Learn Alpine, Nvda and Tachyons

Welcome to this beginner level series on Alpine JS! 👋🏞

Alpine JS is a rugged, minimal framework for composing JavaScript behaviour in your markup. It brings declarative, reactive, data-driven nature of libraries like React or Vue to your HTML templates.

In this series, you will learn about Alpine's handy **directives**. You'll discover how to define a component scope with `x-data`, run code on mount with `x-init`, attach event listeners with `x-on`, display data with `x-text`, decide wether or not to show an element with `x-show`, iterate through data with `x-for`, retrieve a DOM element with `x-ref`, learn how to achieve _two-way data binding_ with `x-model`, and much more.

You'll also learn how **"modifiers"** can be applied and chained to directives to provide additional functionality: control the animation transition of entering and leaving DOM elements, debounce an event listener, etc.

We'll also touch on what Alpine calls **"magic properties"**, which give you access to native browser events (`$event`), reference to DOM elements (`$refs`), and more.

You'll gradually discover Alpine's API and syntax, from building simple tabs to a mini app that fetches a dog picture based on a "breed" search field. 🐶

**Get ready to breathe some fresh air** - it's time to walk into cool, green Alpine pastures! 🏞

Alpine.js offers you the reactive and declarative nature of big frameworks like Vue or React at a much lower cost.

You get to keep your DOM, and sprinkle in behavior as you see fit.

alpine

Sprinkle declarative, reactive behaviour on your HTML with Alpine JS

In this lesson, we learn how the `x-init` directive in Alpine JS lets us run a JavaScript expression once the component has initiated.

We see the nuances that allow us to trigger that code before Alpine performs initial DOM updates, or after these updates have been made.

Focus in input field on page load with `x-init` in Alpine JS

In this lesson, we define a "count" state value with the `x-data` directive provided by Alpine JS. This defines a new scoped component, which can have access to this state.

We then display the "count" value in our HTML with the `x-text` directive, which updates an element's `innerText` value.

We also hook up buttons with click event listeners with `x-on:click`, which allows us to modify the count value as desired.

Update a count state value with the x-on event listener directive in Alpine JS

In this lesson, we create a set of tabs with Alpine JS, where only the content of the currently active tab is visible. To do this, we define an `activeTab` state value with `x-data. We then wire up our buttons to change the value of `activeTab` on click, and use `x-show` to determine if the tab content should be visible or not, based on the value of `activeTab`.

We also take control of the `class` attribute with `x-bind`, and we conditionally output an "active" class based on, you guessed it, the value of `activeTab`.

Toggle visibility and styles based on state with `x-show` and `x-bind` in Alpine JS

In this lesson, we move the component definition to a function, defined in a script tag in the HTML document.

We then iterate through an Array of Objects with the `x-for` directive in Alpine JS. We use a `<template>` tag to wrap the HTML element we want to repeat for each item, and put the `x-for` directive on that template tag.

We also define a "computed" property by adding a method on our function, which checks if a given ID matched the currently active tab id. This computed property allows us to determine wether or not to apply the "active" classname to our tab buttons.

Iterate through data with the `x-for` attribute in Alpine JS

In this lesson, we smoothen the transitions between tabs by applying a `transition` modifier to our `x-show` directive.

We see how we can ignore the leaving elements, and focus the animation on the entering elements. We tweak the transition duration and origin by chaining additional modifiers to our `x-show` directive.

Control enter and leave transitions with the `x-show.transition` modifier in Alpine JS

In this lesson, we see how the `x-model` directive makes achieving "two-way data binding" effortless in Alpine JS.

We see what it would take to recreate the same functionality with an `x-bind` directive for the input value, as well as an `@input` event listener which, thanks to an access to the browser's native events via the `$event` magic property, sets the state value to `$event.target.value`.

Keep a DOM input and state value in sync with the `x-model` directive in Alpine JS

In this lesson, we learn how to retrieve a DOM element via the `x-ref` directive in Alpine JS, which gives us a reference to the element it is applied on. In our case, an input field.

