Learn Aria, Github and Redwoodjs

A large number of people are unable to use the web effectively due to an impairment or disability.

As developers there are several tools and techniques we can use to make our web applications accessible, ensuring a great user experience that includes everyone.

We all agree that Accessibility is important. However, it’s a broad landscape and can be overwhelming figuring out where to start!

Erin Doyle is an expert in creating accessible React applications and has developed a course that will give you a concrete process for testing, refactoring, and building your applications with accessibility in mind.

After this course, you'll have a jump start on auditing and fixing accessibility issues in your applications and gain a better understanding of your target users and how to approach your web app design from their perspectives.


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

Develop Accessible Web Apps with React

SSH provides a secure way for your to [connect to and authenticate with GitHub's servers](https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/about-ssh). While HTTPS connections use usernames and passwords as credentials, SSH instead uses public and private key pairs. These can be generated on your system using a CLI like [`ssh-keygen`](https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent) and then associated with your GitHub account using the public key.

In some cases, you may need to connect to more than one GitHub account from the same system. For example, you may have [separate accounts for personal and professional projects](https://ryanharris.dev/managing-ssh-keys-for-github/), which can be difficult to manage manually. Using `ssh-agent` and a SSH configuration file, you can alleviate this pain point by automatically determining which key to use based on your GitHub repository's `git` URL.

Bash is a Unix shell and command language written by Brian Fox for the GNU Project as a free software replacement for the Bourne shell. Bash is a command processor that typically runs in a text window, where the user types commands that cause actions. Bash can also read and execute commands from a file, called a shell script.

bash

Secure GitHub connections with SSH

Github Actions are an awesome tool from Github that allows us to automate tasks using code-based workflow configuration files. There's also a large marketplace that comes stocked with many useful tools that are ready out of the box.

But sometimes the options available don't completely solve our needs or maybe we're working with a new technology that's simply not available as an Action yet. Luckily, Github allows anyone to create their own Actions using common technologies like Javascript via Node.

We'll learn how to create a new Javascript-based Github Action running on Node. We'll first walk through a simple Hello World example, learn how to test it locally, version control it, use it in the wild, and move on to more advanced solutions that include using packages from npm!

GitHub fosters a fast, flexible, and collaborative development process that lets you work on your own or with others.

github

Create a New Github Action to Automate Code Tasks with Javascript

Handy tips for boosting your productivity in GitHub. These are bite-sized things you can take advantage of today to boost your efficiency by 1% or more. What are you waiting for? Check 'em out! 

GitHub Tips & Tricks

GitHub Actions are a powerful workflow tool that allows you to write and use custom code to execute workflows. It's like a serverless CI/CD platform built directly into GitHub. We have access to GitHub's registries, our own repos, multiple platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux), runtimes (VMs and Containers), and languages (JS, Rust, Go, etc) to perform any action we want. We can trigger workflows using GitHub's own events, our custom events, or even scheduled events like a cronjob.

GitHub Actions at Work

Accessibility (or a11y) is an important but often neglected in the world of web development. Many developers find themselves coding user interfaces without any knowledge of keyboard or screen reader requirements. 

The fact is that accessibility doesn't happen by accident. Often it is seen as too hard or time consuming. This doesn't have to be the case. By following a handful of high-value patterns and practices, we can open our web apps to humans that otherwise wouldn't be able to interact with them at all.

This course will introduce you to accessibility through hands-on, technical examples that are way more effective than reading 10-year-old static web content.



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

Start Building Accessible Web Applications Today

Publishing a JavaScript library for public use requires some extra steps. You need to think about how people will use the library. From end users, to contributors your library now has a variety of people outside of yourself potentially making use of the code that you've released into the wild.

From Github and npm, to releasing beta versions, semantic versioning, code coverage, continuous integration, and providing your library with a solid set of unit tests, there are a ton of things to learn.

This series will guide you through a set of steps to publish a JavaScript open source library.

You might also enjoy [this article about contributing to open source](https://egghead.io/articles/get-started-contributing-to-javascript-open-source).

How to Write an Open Source JavaScript Library

“Feel free to submit a PR!” - words often found in GitHub issues, but met with confusion and fear by many. Getting started with contributing open source is not always straightforward and can be tricky. With this series, you’ll be equipped with the the tools, knowledge, and understanding you need to be productive and contribute to the wonderful world of open source projects. Much of this series speaks about GitHub, but most of the concepts are generally applicable to contributing to any open source project, regardless of where it’s hosted.

So enjoy the course and start contributing to the projects you use and love today!

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

How to Contribute to an Open Source Project on GitHub

RedwoodJS takes the JAMstack philosophy to the next level. It brings together all the tools modern web development has to offer:

- React
- GraphQL
- Prisma

RedwoodJS abstracts database management away from you so that you can just build your schema and it will do all the plumbing. This collection will go over how to create a RedwoodJS project and the scripts that will help make your developer experience a joy.


Bringing full-stack to the JAMstack

Do you love the JAMstack philosophy but need a database-backed web app? Want great developer experience and easy scaling? Redwood is here! Built on React, GraphQL, and Prisma, Redwood works with the components and development workflow you love, but with simple conventions and helpers to make your experience even better.

redwoodjs

Introduction to RedwoodJS: full-stack framework for JAMstack

Skeleton screens show users that content is loading, offering a vague preview of how content will look once it fully loads.

