When using a link, people using screen readers might think they're going
to a new page where the password is going to be shown. With a button,
they get a better idea about what to expect.
Furthermore, with a button, we can use the `aria-pressed` attribute to
indicate whether the password is currently being shown.
We were using an icon for this link, but people who can't see the icon
couldn't know what the link was about. Axe was reporting the following
accessibility error:
```
link-name: Links must have discernible text (serious)
https://dequeuniversity.com/rules/axe/4.10/link-name?application=axeAPI
The following 1 node violate this rule:
Selector: .show-password
HTML: <a href="#" class="show-password">
<span class="icon-eye"></span>
</a>
Fix all of the following:
- Element is in tab order and does not have accessible text
Fix any of the following:
- Element does not have text that is visible to screen readers
- aria-label attribute does not exist or is empty
- aria-labelledby attribute does not exist, references elements
that do not exist or references elements that are empty
- Element has no title attribute
```
It was only used once, and we can use a selector that makes it obvious
where it is used. Besides, the style for the no-margin-bottom class was
to remove the bottom margin, which was inconsistent with the style for
the no-margin-top class, which adds a negative margin to the element.
I'm not sure why we're removing the margin here, though, since it isn't
consistent with the rest of the forms in the application. For now, we're
keeping it the way it used to look.
The text for the unfeasible checkbox wasn't correctly defined as a
label, while the fields to search investments and select the heading
weren't intuitive since their purpose wasn't obvious.
With a 50% width on medium and large screens, depending on the size of
the text and the size of the screen, the label could unnecessarily use
two rows, looking broken.
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
The `use_helpers` method was added in ViewComponent 3.8.0, and it's
included by default in all components since version 3.11.0.
Note we sometimes delegated the `can?` method to the controller instead
of the helpers, for no particularly reason. We're unifying that code as
well.
