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
Note we could use `acts_as_paranoid` with the `without_default_scope`
option, but we aren't doing so because it isn't possible to consider
deleted records in uniqueness validations with the paranoia gem [1].
I've added tests for these cases so we don't accidentally add
`acts_as_paranoid` in the future.
Also note we're extracting a `RowComponent` because, when
enabling/disabling a tenant, we're also enabling/disabling the link
pointing to its URL, and so we need to update the URL column after the
AJAX call.
[1] See issues 285 and 319 in https://github.com/rubysherpas/paranoia/
In general, we don't use links inside admin tables because we don't know
where the link will point to, and use "view" actions/links instead.
However, in this case, we're showing a URL, so it's perfectly obvious
where the link will point to. And so it makes sense to use the URL as a
link instead of using a "view" action/link.
Some institutions using CONSUL have expressed interest in this feature
since some of their tenants might already have their own domains.
We've considered many options for the user interface to select whether
we're using a subdomain or a domain, like having two separate fields,
using a check box, ... In the end we've chosen radio buttons because
they make it easier to follow a logical sequence: first you decide
whether you're introducing a domain or subdomain, and then you enter it.
We've also considered hiding this option and assuming "if it's got a
dot, it's a domain". However, this wouldn't work with nested subdomains
and it wouldn't work with domains which are simply machine names.
Note that a group of radio buttons (or check boxes) is difficult to
style when the text of the label might expand over more than one line
(as is the case here on small screens); in this case, most solutions
result in the second line of the label appearing immediately under the
radio button, instead of being aligned with the first line of the label.
That's why I've added a container for the input+label combination.
On my machine, seeding a tenant takes about one second, so skipping this
action when it isn't necessary makes tests creating tenants faster
(although creating a tenant still takes about 3-4 seconds on my
machine).
Note we aren't allowing to delete a tenant because it would delete all
its data, so this action is a very dangerous one. We might need to add a
warning when creating a tenant, indicating the tenant cannot be
destroyed. We can also add an action to delete a tenant which forces the
admin to write the name of the tenant before deleting it and with a big
warning about the danger of this operation.
For now, we're letting administrators of the "main" (default) tenant to
create other tenants. However, we're only allowing to manage tenants
when the multitenancy configuration option is enabled. This way the
interface won't get in the way on single-tenant applications.
We've thought about creating a new role to manage tenants or a new URL
out of the admin area. We aren't doing so for simplicity purposes and
because we want to keep CONSUL working the same way it has for
single-tenant installations, but we might change it in the future.
There's also the fact that by default we create one user with a known
password, and if by default we create a new role and a new user to
handle tenants, the chances of people forgetting to change the password
of one of these users increases dramatically, particularly if they
aren't using multitenancy.
