Learn Nvda, Serverless and Tweenmax

Starting from a prebuilt frontend, Jason Lengstorf guides you through the creation of a "Corgi Up-boop App" that uses Netlify Functions and Hasura. You can view [the deployed final product on Netlify](https://egghead-serverless-functions.netlify.app/).

You'll set up the Netlify CLI, and configure a local development environment before writing and deploying functions with a few different use cases.

The first example function bypasses CORS restrictions to retrieve corgi data from an example third-party API.

Next, you'll configure environmental variables to securely communicate with the Unsplash API without exposing private keys to the client.

Serverless functions don't persist data by themselves, so we will use  Hasura to create a GraphQL API for tracking the number of "boops" each corgi receives.

This course is an excellent illustration of the speed of Serverless functions, and how fast you can implement functionality in your web applications.

An all-in-one workflow that combines global deployment, continuous integration, and automatic HTTPS.

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Build a Corgi Up-boop Web App with Netlify Serverless Functions and Hasura

A serverless function is something that is going to allow us to do server-like things without having to manage servers, but an important distinction here is that serverless does not mean that there are **no** servers. 

The environment is actually running on top of an operating system and uses physical servers, but the responsibility for provisioning and managing the infrastructure belongs entirely to the service provider.

Some of the benefits of using serverless functions: 

- **Enhanced scalability.** No need for developers to implement code to scale. It scales automatically.
- **Reduced time to market.** Serverless is an optimized set of tools for building quickly.
- **No boiler code.** A serverless function is just a tiny piece of logic. Reducing the complexity of software.
- **More time for user experience.** Serverless functions allow teams to focus resources on the user experience and not on managing servers.
- **Security.** We can call third-party APIs securely without exposing important data on the client-side.

What Are Serverless Functions?

Netlify makes deploying to production a breeze by configuring your Netlify CLI to your Netlify account and integrating with GitHub.

We'll log in to Netlify through the CLI and initialize a site by completing all the options that the CLI runs us through. Once this is done, Netlify will trigger new builds for your site every time you push to GitHub.

Deploy Serverless Functions to Production on Netlify using the Netlify CLI

Netlify makes developing serverless functions easy with the netlify-cli (`ntl` for short). You'll be able to build and test functions locally as well as publish your functions from the CLI. 

We will install netlify-cli globally and create a `netlify.toml` file that will configure where the CLI should look to run functions that we define, in our case `functions/`. When the application is served up, Netlify runs functions under `/.netlify/functions/`.

Set up a Local Development Environment for Serverless Functions Using Netlify

There are a few ways you can run Netlify serverless functions while you are developing them. 

You can: 

- Navigate to the directory under the `/.netlify/functions/` path
- Curl them using the full URL
- Use an app like Postman

Manually Trigger Netlify Serverless Functions Locally

CORS limits websites from communicating with other domains without the full consent of both sites. Consuming data from a 3rd Party REST API makes it difficult since we can't properly configure the appropriate CORS headers. To solve this, we'll set up a proxy server to request the data using a Netlify function that avoids CORS altogether.

The Third-Party API that we'll be working with will provide the following data: `id`, `name`, `favoriteSong` for each corgi. 

[http://no-cors-api.netlify.app/api/corgis](http://no-cors-api.netlify.app/api/corgis)

We will also use `node-fetch` a light-weight module that brings the `fetch` API to fetch the data into our application.

Circumvent CORS when Accessing a Third-Party API using Netlify Functions 

Environment variables set in a `.env` file can be imported using the Netlify CLI with the following command: `netlify env:import`.

This allows you to manage environment variables directly on Netlify, providing the benefit of security and flexibility of sharing environment variables with your team. 

From inside Netlify, you can access the environment variables in:

`Site settings` > `Build & deploy` > `Environment` > `Environment variables`

Import and Set Environment Variables from a .env file using Netlify CLI

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

In this video you'll learn how to deploy a React app to AWS using AWS Amplify Hosting's drag and drop folder functionality. The app will also automatically be globally distributed on AWS's global CDN.

Deploy a React App to AWS in 24 seconds

AngularJS is an open-source JavaScript framework, maintained by Google, that assists with running single-page applications. Its goal is to augment web-based applications with model–view–controller (MVC) capability, in an effort to make both development and testing easier.

angularjs

TimelineLite is a piece of the Greensock TweenMax library that provides the ability to create sequenced animation with very little code or setup.

Greensock TimelineLite Animation Sequences

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

[Greensock](http://www.greensock.com/tweenmax/) is a powerful animation library for JavaScript. It's also fully compatible with AngularJS. This lesson will get you started using Greensock with AngularJS to provide rich animations for your users.

Basic Animation with Greensock's TweenMax

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

React's use of the VirtualDOM can make it confusing on how to get actual elements to use in animation libraries like TweenMax. This video shows how to use this.getDOMNode() and this.refs and hook them in to TweenMax to satisfy all of your advanced animation needs.

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