Learn Chai, Edge and Mac

Switching project contexts causes needless friction and opportunities for distraction as we try to pull up related tabs and applications. I learned a trick from [David Sparks](https://www.macsparky.com/) on how to use the Mac automation software [Keyboard Maestro](https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/) to create palettes of shortcuts grouped by context. This has been an awesome boost to my productivity!

Seamlessly Switch Project Contexts with Keyboard Maestro

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system.

postgres

YugabyteDB is an open source, high-performance distributed SQL database for powering global, internet-scale applications.YugabyteDB is also a cloud-native database, so it can be deployed across both public and private clouds, including  Kubernetes environments. In regards to serving as a backend for microservices, YugabyteDB brings together three must-haves: a PostgreSQL-compatible SQL API, low-latency read performance, and globally distributed write scalability. YugabyteDB with its global data distribution brings data close to users for multi-region and multi-cloud deployments. 

In this lesson we will see how we can create YugabyteDB cluster locally on our Mac for dev environment and prototyping 

Set up YugabyteDB Distributed SQL Cluster Locally on MacOS

In this video, we'll learn how to modify the default screenshot keyboard shortcut on macOS so that it copies our screenshot to our clipboard. This comes in handy if you share screenshots often.

Change Default Screenshot Key to Copy to Clipboard

Joe Previte is an active egghead instructor and blogger. This is a collection of screencast versions of selected blog posts. You can find his blog here: [joeprevite.com](https://joeprevite.com/)

Joe's Blog Posts as Screencasts

Just about every tool in our accessibility auditing toolkit can help us identify any issues with sufficient color contrast ratio on a web page.  The react-axe library and axe browser extension both report findings on all elements with insufficient contrast ratios.  The tota11y browser extension will annotate any elements with their contrast ratios and color those that are insufficient in red.  

Additionally, we need to use our experience tools to see what some of our users out there may we seeing.  We need to test with high contrast browser extensions as well as the display settings in Windows and Mac.  If our users with visual impairments are using these tools we need to see what our application looks like using them because we may find that under a certain mode some things may suddenly be harder to read or virtually invisible.

## Resources
* https://www.scottohara.me/blog/2019/02/12/high-contrast-aria-and-images.html

Test for Insufficient Color Contrast Accessibility Issues

We should not use color alone as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.  Users may not be able to see/understand the differences in color and require additional indicators.

Along with color, use additional indicators such as:
* typography
* shapes
* grids
* spaces
* and/or allocate more weight to important elements

## References:
* http://www.particletree.com/features/interfaces-and-color-blindness/
* https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/10/color-contrast-tips-and-tools-for-accessibility/

Use More than Color Alone to Convey Information in a Web Page

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

It's very important to experience our web applications using the tools and techniques that our users are using.  Many of our users out there may have vision impairments and may use tools or adjust settings to help them see better. Learn how to change the accessibility display preferences on Mac to test your application for issues that may arise due to a lack of contrast between foreground and background colors in your web application which can be exacerbated when users have to adjust these display preferences.

## Resources
* [MacOS Display Preferences User Guide] (https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-accessibility-display-preferences-unac089/mac)

Change Display Preferences on Mac to Find Color Contrast Accessibility Issues

Create a Finder service that takes whatever you've selected, lets you navigate to a destination folder, and moves them there.

Create a service to move items in Finder to a user-selected folder with AppleScript

I can make a subfolder of the folder that is open in Finder,
but there's no convenient way to make a subfolder of amy other folder that
is showing. Let's add a Finder service to take care of that.

Create a new subfolder of any selected folder in Finder with AppleScript

Smooth your workflow by opening Finder from Terminal and vice versa at a specific folder.

Jump from Terminal to Finder and back again

In [the previous lesson](https://egghead.io/lessons/mac-turn-a-command-line-app-into-a-menu-item-in-finder) we saved a shell script as a service for Finder. This service takes in files as arguments and opens them in Vi. Now we'll save it as a real Mac App.

