Learn Electron, Recoil and Scss

Sass is the most mature, stable, and powerful professional grade CSS extension language in the world.

scss

Learn the essentials of enabling semantic form validation HTML and styles in preparation to use our form design system with the validation solution of your choice.

We will add an SVG to our form descriptions when the error class is applied and look at a workaround to style the SVG through a Sass function.

Create Accessible Styles for Invalid Form Fields

Let's add a key missing element to our form design system - the submit button! Learn how to reset browser styles, and use our theme system to create accessible styles across `:hover`, `:focus`, and `:disabled` states.

Create Custom CSS Styles for Form Submit Buttons

Often we can improve the user experience by grouping related fields, such as first and last name. In these cases, it's appropriate to include `<fieldset>`. We'll first learn how to semantically create the fieldset HTML. Then, we'll set up a series of scalable classes that are flexible for various layout configurations. The layout classes will also be intrinsically responsive - meaning, they will respond to their parent container _or_ the viewport without the use of media queries!

Define Semantic Fieldset HTML and Create CSS Styles For Responsive Form Layout

In the last two lessons, we set up the initial state styles for radio buttons and checkboxes. Now we'll add styles for the focus and disabled states using our existing Sass mixins. We'll do this by layering box-shadow effects of a white border and blurred primary color.

We'll also learn about an up and coming pseudo selector - `:focus-within` - that will be used to apply styles to the label of a control in a `:focus` state.

Create Custom Radio Button and Checkbox CSS Styles for Focus and Disabled States

We'll setup the layout structure for our custom radio button and checkbox styles using CSS grid. These input types will share the `.form-control` component styles. This lesson will apply the initial styles to prepare for creating custom visual control styles.

Similar to focus states for selects, we will need to add a wrapping span and nested span to our radio buttons and checkboxes to apply visual styles to these native elements.

Create A Layout Structure with CSS Grid For Radio Buttons and Checkboxes

In the previous lesson, we set up the initial state styles for form selects and multi-selects. Now we'll add styles for the focus and disabled states, inclusive of a workaround necessary due to the lack of a parent selector in CSS.

The way we will get around this for our focus styles is to add a sibling span element to apply the styles and position those styles on top of the Select element.

Create Custom Select CSS Styles for Focus and Disabled States

We'll begin to apply our theme styles for our text inputs by creating the `.form-field` component. We'll make use of the Sass feature of "mixins" to create `:focus` and `:disabled` styles that can be reused. While creating the `:focus` and `:disabled` states we'll discuss the importance of contrast and keyboard access for accessibility.

An important take-away is that you need at least a 3:1 contrast ratio between your border and background AS WELL AS a 3:1 contrast ratio between your border and focus state.

Use Sass Mixins to Style Inputs with Accessible Contrast and Keyboard Access

Using modern CSS and in particular CSS grid and `clip-path` we can define cross-browser compatible custom select CSS styles inclusive of the dropdown arrow. We'll continue ensuring all styles are re-themeable by using the Sass functions we've already created within our form design system. We will style both the default single select, and a multi-select using `multiple`.

Create Custom Form Select and Multi-select CSS Styles

Learn how to begin addressing browser inconsistencies by resetting base styles across text inputs, textareas, and selects. We'll also review a few quirks related to mobile browsers and responsive design when dealing with form fields. And we'll uncover how to normalize `<select>` which was formerly one of the trickiest fields but is vastly easier now thanks to modern CSS through the `appearance` property.

Create Reset Styles to Normalize Form Fields Cross-Browser

We'll make a starting point for our form layout styles by creating `.form-group` which will add a bit of `margin` between fields. This will be our first design system component, and we'll also include styles for the `label` contained in this class.

Create the `form-group` Component Styles

We'll define the color palette and create the basic screen styles for our project in addition to Sass helpers for our form design system. 

We will set up Sass variables for the initial them and learn how to use the !default flag to allow our system to be easily overridden from project to project, making our form styles ultra transferable and reusable. You'll also learn how to leverage Sass color functions for ease of theming. We'll map the Sass variables to CSS variables so that as we build up our system we can use CSS variables for the most flexibility in our theming.

