Javascript

Component Testing in Svelte

Published Oct 25, 2021

Updated Feb 13, 2023

4 min read

This article was written over 18 months ago and may contain information that is out of date. Some content may be relevant but please refer to the relevant official documentation or available resources for the latest information.

Component Testing in Svelte

Testing helps us trust our application, and it's a safety net for future changes. In this tutorial, we will set up our Svelte project to run tests for our components.

Starting a new project

Let's start by creating a new project:

pnpm dlx create-vite
// Project name: › testing-svelte
// Select a framework: › svelte
// Select a variant: › svelte-ts

cd testing-svelte
pnpm install

There are other ways of creating a Svelte project, but I prefer using Vite. One of the reasons that I prefer using Vite is that SvelteKit will use it as well. I'm also a big fan of pnpm, but you can use your preferred package manager. Make sure you follow Vite's docs on starting a new project using npm or yarn.

Installing required dependencies

Jest: I'll be using this framework for testing. It's the one that I know best, and feel more comfortable with. Because I'm using TypeScript, I need to install its type definitions too.
ts-jest: A transformer for handling TypeScript files.
svelte-jester: precompiles Svelte components before tests.
Testing Library: Doesn't matter what framework I'm using, I will look for an implementation of this popular library.

pnpm install --save-dev jest @types/jest @testing-library/svelte svelte-jester ts-jest

Configuring tests

Now that our dependencies are installed, we need to configure jest to prepare the tests and run them.

A few steps are required:

Convert *.ts files
Complile *.svelte files
Run the tests

Create a configuration file at the root of the project:

// jest.config.js
export default {
  transform: {
    '^.+\\.ts$': 'ts-jest',
    '^.+\\.svelte$': [
      'svelte-jester',
      {
        preprocess: true,
      },
    ],
  },
  moduleFileExtensions: ['js', 'ts', 'svelte'],
};

Jest will now use ts-jest for compiling *.ts files, and svelte-jester for *.svelte files.

Creating a new test

Let's test the Counter component created when we started the project, but first, I'll check what our component does.

<script lang="ts">
  let count: number = 0;
  const increment = () => {
    count += 1;
  };
</script>

<button on:click={increment}>
  Clicks: {count}
</button>

<style>
  button {
    font-family: inherit;
    font-size: inherit;
    padding: 1em 2em;
    color: #ff3e00;
    background-color: rgba(255, 62, 0, 0.1);
    border-radius: 2em;
    border: 2px solid rgba(255, 62, 0, 0);
    outline: none;
    width: 200px;
    font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums;
    cursor: pointer;
  }

  button:focus {
    border: 2px solid #ff3e00;
  }

  button:active {
    background-color: rgba(255, 62, 0, 0.2);
  }
</style>

This is a very small component where a button when clicked, updates a count, and that count is reflected in the button text. So, that's exactly what we'll be testing.

I'll create a new file ./lib/__tests__/Counter.spec.ts

/**
 * @jest-environment jsdom
 */

import { render, fireEvent } from '@testing-library/svelte';
import Counter from '../Counter.svelte';

describe('Counter', () => {
  it('it changes count when button is clicked', async () => {
    const { getByText } = render(Counter);
    const button = getByText(/Clicks:/);
    expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 0');
    await fireEvent.click(button);
    expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 1');
  });
});

We are using render and fireEvent from testing-library. Be mindful that fireEvent returns a Promise and we need to await for it to be fulfilled. I'm using the getByText query, to get the button being clicked. The comment at the top, informs jest that we need to use jsdom as the environment. This will make things like document available, otherwise, render will not be able to mount the component. This can be set up globally in the configuration file.

What if we wanted, to test the increment method in our component? If it's not an exported function, I'd suggest testing it through the rendered component itself. Otherwise, the best option is to extract that function to another file, and import it into the component.

Let's see how that works.

// lib/increment.ts
export function increment (val: number) {
    val += 1;
    return val
  };

<!-- lib/Counter.svelte -->
<script lang="ts">
  import { increment } from './increment';
  let count: number = 0;
</script>

<button on:click={() => (count = increment(count))}>
  Clicks: {count}
</button>
<!-- ... -->

Our previous tests will still work, and we can add a test for our function.

// lib/__tests__/increment.spec.ts

import { increment } from '../increment';

describe('increment', () => {
  it('it returns value+1 to given value when called', async () => {
    expect(increment(0)).toBe(1);
    expect(increment(-1)).toBe(0);
    expect(increment(1.2)).toBe(2.2);
  });
});

In this test, there's no need to use jsdom as the test environment. We are just testing the function.

If our method was exported, we can then test it by accessing it directly.