Turn a command-line app into a Mac App

In [the previous lesson](https://egghead.io/lessons/bash-run-a-command-line-app-in-a-new-terminal-window-using-bash-and-applescript "Run a command-line app in a new terminal window") we created a bash script that runs a given command line in a new Terminal window. Now we'll see how to use Automator to make an instance of that available as a menu item in Finder.

Turn a command-line app into a menu item in Finder

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

`launchd` is a robust scheduled job automation tool on macOS that allows you to schedule a task to be run at recurring times. It's macOS's take on Linux's `cron`. In this lesson, we’ll schedule a simple bash script that empties the Trash to run every Monday morning at 10am. 

First, we’ll create a plist file (a plist file is just XML) with our job configuration. In here, we’ll specify our bash script as the program to run. Then we move plist file to the `~/Library/LaunchAgents` folder. Then we’ll use launchctl to load our configuration file, which will make the job active. We'll manually activate our job to ensure it's working with `launchctl kickstart`. 

Schedule Timed Jobs on macOS with `launchd`

Bash makes automation easy. Just a few lines of code can take care of repetitive tasks for you and your teammates. 

In this course, we’ll dive deep into the automation potential of bash. You’ll learn to leverage common hooks that open up interesting automation possibilities, like git hooks, adding functions and aliases in your bash_profile, and running scheduled jobs in launchd.

For example, we’ll write a git hook that checks package.json for changes, and if there are changes, the hook runs npm install for you automatically. 

Along the way, you’ll also learn:

- more advanced bash commands like exec
- syntax such as redirecting stdout and stderr to the same destination
- timesaving tricks like brace expansions

Automation is all about saving you time — and at only 52 minutes, this course is well worth yours. Enjoy!

Advanced Bash Automation for Web Developers

AppleScript is a peculiar language with a COBOL-like desire to read like English, but it's the key to automating UIs on the Mac. We'll use it together with bash to make Terminal open a new window to run any shell command.

Run a Command-line App in a New Terminal Window using Bash and AppleScript

In this lesson, we’ll learn how to change the working directory using `cd` and list a directory's contents using `ls`. We'll see how `ls`'s `-l` and `-a` flags work. 

Navigate the Filesystem in Bash

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient. It is included as "vi" with most UNIX systems and with Apple OS X.

Every programmer starting to work in a *nix environment eventually finds themselves in VIM, the default text editor. Often by mistake! Because VIM lacks the typical polished GUI of normal programs, it can be hard to discover the correct sequence of commands to even exit the program. Once you learn how to exit VIM, then the next task is to also learn how to make VIM do what you want -while- exiting!

In this lesson we cover 7 different ways of exiting VIM, whether you are in EX mode or Command (also known as Escape) mode, whether you are editing a single file or several at once.

Exit Vim

ASP.NET is an open source web framework for building modern web apps and services with .NET. ASP.NET creates websites based on HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript that are simple, fast, and can scale to millions of users.

asp-net

If you want to improve a REST API beyond GET/POST&PUT and DELETE the next step would be adding the push functionality to send new data into your web applications. With ASP.NET Core and SignalR you can add this functionality with ease and keep your application up to date without letting the clients reloading their page manually.

[signalr npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@aspnet/signalr), [signalr Core](https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Core/)

[archived] Expose Values for Real-time Consumption with SignalR in ASP.NET Core

Chai is a BDD / TDD assertion library for node and the browser that can be delightfully paired with any javascript testing framework.

chai

In this lesson, you will learn how to verify your API server is returning HTTP 400 responses when clients submit incorrect data. Returning HTTP 400 ensures that your clients are notified of the incorrect usage. Testing for them ensures your API returns errors instead of incorrect responses when supplied with incorrect data.