Initialize the Form Design System Setup with Sass and CSS Variables

View a preview of the form fields we'll be creating in this course, inclusive of custom CSS styles for text inputs, textareas, selects, multiselects, radio buttons, and checkboxes. Then get an overview of the base project and key parts of the Eleventy build process in regards to compiling with Dart Sass and use of Nunjucks for project template scaffolding. 

Prior experience with Eleventy or Nunjucks is not required, but you may also enjoy learning how to [create an Eleventy site from scratch](https://egghead.io/playlists/build-an-eleventy-11ty-site-from-scratch-bfd3?af=2s65ms) in less than 20 mins in my other egghead collection.

Course Introduction: Accessible Cross-Browser Form Field CSS Styles

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

Recoil offers several hooks to use for consuming state in React, and this lesson looks at how to choose which hook to use, and what happens when you don't use the right hook (hint: **extra renders**).

The three basic RecoilJS hooks are:

1. `useRecoilState`, which is great for reading and writing state,
2. `useRecoilValue`, ideal for reading state, and
3. `useSetRecoilState`, the primary candidate when you just need to write state.

Choose the Right Hook for Your Recoil State

When consuming asynchronous selectors in Recoil, you're going to need to tell React what to render while the API is fetching its data. 

One way to solve this issue is by setting a fallback value using React `Suspense`. But there's another option that gives you fine-grained control, and that's by preventing the selectors from returning a promise in the first place.

In this lesson we're going to have our selectors return Recoil's `Loadable` object, which always contains the current selector value (`contents`) and what state the selector is in (`state`). By consuming this with the `useRecoilValueLoadable` hook rather than the regular `useRecoilValue` hook, we can manually define whatever we want React to render in each of the 3 states: `hasError`, `hasValue`, and `loading`.

Handle Recoil Asynchronous Selectors using Loadables in React

Selectors are great for automatically triggering API calls with Recoil because they are automatically run as soon as any dependencies are updated, and because selectors are shared across your application.

Be aware that Recoil will cache your selector values, so asynchronous selectors are best utilized when the data is not meant to change throughout the life-cycle of an application. Fetching a user's avatar would be a good use case.

When writing asynchronous selectors, one thing to keep in mind is that React must always know what to render - even while your data is being fetched. One solution for this is to use Suspense, a React component that allows you to supply a fallback value to render until your data returns. In this lesson, we'll look at how to call APIs inside selectors and handle situations where selectors return promises.

Use Recoil Selectors to Make API Calls in React

In this lesson, we're going to learn how to create Recoil selectors that accept arguments. These are made possible using the `selectorFamily` utility function.

We'll start with an existing application that uses a regular `selector` to display a sorted array of Todo items, and then we'll refactor it so that we're able to supply the sort type (`ascending` or `descending`) in the React component itself.

For more information on `selectorFamily`, have a look at the official RecoilJS docs: https://recoiljs.org/docs/api-reference/utils/selectorFamily


Use selectorFamily to take arguments in your Recoil selectors

Learn how to set state in Recoil using the `useRecoilState` hook. 

Sound familiar? It should, because it works very similarly to React's built-in `useState` hook (the functional component equivalent of `setState`).

In this lesson, we'll practice removing and adding items from an array that we keep in state using a Recoil atom. We'll create new immutable functions, and then call our setter functions in order to update the state.

Update Recoil State in React using useRecoilState

In this lesson, we're going to show how RecoilJS selectors are used to display computed data in React. While atoms are the go-to state objects in Recoil, selectors are the ideal choice when data can be computed based on existing state - like displaying the price of a restaurant order. And your selector output always remains up to date - just subscribe to it using one of the RecoilJS hooks.

Display Computed Data Using Recoil Selectors in React

Grid offers us the easiest method to responsively center content. We'll use the grid property `place-content` to center the contents of `figure` to showcase our fictional product in use. Additionally, we'll learn about `object-fit` which is a modern technique that allows inline images to scale responsively within defined dimensions without distortion.

Responsively Center an Image and Caption with CSS Grid

Apply grid layout and see when it's necessary to break out a media query to overcome grid's lack of wrapping behavior. We'll also learn about a property that grid and flexbox share: `align-items`.

