Learn Apollo, Canvas and Chrome-devtools

Miscellaneous one-off lessons on debugging, productivity hacks, and JavaScript tricks.

JavaScript® (often shortened to JS) is a lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with first-class functions, most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic, and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

javascript

Tips and Tricks

Frontend runtime optimization is heavily impacted by rendering.  Understanding the way the JS engine and the browser work is crucial for optimizing applications and understading how to avoid performance pitfalls.
This collection explains about the Critical Rendering Path, performance bottlenecks and practical solutions.

Critical Rendering Path

Chrome DevTools are incredibly useful for a frontend developer, sometimes we spend more time using them than our text editor of choice.

That's why it's so important to understand this tool better - those quick lessons will teach you things that will help you to become a more effective developer.

You will learn how to:

- **Use (experimental) CSS Overview to learn all about CSS used on a page in a minute**
- **Style console.log messages with CSS** - a _crucial_ skill for any senior developer (j/k)
- **Debug your code (on production and local environment) with logpoints**
- **Run a Lighthouse audit of your site**
- **Choose accessible colors for your website that have an AAA contrast ratio rating**
- **Force a DOM element state in Chrome DevTools**
- **Use Console utilities to make debugging easier**
- **Copy a network request as fetch or cURL with Chrome DevTools**

Have fun!

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

chrome-devtools

Chrome DevTools tips & tricks

GraphQL is a fan favorite for good reason. It lets a client make specific, complex, and/or aggregate queries for data, and it’s user-friendly to boot.

If you’ve been meaning to learn GraphQL and start harnessing its powers, this is a great place to start.

This course is for GraphQL newbies with a basic understanding of React. It focuses on the client-side implementation of GraphQL usage using the Apollo client.

We’ll start with a guide on how to add the Apollo client to an existing project, then move on using the Query and Mutation components to fetch and manipulate data using a GraphQL API.

React is one of the web’s most popular frameworks for building JavaScript applications. 

If you know what you’re doing, React can drastically simplify how you build, use, and maintain code.

Whether you’re a React newbie or you’re ready for advanced techniques, you can level-up with egghead. Explore our in-depth courses, lessons, and community resources to build more powerful applications and crack open your career.

react

GraphQL Data in React with Apollo Client

In this course we’ll take a deep look at the Elements panel in the chrome devtools. We’ll step through each button and tab on this panel and discuss how to use them to interact with your web application as it runs.

Debug the DOM in Chrome with the Devtools Elements Panel

This course examines the Sources panel in the Chrome DevTools, which allows you to see what files are responsible for the various things on the screen. Bundled into this panel, though, is the single most useful tool for any JavaScript developer - the JavaScript Debugger. We’ll use the Debugger to inspect JavaScript as it runs, allowing you to watch (and even interact with) the state of your application as it runs in ways that’ll blow your mind if you’ve mostly used console.log to debug your applications to this point. 

Debug JavaScript in Chrome with DevTool Sources

This course will examine the Network panel in Chrome DevTools. We’ll step through the request log, examining the various properties exposed. We’ll talk about timing, filtering, throttling and generally using the network panel to better understand the ways in which our applications exist within a connected context.

Debug HTTP with Chrome DevTools Network Panel

If you are developing JavaScript applications you are likely using logging as an integral part of your development process. Did you know that you aren't limited to simple `console.log` statements? Modern browsers give you a lot more logging options to work with!

This course will explore those options and give you some new logging tools for your professional toolbox.

Advanced Logging with the JavaScript Console

Most developers would raise an eyebrow if they saw database queries being done in a for-loop, but GraphQL provides just enough abstraction that it isn't always intuitive exactly how many times each resolver fires at scale, nor is it obvious how to batch operations efficiently and still return the correct results to the correct consumer.

You'll learn how to use the GraphQL Data Loader pattern to improve the performance of your application, and solve scaling issues before they become a problem.

To do this, we'll first implement our own naive version of the pattern to understand why the API is shaped how it is. Then we will switch over to the official DataLoader package and explore the benefits further.

## Skills you'll Gain

- Implement a cache layer to optimize your requests
- Batch requests so your Database isn't overloaded
- Build a performant GraphQL API

Apollo provides a universal GraphQL API on top of your existing services, so you can build new application features fast without waiting on backend changes.

apollo

Use GraphQL Data Loaders to Prevent Scaling Issues by Batching & Caching Database Requests

At the core of a good client-side GraphQL library is a cache. The cache is very important for improving the efficiency of your data retrieval and providing your users with a clean user experience.

In this course, we're going to see how Apollo's powerful cache helps easily solve complex UI problems, such as pagination, handling loading and error states, optimistic updates, and minimizing network requests.

We'll start from the basics, and look at how to make queries and mutations, but then we'll look at how the cache is behind most of Apollo's immediate benefits. We'll explore in-depth how it works, how it stores data, and how we can manually modify it manually for advanced scenarios.

Even if your backend doesn't fully support GraphQL yet, we'll look at how to write GraphQL queries in your components that retrieve local client state under the hood - or that can even make REST API calls.