CSS Animations are crucial for the perceived performance purposes since it shows for the user the content is loading by using animations as feedback for whoever is accessing the page. 

Follow the steps in this course and you will learn how to create a beautiful and pleasant Skeleton Loader for your web app using CSS animations, focusing on Web Accessibility and Web Semantic.

Creating Accessible Skeleton Loader Animation from Scratch with HTML and CSS

In this lesson, we’ll apply our knowledge of `getopts` and create a script that opens a PR on Github, all without leaving your terminal. We’ll use `getopts` to take 3 options: username, password or token, and PR title. We’ll use any input after that as the body of the PR. We’ll validate the input and then use `curl` to POST it to Github. 

Create a Bash Script to Open a Pull Request on Github using getopts

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

chrome-devtools

What's in a name? In this lesson, I'll explain the concept of naming interactive elements for screen reader users, including forms, buttons, and links. You'll learn how to debug accessible names and descriptions using the Chrome Accessibility Developer Tools (previously a Canary experiment, now in Chrome), using multiple labeling techniques. We'll also listen to the effects of proper accessible names and descriptions in Voiceover and Safari.

For more information and the nitty-gritty browser implementation algorithm, refer to WAI-ARIA 1.1: 
- https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#namecalculation
- https://www.w3.org/TR/accname-1.1/

What is Accessible Name Calculation?

In this video you'll learn Git-based deployment for web applications for both front-end and back-end resources using AWS Amplify and the Amplify Console.

Hosting & Continuous Deployment for Front End and Serverless Back Ends using AWS Amplify

In this lesson, we are going to use aria-current to give a screen reader user more context about what the current page is. Historically, many developers use an `.active` class to indicate that the page in a menu is the same that you're on. 

Instead of using a class, we are going to use the aria-current attribute to add more semantic value to the HTML and use that attribute to style the active link.

Note: VoiceOver testing works best on the Native Safari Browser, hence why we should always use Safari to test.

More resources:
- [Using the aria current attribute](https://tink.uk/using-the-aria-current-attribute/)
- [W3 WAI-ARIA - aria-current](https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#aria-current)
- [Breadcrumb Example - w3-WAI ARIA Practices](https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/examples/breadcrumb/index.html)

Add Semantic Styling to the Current Page of a Navigation Item with aria-current

Our first layer of defense when building accessible React applications is to add some auditing tools to our development workflow. This should include adding static analysis checking for common accessibility standards and best practices. We can get this with the latest eslint plugin: "eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y". If you are already linting your projects adding this plugin should fit very smoothly into your workflow.

## Resources
1. [List of all the rules supported by eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y](https://github.com/evcohen/eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y#supported-rules)
2. [Comparison of the difference in rules between recommended and strict mode](https://github.com/evcohen/eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y#difference-between-recommended-and-strict-mode)
3. [Background on how the Accessibility API implemented by browsers interfaces with Assistive Technologies](https://github.com/evcohen/eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y#some-background-on-wai-aria-the-ax-tree-and-browsers)

Set up ESLint to Audit Accessibility Issues in React

GitHub Actions can be triggered to run on a schedule using cron syntax. In this video we go over what that means and how to write cron syntax. We also show a tool and a series of examples to aid in writing and debugging cron.

* https://crontab.guru/

Scheduling GitHub Actions with cron

GitHub Actions can feel daunting. Here's a walkthrough setting up your first action that runs some command line scripts on every push to master.

Using your first GitHub Action

GitHub Actions are a powerfully flexible workflow automation tool that lets you respond to GitHub events, your own arbitrary events (like webhooks), or scheduled events with workflows that run on Windows, Mac, or Linux in VMs and Containers. It's like a serverless CI/CD platform built into GitHub.

Introduction to GitHub Actions

In this lesson, we will be going over the attribute `aria-expanded`. Instead of using a class like `.open` we are going to use the `aria-expanded` attribute to style.

This accomplished double duty because we have semantic value and visual indicators that a button is open and closed.

To test this, I opened up Safari and used CMD + F5 to turn VoiceOver on. 

- [An Introduction to ARIA States](https://www.a11ywithlindsey.com/blog/introduction-aria-states)
- [w3c Using aria-expanded to indicate the state of a collapsible element](https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Using_aria-expanded_to_indicate_the_state_of_a_collapsible_element)

Add aria-expanded to add semantic value and styling

Continuing to add to our accessibility auditing toolset: react-axe goes hand in hand with eslint and specifically the eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y plugin.  While eslint analyzes our static code, react-axe is able to audit the elements that are available in the DOM at runtime.  As components get rendered into the DOM by React, react-axe is able to immediately check them for potential accessibility issues and will output any findings to the console.  Adding this tool to our workflow gives us accessibility checking as we're developing so that we can eliminate a plethora of potential issues as early as possible.

## Resources
* [List of all rules supported by react-axe](https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core/blob/develop/doc/rule-descriptions.md)
* [Documentation of the Configuration Object](https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core/blob/master/doc/API.md#api-name-axeconfigure)
* [How Deque Labs makes decisions on axe rules](https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core/blob/develop/doc/accessibility-supported.md)

Use react-axe to Audit Accessibility Issues at Runtime during Development

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/)

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