Use CSS Grid to Create Layout Columns

It's tempting to pick up a framework which has preselected flexbox or grid as the layout tool of choice, but it's important to learn when and why to use each method. This leads to slimmer stylesheets which results in better site performance, and less likelihood for "hacks" to make one method do what the other does inherently better. 

Throughout this collection, we will be progressively styling a responsive landing page template while building your knowledge on when to select grid or flexbox for any layout scenario. Spoiler alert: sometimes the best solution is using both!

The specification describes a CSS box model optimized for user interface design. In the flex layout model, the children of a flex container can be laid out in any direction, and can “flex” their sizes, either growing to fill unused space or shrinking to avoid overflowing the parent.

flexbox

Create a Landing Page with CSS Grid and Flexbox

Creating powerful and context-aware tools for Cursor IDE becomes straightforward when leveraging information directly from your current project. In this lesson, you'll learn how to build a custom MCP (model context protocol) tool that intelligently requests essential details—such as the current project path and conversation summaries—from your Cursor project.

Workflow demonstrated in this lesson:

- Define MCP tool parameters to request specific project details.
- Pass project path and conversation summaries into your MCP tool.
- Automatically write or update files within your current project using these parameters.

Key benefits:

- Automate tasks with precision based on your active project's context.
- Simplify interactions by creating AI-driven CLI commands tailored to your needs.
- Open endless possibilities for integrating external APIs and advanced automation.

Through this practical demonstration, you'll gain a versatile technique for enhancing your development workflow in Cursor IDE.

[https://github.com/johnlindquist/mcp-cursor-tool-starter](https://github.com/johnlindquist/mcp-cursor-tool-starter)

John Lindquist

Build MCP Tools Using Project Context for Custom Cursor IDE Automation

Setting up custom MCP (Machine Command Protocol) servers in Cursor can involve tedious steps, such as configuring node paths or referencing additional commands. This lesson shows how to streamline this process by bundling your MCP server directly into a standalone executable.

Workflow demonstrated in this lesson:

- Use a simple MCP server project starter.
- Run a single bundling command to create an executable.
- Right-click the generated executable, copy its full path, and add that directly to your Cursor settings.

Key benefits:

- Eliminates the need for complex node path configurations.
- Simplifies the setup and integration of custom MCP servers into Cursor.
- Makes the server executable instantly accessible within your Cursor environment.

By following this streamlined approach, you can quickly and easily integrate custom MCP servers into Cursor, making your development workflow cleaner and more efficient.

[https://github.com/johnlindquist/mcp-cursor-tool-starter]()

Easy MCP Server Setup in Cursor IDE with Bundled Executables

TanStack Router is the foundation for TanStack Start, which is gaining significant attention due to its innovative approach to application development.

This course focuses on getting effective TanStack Router, a modern and scalable routing solution for React applications. You will learn how to:
- set up and scaffold new applications,
- use file-based routing
- create nested routes
- manage dynamic route parameters and more.

The course covers advanced features like route loaders, caching strategies, and lifecycle hooks, which are crucial for enhancing application performance and user experience.

By understanding TanStack Router, you can build more efficient, type-safe, and maintainable applications, leveraging its integration with data fetching libraries like TanStack Query.

This knowledge is essential for developers looking to improve their routing skills and stay ahead in the field.

Tomasz Ducin

Up and Running with Tanstack Router and React

Learn TanStack Router for React: set up apps, use file-based routing, manage routes, and boost app performance.


In this lesson, we explore how TanStack Router integrates with the [native browser history API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History) to manage navigation.

As we navigate through different routes, the URL changes are stored in the browser's history, allowing users to use the forward and backward buttons to traverse their navigation history.

This functionality also **enables permalinks**, meaning users can copy and paste URLs to access specific routes directly.

Additionally, we learn how to programmatically interact with the history object to move forward or backward through the navigation stack, enhancing the user experience by providing full control over navigation actions.

This compatibility with the native history API ensures that TanStack Router applications behave similarly to traditional websites, offering a seamless and intuitive user experience.

Browse History in Tanstack Router

Browse history in TanStack React Router using the native history API for seamless navigation

In this lesson, we explore how to hook into TanStack Router's lifecycle hooks to execute custom logic during route changes.