Test for HTTP 400 responses with Mocha and Chai

In this lesson, we will use Chai's request method to test our Node application's API responses.
By the end of this lesson, you will know how to:
- install the prerequisites to use mocha and chai in your application
- test for HTTP status response codes
- test for a string of text on a page
- test for a json response and validate the properties of the object
- write tests that not only verify the response of your application, but the behavior as well


Test Node RESTful API with Mocha and Chai

Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on Node.js and in the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting, while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.

mocha

Writing great ES6 style Promises for Node.js is only half the battle. Your great modules must include tests as well to ensure future iterations don't break them. In this lesson, I show you a simple ES6 Promise in Node.js, then walk you through creating tests in Mocha using chai and chai-as-promised to test both resolve and reject methods.

Testing ES6 Promises in Node.js using Mocha and Chai


[Shadcn](https://ui.shadcn.com/docs) is a popular component library that allows you to install components into your codebase.

This lesson will show you how to install the [Table component](https://ui.shadcn.com/docs/components/table) and use that presentational component with [Tanstack table](https://tanstack.com/table/latest).


Create a Table Component with Shadcn and Tanstack Table

Build a dynamic table component in React using shadcn component library and tanstack react table.

TypeScript's satisfies operator finally clicked for me when I realized it's almost always used for specific implementations of configuration objects. So this lesson walks you through the naive approaches I've taken before and how to solve them using the satisfies operator. After this, satisfies will be another tool in your belt in TypeScript. To clean up all the TypeScript code you have around configuration.

TypeScript's "satisfies" for Configuration

Windsurf and Cursor are both able to take an image and then use an agent to build out what it sees in that image. This lesson is going to compare Windsurf and Cursor by uploading the same image to both and giving them the same prompt. Comparing not only the results, but also the steps that they take to get there. We'll also try uploading additional images throughout the process to see what they do as far as revising along the way and improving the site as they go along. 

Windsurf Cascade vs. Cursor Composer Agent: Build a Site from an Image

In this lesson, you'll discover how to style View Transitions using CSS pseudo-selectors to create custom animation effects. We'll transform the default cross-fade into a smooth slide transition by targeting the ::view-transition-old and ::view-transition-new pseudo-elements. You'll learn how these powerful selectors give you precise control over your transition animations, allowing you to create more engaging and personalized user experiences with just a few lines of CSS.

Customize View Transitions with CSS Using view-transition-old and view-transition-new

In this lesson, you'll learn how to implement smooth state transitions in your web applications using the browser's built-in View Transitions API. We'll create a simple example that demonstrates how to animate between different text states with just a few lines of code - no external libraries required. This powerful native API makes it easy to add professional-looking transitions to your user interface, enhancing the user experience with minimal effort.

Create Smooth UI Transitions with the Native View Transitions API

I've been using Cursor for a very long time and their "Agent" feature in Composer is fairly new, so I'm still getting used to it. But since Windsurf recently got onto the stage with their Cascade agent, they've slowly been gaining the mind share on the UX for coding agents. I decided to put them to the test by putting Windsurf and Cursor on the exact same screen side by side trying to accomplish the same task and to see which workflow I would prefer. I've been a diehard Cursor user for over a year now, so it's going to take a lot for me to switch to a different IDE. But I just have to say, even from this simple demo, Windsurf is looking pretty nice.

This lesson is just going to walk through creating a CLI using both tools to print out inspirational quotes and to explore how they approach the step-by-step of installing packages and running commands and setting up all the files we need to get this running.