Manage State in React Apps with Apollo Client and GraphQL

**Get started building dynamic apps with GraphQL and Vue3.**

As your app scales, so does the complexity of managing your routes and API endpoints. 

It gets tiresome. 

But this aspect of web development can be streamlined considerably! 

GraphQL is a powerful tool for querying and mutating your data. In this course, we are going to create a Vue3 app that leverages GraphQL to create a dynamic front end.

But what does GraphQL *do*? 

Its power comes from giving you a *single* endpoint that you make all your queries to. Instead of making a request to a specific endpoint and getting a fixed response, you can write flexible queries to a single endpoint.

![REST vs GraphQL diagram](https://res.cloudinary.com/dg3gyk0gu/image/upload/v1638989029/course-resources/create-a-graphql-powered-vue-3-application/rest_vs_graphql.png)

Vue3 has some great new features that we will be exploring, such as the setup script syntax. But you won't just be exploring Vue3's new features, we will be building a dynamic front end with an index, view pages generated from data, and forms.

To make our frontend dynamic, we will be powering it with GraphQL. We start with the basics by creating queries but we move on to more advanced topics such as query params, mutations, and pagination.

To actually use GraphQL in our Vue app we will be using the Vue Apollo Client. Which gives us convenient methods for making queries, getting the data back into the client, and handling errors.

## Gain These Skills

- Add GraphQL to a Vue 3 project
- Query and mutate data with GraphQL in Vue 3
- Create data-driven views with Apollo client
- Handle routing within a Vue 3 project
- Implement optimistic updates and infinite scroll

## Prerequisites

Some entry-level knowledge on Vue and GraphQL is recommended, but this course is beginner-friendly enough to where it isn't a strict requirement.

If you want to build a deeper foundation for both Vue and GraphQL we have a couple of awesome courses that you can hack through. 

For Vue, check out **[The Beginner's Guide to Vue 3](https://egghead.io/courses/the-beginner-s-guide-to-vue-3-1c46da8b),** which is also by Kevin. It's great for both newcomers to web dev and veterans alike. 

And for GraphQL, work through **[GraphQL Query Language](https://egghead.io/courses/graphql-query-language)** from Eve Porcello. Eve literally wrote the book on learning GraphQL and her course is similarly top quality. 

## What's Next?

Progressive Web Apps are a more advanced topic, and converting an existing Single Page **Vue** App into one makes for an excellent follow-up project. **->** [Offline-First Progressive Web Apps (PWA) in Vue.js](https://egghead.io/courses/offline-first-progressive-web-apps-pwa-in-vue-js)

If you want to take your **GraphQL** game to the next level, then becoming an expert in designing GraphQL schemas is the way to go. **->** [Designing GraphQL Schemas](https://egghead.io/courses/designing-graphql-schemas-99db)

And I know the following recommendation is a React course but *it really is that good*. You will learn some **advanced** techniques that will be applicable to Vue or any other Apollo compatible framework that you work with. **->** [Manage State in React Apps with Apollo Client and GraphQL](https://egghead.io/courses/manage-state-in-react-apps-with-apollo-client-and-graphql-a45b3b89)

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.

Create a GraphQL Powered Vue 3 Application

Anything related to JavaScript performance

Javascript Performance

This is a small collection of videos to help you get familiar with Chrome browser's performance oriented developer tools.
In this collection, learn how to record a performance profile, tweak the settings to get the most relevant profile and finally a look into the different sections of the performance data visualisation.

Basics of Chrome's Performance Devtools

Get more mileage from your console output by going beyond mere string logging - log entire introspectable objects, log multiple items in one call, and apply C-Style string substitution to make the console work for you.

Advanced Console Log Arguments

Organize your log output by grouping your logs into collapsable hierarchies using console.group().

Grouping and Nesting Console Log Output

A <canvas> element provides scripts with a resolution-dependent bitmap canvas, which can be used for rendering graphs, game graphics, or other visual images on the fly.

canvas

Learn some of the different ways you can affect the graphical content that you are drawing to a canvas. We'll cover global alpha, global composite operations and shadows.

Canvas Effects

With the HTML `canvas` you can easily draw text as well as graphics. Let's take a look at basic text manipulation on the canvas.

Drawing Text on Canvas

 AJAX allows us to send requests to the server from our javascript applications, rather than allowing the browser to directly request declaratively specified resources. Under the hood, though, AJAX requests are still just HTTP requests - and that means we can use the Network Panel in Chrome’s DevTools to inspect our AJAX operations!


Examine AJAX Requests with Chrome Devtools

In this lesson, we cover several different ways to animate graphics drawn to Canvas.

Animating with Canvas

To understand the Network DevTool, you have to understand what HTTP is and how it works. Let’s use the Network DevTool to inspect an HTTP request and its corresponding response so that we can understand what the browser is doing.

Analyze HTTP Requests and Responses with Chrome Devtools

When drawing on the HTML5 canvas element, your fills aren't limited to flat colors. You can use gradients to get smoothly blended color fills on your drawn elements.