The hooks we'll look into are: `onEnter`, `onStay`, and `onLeave`, which are triggered when entering, staying within, or leaving a route, respectively.

All hooks receive a detailed match parameter, providing information about the route's path, ID, and tons of other details.

This allows for the implementation of features like animations or logging when navigating between routes.

We also learn how to use these hooks to track and manage state changes as users interact with the application, making it easier to implement complex behaviors based on route transitions.

Hook into Route Lifecycle Hooks in Tanstack Router

Hook into TanStack React Router's lifecycle hooks for custom route logic and animations.

In this lesson, we learn how to handle not found errors in TanStack Router by using the `notFoundComponent` at both nested and global levels.

To trigger the display of a `notFoundComponent`, we must throw a specific error using the `notFound` function within a loader or other lifecycle method of a route. This approach allows us to provide custom error messages for specific routes or globally across the application.

We explore how to define a notFoundComponent within a specific route's configuration and how to set a `defaultNotFoundComponent` at the router global level, which applies to all routes unless overridden locally. This flexibility ensures that users receive meaningful feedback when encountering non-existent routes.

Provide NotFoundComponent at Nested Route or Global Level in Tanstack Router

Handle notFound errors in TanStack Router with notFoundComponent at nested or global levels.



In this lesson, we learn how to access dynamic route parameters using the `useParams` hook in TanStack Router.

When used with a specific `Route` object, `useParams` provides type-safe access to route parameters, ensuring that TypeScript knows the exact types of these parameters.

This approach eliminates the possibility of undefined/optional values, making it safer for accessing parameters like `employeeId`.

However, when using `useParams` globally without specifying a route, it requires an options object with `{ strict: false }`, which reduces type safety.

In this case, the hook can access parameters from any route in the application, but it does not guarantee their existence or type. This flexibility allows components to be reused across different routes, but it requires careful handling of potential errors.



Access Dynamic Route Parameters with useParams in Tanstack Router

Access dynamic route parameters with useParams in TanStack React Router for type-safe routing.

In this lesson, we learn how to reorganize file-based routes in TanStack Router to accommodate nested routing structures.

We explore how to create additional nested routes by converting files into directories, allowing for further nesting.

For example, to create a nested route like `/employees/$employeeId/edit`, we can create a **directory** (!) named `$employeeId` and place an `index.tsx` file inside it to define the route component for this nested route.

This approach provides flexibility in organizing files while maintaining the convention that file names and locations align with route paths. We also see how to adapt existing components and loaders to work with these reorganized routes, enabling features like edit forms or delete actions (or whatever) within nested routes.


Reorganize File-Based Routes in Tanstack Router

Reorganize file-based routes in TanStack Router for flexible nested routing.



In this lesson, we learn how to parametrize the loader for a nested route in TanStack Router.

We focus on a nested route like `/employees/$employeeId`, where the `$employeeId` is a **dynamic parameter**.

To fetch data for this route, we use a `loader` function that accesses the `$employeeId` parameter. This is achieved by using the params object available in the `loader` function, which contains the dynamic segments of the URL. We then use this parameter to call a function like `getEmployeeById`, which fetches specific employee details from an API.

We highlights that TanStack Router **automatically infers types** for these parameters, ensuring type safety for nested routes.

Parametrize Route Loader for Nested Route in Tanstack Router

Parametrize nested route loaders in TanStack Router using path parameters

In this lesson, we learn how to create nested routes and outlets in TanStack Router using file-based routing.

We start by creating a new `employees` directory and files to represent nested routes, such as `/employees/$employeeId`. The `$` symbol is used to denote dynamic parameters.

We then use the `<Link>` component from TanStack Router to create links to these nested routes, passing necessary parameters.

To render the nested content, we use the `<Outlet>` component (nested), which automatically renders child routes. This approach allows us to dynamically display stuff under a nested route.

All the time, the TanStack Router generator automatically updates the route tree based on file changes - our routing configuration remains consistent 🔥



Create Nested Route and Nested Outlets in Tanstack Router

Create nested routes and outlets in TanStack Router using file-based routing

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