Windsurf Cascade vs. Cursor Composer Agent Side-by-Side Comparison

This TypeScript tutorial explains how to use generics, allowing for different types to be passed as arguments. It discusses the use of shorthand syntax in generics and illustrates with examples. This method is useful for library creation, providing type safety and control to the user.

```typescript
interface PhotoMetadata<T> {
  title: string;
  takenAt: Date;
  customData: T;
}

// Function that processes a photo with custom metadata
function processPhoto<T>(photo: PhotoMetadata<T>): {
  processedTitle: string;
  daysSinceCapture: number;
  customDataSummary: T;
} {
  const today = new Date();
  const daysSinceCapture = Math.floor(
    (today.getTime() - photo.takenAt.getTime()) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24)
  );

  return {
    processedTitle: photo.title.toUpperCase(),
    daysSinceCapture,
    customDataSummary: photo.customData
  };
}

// Example usage with different custom data shapes
type CameraSettings = {
  iso: number;
  aperture: string;
  shutterSpeed: string;
}

type LocationData = {
  latitude: number;
  longitude: number;
  locationName: string;
}

// Using with camera settings
const photoWithCamera: PhotoMetadata<CameraSettings> = {
  title: "Sunset at beach",
  takenAt: new Date('2024-01-15'),
  customData: {
    iso: 100,
    aperture: "f/2.8",
    shutterSpeed: "1/1000"
  }
};

// Using with location data
const photoWithLocation: PhotoMetadata<LocationData> = {
  title: "Mountain vista",
  takenAt: new Date('2024-02-01'),
  customData: {
    latitude: 45.5231,
    longitude: -122.6765,
    locationName: "Mount Hood"
  }
};

const processedCameraPhoto = processPhoto(photoWithCamera);
const processedLocationPhoto = processPhoto(photoWithLocation);

processedCameraPhoto.customDataSummary.iso
processedLocationPhoto.customDataSummary.longitude

```

Basic Explanation of Typescript Generics

A very basic explanation of generic function arguments

I've been using Cursor as my primary editor for over a year now, but recently I've heard wonderful things about Windsurf AI Agent features. I decided to record myself building out something I've always wanted to make, but never made the time for.

In this lesson, I demonstrate how to leverage Windsurf's powerful agent process to create a fun word-guessing game inspired by Heads Up. Watch as I build an interactive application featuring category selection and word navigation, complete with data hosting on GitHub Gists and deployment to GitHub Pages - all in under 30 minutes (before editing the lesson down to 12 minutes)!

What makes this project particularly exciting is how Windsurf eliminates the typical friction points of development. While this game was always on my project wishlist, the overhead of setup, configuration, and deployment made it hard to justify the time investment. Windsurf's agent process handles all these pain points seamlessly, from managing URLs to orchestrating deployment.

This lesson perfectly showcases how AI agents can help developers bring their backlog of project ideas to life, transforming what would typically be time-consuming tasks into efficient, enjoyable development experiences.

Build a Word Game with Windsurf's Cascade AI Agent



Discover how to harness the power of Cursor IDE's Composer Agent feature to optimize your code. In this lesson, you'll witness an AI agent doing all the work to generate test suites, implement performance benchmarks, and create optimized function variations - all without writing a single line of code. You'll learn how to validate performance improvements through data-driven benchmarking, ensuring that optimizations are backed by concrete metrics rather than speculation. This hands-on demonstration showcases a groundbreaking approach to automated function development that combines the precision of test-driven development with the efficiency of AI-powered optimization.


Agent-Driven Development in Cursor: Testing, Benchmarking, and Optimizing Functions

This course is aimed for using `zod` effectively in projects based on TypeScript (both browser and node.js). The benefits you gain with this course is not just simply coding, but also understanding when/why/how should you perform runtime validation.

`zod` is the missing piece to TypeScript's capabilities, which can guarantee type-safety only in compile-time.

`zod` can be used whenever the compiler cannot guarantee what happens in runtime. And... it's a very frequent usecase, such as HTTP calls, websockets, etc.

In this course you get quickly up and running by:
1. using `zod` with primitives and objects
2. adapting `zod` quickly to existing projects thanks to automatic generators
3. changing the strategy frm type-first to schema-first
4. using error-throwing `parse` or non-error-throwing `safeParse` basing on your needs
5. applying `zod` to the most common usecase - validating API responses
6. handling errors the most convenient way (out of many!)

Take advantage of runtime validation with `zod`. Take advantage of the detailed lessons in this course 🔥

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