas of programming.

When it comes to career growth, Dax encourages developers to think beyond the "web dev" label and see themselves as programmers capable of tackling any challenge. He advocates for trying out weird stuff and learning unusual languages, as these experiences can lead to unexpected opportunities. Taking smart risks in your career can open doors to awesome possibilities.

In the business world, Dax is a fan of making "asymmetric bets" - moves with low downside but huge potential upside. He applies this philosophy to his work on [SST](https://sst.dev/), reasoning that even if it fails, he'll walk away with valuable experience. He also emphasizes the importance of resisting quick payouts in favor of potentially bigger wins down the road.

Looking to the future of tech, Dax is betting on local-first development. He sees potential in getting in early on emerging technologies like [Solid.js](https://www.solidjs.com/). Building in public and making connections in new tech communities can pay off in unexpected ways.

Dax also challenges the notion of constant hyper-productivity in tech. He suggests balancing focused work with time for exploration and learning. Sometimes, he points out, what seems like a "dumb" choice (like learning a niche language) can turn out to be a smart career move in the long run.

## Good Stuff Mentioned

- [Next.js](https://nextjs.org/)
- [Vercel](https://vercel.com/)
- [SST](https://sst.dev/)
- [Elixir](https://elixir-lang.org/)
- [Solid.js](https://www.solidjs.com/)
- [RepliCache](https://replicache.dev/)
- [Linear](https://linear.app/)
- [Remix](https://remix.run/)
- [Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/)
- [React](https://react.dev/)

Developer Career Growth and Asymmetric Bets with Dax Raad

<PodcastLinks />

Dev and Joel discuss React Miami conference, praising its fun atmosphere and location. They chat about React Server Components, with Dev sharing his experience building a mini framework. They talk about Vinxi, Nitro, and the unjs ecosystem as tools for creating custom frameworks. The conversation touches on Vue's popularity outside web dev circles and non-web dev conferences. They discuss the benefits of TypeScript and strongly-typed APIs. Dev mentions his upcoming talk on durable objects at [a conference in Dallas](https://x.com/DThompsonDev/status/1829674506237194456). They end by discussing WebSockets, PartyKit, and platform-specific frameworks.

## What's Good?

- [React Miami Conference](https://www.reactmiami.com/) 
- [Brenley Dueck's blog post on Simple RSC with Vinxi:](https://www.brenelz.com/posts/simple-rsc-with-vinxi/)
- [Vinxi](https://github.com/nksaraf/vinxi)
- [Nitro](https://nitro.unjs.io/guide/configuration)
- [unjs ecosystem](https://unjs.io/)
- [Solid Start](https://start.solidjs.com/)
- [TanStack Router](https://tanstack.com/router/latest) 
- [PartyKit](https://github.com/partykit/partykit) 
- [Durable Objects (Cloudflare)](https://developers.cloudflare.com/durable-objects/)
- [Flightcontrol](https://www.flightcontrol.dev/) 
- [SST](https://sst.dev/)
- [OpenNext](https://open-next.js.org/)

Nitro, Vinxi, and RSCs - What's Good with Dev Agrawal

**Note:** This course is being actively developed and more lessons will be added in the future.

Cursor is an AI-enhnaced code editor that allows you to call upon the robots to refactor or stub out functions for you with natural language. 

In this course, John will show you workflows that will save you time and effort by utilizing the features such as its mult-line editing and context.

In particular, by giving Cursor's AI the proper context, whether that's lines of code or multiple files, you'll get better output when trying to extend or refactor logic that's present.


Bite-size video tutorials for badass web developers.

Search

Search Results