We can then use the `$refs` object, and reach for the ref we need to target.

This allows us to trigger the focus state of the input field, with the `.focus()` method.

Focus an input field on button click with `x-ref` and the `$refs` property in Alpine JS

In this lesson, we build a little app that fetches dog photos from the dog.ceo API, based on a "breed" search field. We want the API call to happen again when the search value changes, and to do so we use the `$watch` property from Alpine JS, which lets us define what state property we want to watch, and what callback function to run when a change happens.

We also use the `debounce` modifier on the `x-model` property to avoid firing an API call on each keystroke.

Refetch API data when a state value changes with the `$watch` property in Alpine JS

Welcome to this beginner level series on Alpine JS! 👋🏞

Alpine JS is a rugged, minimal framework for composing JavaScript behaviour in your markup. It brings declarative, reactive, data-driven nature of libraries like React or Vue to your HTML templates.

This is the series intro video. Let's get started!

Series Intro - Beginner Level Alpine JS

NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is a free “screen reader” which enables blind and vision impaired people to use computers.

nvda

NVDA is a popular open source screen reader on Windows that works well with Firefox. It's similar to JAWS, another popular Windows screen reader that works best with IE. But NVDA has no licensing fee plus an open bug tracker, making it great for users as well as developer testing. 

In this lesson, you'll learn how to browse a webpage using NVDA's keyboard shortcuts, including headings navigation, skip links, and the Elements List. You'll also learn a bit about Forms Mode and how it impacts screen reader navigation.  For more tips, check out the resources below.

## Resources
- [Using NVDA to Emulate Web Accessibility](http://webaim.org/articles/nvda/)
- [NVDA Keyboard Shortcuts](https://dequeuniversity.com/screenreaders/nvda-keyboard-shortcuts)
- [Understanding Screen Reader Interaction Modes](http://tink.uk/understanding-screen-reader-interaction-modes/)
- [Three Things You Should Know Before Using Voiceover for Testing](http://webaim.org/blog/three-things-voiceover/)

## Installing NVDA
If you're on a Windows machine, you can install [NVDA directly](http://www.nvaccess.org/download/). If you're on a Mac or Linux, you could install a Windows virtual machine:

- [Install VirtualBox](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads)
- [Get a Windows VM from Microsoft](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/) - I use IE11
- [Install Firefox](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/) - install on the VM!
- [Install NVDA](http://www.nvaccess.org/download/)
- [How to Map Your Mac's Capslock Key to a NVDA or JAWS Key in a Windows VM](https://www.marcozehe.de/2015/06/07/how-to-map-your-macs-capslock-key-to-a-nvda-or-jaws-key-in-a-windows-virtual-machine/)

Testing for Accessibility with the NVDA Screen Reader on Windows

Vue (pronounced /vjuː/, like view) is a progressive framework for building user interfaces. Unlike other monolithic frameworks, Vue is designed from the ground up to be incrementally adoptable. The core library is focused on the view layer only, and is very easy to pick up and integrate with other libraries or existing projects. On the other hand, Vue is also perfectly capable of powering sophisticated Single-Page Applications when used in combination with modern tooling and supporting libraries.

You can easily add CSS libraries to Nuxt using `yarn` or `npm` to install them, then simply adding them to the `nuxt.config.js` so they're included in each page. Then all the classes will be available for use in all of your templates. This lesson walks your through installing a library then adding it to your `nuxt.config.js`.

Add CSS Libraries to Nuxt

Functional css for humans.

Quickly build and design new UI without writing css.

tachyons

Tachyons provides extensions (-ns, -m, and -l) to many of its classes to help you design for responsive layouts. This lesson walks you through designing for mobile first then adding a design for desktop.

Design for Mobile First with Tachyons

Building responsive css layouts is critical in any modern website. Tachyons makes this easy by designing for mobile first then enabling you to switch directions and positions of elements when the site scales up to desktop sizes. This lesson walks you through using Tachyons with flexbox and leveraging the `flex-column` and `flex-row` classes to respond to mobile and desktop sizes.

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