We only want to render the account link and login items in the header.
And we want only render the Multitenancy and Administrators sections in
the admin sidebar.
We include the administrators management so it's possible to give
permissions to other users to manage tenants.
In order to restrict access to other sections by typing the URL or
following a link, we're only enabling the rest of the routes when we
aren't in the multitenancy management mode.
Most existing Consul Democracy installations will have changed their
`config.i18n.available_locales` option so only a few locales are
available. In many cases, only one locale will be available. In these
cases, rendering a form that only offers one option is useless.
We've considered adding a text in this case mentioning that, in order to
enable more languages, they need to configure their
`config.i18n.available_locales`. However, we haven't done it for two
reasons.
First, if they've changed the available locales to just one, there's a
good chance they aren't interested at all in configuring the locales.
And, second, if there's only one available locale, administrators will
learn to ignore the "languages" link, so they won't realize that locales
can be configured if developers change the available locales. If we hide
the link, on the other hand, they will notice that locales can now be
configured once developers change the available locales.
Note we're still allowing access by entering the URL. This is harmless,
though, since people accessing it this way will see a form with only one
possible option and won't be able to modify anything.
Having a class named `Poll::Question::Answer` and another class named
`Poll::Answer` was so confusing that no developer working on the project
has ever been capable of remembering which is which for more than a few
seconds.
Furthermore, we're planning to add open answers to polls, and we might
add a reference from the `poll_answers` table to the
`poll_question_answers` table to property differentiate between open
answers and closed answers. Having yet another thing named answer would
be more than what our brains can handle (we know it because we did this
once in a prototype).
So we're renaming `Poll::Question::Answer` to `Poll::Question::Option`.
Hopefully that'll make it easier to remember. The name is also (more or
less) consistent with the `Legislation::QuestionOption` class, which is
similar.
We aren't changing the table or columns names for now in order to avoid
possible issues when upgrading (old code running with the new database
tables/columns after running the migrations but before deployment has
finished, for instance). We might do it in the future.
I've tried not to change the internationalization keys either so
existing translations would still be valid. However, since we have to
change the keys in `activerecord.yml` so methods like
`human_attribute_name` keep working, I'm also changing them in places
where similar keys were used (like `poll_question_answer` or
`poll/question/answer`).
Note that it isn't clear whether we should use `option` or
`question_option` in some cases. In order to keep things simple, we're
using `option` where we were using `answer` and `question_option` where
we were using `question_answer`.
Also note we're adding tests for the admin menu component, since at
first I forgot to change the `answers` reference there and all tests
passed.
We were using Foundation's accordion menu to open/close nested lists of
links. Unfortunately, Foundation's accordion makes it impossible to
access links in nested links using the keyboard [1] (note the issue is
closed, but in the latest version of Foundation, 6.8.1, it's still
present, and Foundation's development is mostly discontinued).
Furtheremore, it adds the `menuitem` role to links, but ARIA menus are
not ment for navigation but for application behavior and, since it
doesn't add the `menubar` or `menu` roles to the parent elements, it
results in accessibility issues for people using screen readers (also
reported by the Axe accessibility testing engine).
So we need to implement our own solution. We're using the most commonly
used pattern: a buttton with the `aria-expanded` attribute. And, for
people using browsers where JavaScript hasn't loaded, we're keeping the
submenus open at all times (just like we were doing until now), and
we're disabling the buttons (since they do nothing without JavaScript).
This might not be an ideal solution, but it's probably good enough, and
way better than what we had until now.
We've also considered using the <details> and <summary> elements instead
of using buttons to open/close items on the list. However, these
elements still present some accessibility issues [2], and the transition
between open and closed can't be animated unless we overwrite the
`click` event with JavaScript. The pattern of using these elements to
open/close a nested list of links isn't common either, and some people
using screen readers might get confused when entering/leaving the nested
list.
We tried other approaches to get the animation effect, all of them based
on adding `[aria-expanded="false"]:not([disabled]) + * { display: none;
}` to the CSS file.
Unfortunately, animation using CSS isn't feasible right now because
browsers can't animate a change form `height: 0` to `height: auto`.
There are some hacks like animating the `max-height` or the `flex-grow`
property, but the resulting animation is inconsistent. A perfect
animation can be done using the `grid-template-rows` property [3], but
it requires adding a grid container and only works in Firefox and recent
versions of Chrome and similar browsers.
Getting to a solution with JavaScript was also tricky. With the
following approach, `slideToggle()` opened the menu the first time, even
if it was already open (not sure why):
```
toggle_buttons.on("click", function() {
$(this).attr("aria-expanded", !JSON.parse($(this).attr("aria-expanded")));
$(this).next().slideToggle();
});
```
This made the arrow turn after the menu had slided instead of doing it
at the same time:
```
toggle_buttons.on("click", function() {
var button = $(this);
button.next().slideToggle(function() {
button.attr("aria-expanded",
!JSON.parse(button.attr("aria-expanded")));
});
}
```
With this, everything disappeared quickly:
```
toggle_buttons.on("click", function() {
var expanded = JSON.parse($(this).attr("aria-expanded"));
if (expanded) {
$(this).next().slideUp();
} else {
$(this).next().slideDown();
}
$(this).attr("aria-expanded", !expanded);
}
```
So, in the end, we're hiding the nested link lists with JavaScript
instead of CSS.
[1] Issue 12046 in https://github.com/foundation/foundation-sites
[2] https://www.scottohara.me/blog/2022/09/12/details-summary.html
[3] https://css-tricks.com/css-grid-can-do-auto-height-transitions