<!-- lib/Counter.svelte -->
<script lang="ts">
  let count: number = 0;
  export const increment = () => {
    count += 1;
  };
</script>

<button on:click={increment}>
  Clicks: {count}
</button>
<!-- ... -->

// lib/__tests__/Counter.spec.ts

describe('Counter Component', () => {
 // ... other tests

  describe('increment', () => {
    it('it exports a method', async () => {
      const { component } = render(Counter);
      expect(component.increment).toBeDefined();
    });

    it('it exports a method', async () => {
      const { getByText, component } = render(Counter);
      const button = getByText(/Clicks:/);
      expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 0');
      await component.increment()
      expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 1');
    });
  });
});

When the method is exported, you can access it directly from the returned component property of the render function.

NOTE: I don't recommend exporting methods from the component for simplicity if they were not meant to be exported. This will make them available from the outside, and callable from other components.

Events

If your component dispatches an event, you can test it using the component property returned by render.

To dispatch an event, we need to import and call createEventDispatcher, and then call the returning funtion, giving it an event name and an optional value.

<!-- lib/Counter.svelte -->
<script lang="ts">
  import { createEventDispatcher } from 'svelte';
  const dispatch = createEventDispatcher();

  let count: number = 0;
  export const increment = () => {
    count += 1;
    dispatch('countChanged', count);
  };
</script>

<button on:click={increment}>
  Clicks: {count}
</button>
<!-- ... -->

// lib/__tests__/Counter.spec.ts
// ...

  it('it emits an event', async () => {
    const { getByText, component } = render(Counter);
    const button = getByText(/Clicks:/);
    let mockEvent = jest.fn();
    component.$on('countChanged', function (event) {
      mockEvent(event.detail);
    });
    await fireEvent.click(button);

    // Some examples on what to test
    expect(mockEvent).toHaveBeenCalled(); // to check if it's been called
    expect(mockEvent).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(1); // to check how any times it's been called
    expect(mockEvent).toHaveBeenLastCalledWith(1); // to check the content of the event
    await fireEvent.click(button);
    expect(mockEvent).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(2);
    expect(mockEvent).toHaveBeenLastCalledWith(2);
  });

//...

For this example, I updated the component to emit an event: countChanged. Every time the button is clicked, the event will emit the new count. In the test, I'm using getByText to select the button to click, and component.

Then, I'm using component.$on(eventName), and mocking the callback function to test the emitted value (event.detail).

Props

You can set initial props values, and modifying them using the client-side component API.

Let's update our component to receive the initial count value.

<!-- lib/Counter.svelte -->
<script lang="ts">
// ...
  export let count: number = 0;
// ...
</script>

<!-- ... -->

Converting count to an input value requires exporting the variable declaration.

Then we can test:

default values
initial values
updating values

// lib/__tests__/Counter.ts
// ...
describe('count', () => {
    it('defaults to 0', async () => {
      const { getByText } = render(Counter);
      const button = getByText(/Clicks:/);
      expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 0');
    });

    it('can have an initial value', async () => {
      const { getByText } = render(Counter, {props: {count: 33}});
      const button = getByText(/Clicks:/);
      expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 33');
    });

    it('can be updated', async () => {
      const { getByText, component } = render(Counter);
      const button = getByText(/Clicks:/);
      expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 0');
      await component.$set({count: 41})
      expect(button.innerHTML).toBe('Clicks: 41');
    });
});
// ...

We are using the second argument of the render method to pass initial values to count, and we are testing it through the rendered button

To update the value, we are calling the $set method on component, which will update the rendered value on the next tick. That's why we need to await it.

Wrapping up

Testing components using Jest and Testing Library can help you avoid errors when developing, and also can make you more confident when applying changes to an existing codebase. I hope this blog post is a step forward to better testing.

You can find these examples in this repo

This Dot is a consultancy dedicated to guiding companies through their modernization and digital transformation journeys. Specializing in replatforming, modernizing, and launching new initiatives, we stand out by taking true ownership of your engineering projects.

We love helping teams with projects that have missed their deadlines or helping keep your strategic digital initiatives on course. Check out our case studies and our clients that trust us with their engineering.

About the author(s)

Ignacio Falk
I love to learn new things and share what I know. Mentor, Writer, Speaker Member of the local community
@flakolefluk @flakolefluk

Making Seamless Page Transitions with the View Transitions API

Make Seamless Page Transitions using the View Transitions API Traditionally web applications have always had a less polished experience, both functionally and visually speaking, compared to native applications on mobile and other platforms. This has been improving over the years with the introduction of new web APIs and standards. One such new API that bridges that gap is the View Transitions API. What is the View Transitions API? The View Transitions API is a new browser feature that allows developers to more easily create animated transitions between pages and views, similar to how mobile apps have transitions when navigating between pages. Adding view transitions to your application can reduce the cognitive load on your users and make the experience feel less inconsistent. One great thing about view transitions is that they can be used by both SPAs (single-page applications) and MPAs (multi-page applications) alike! Using the View Transitions API for SPAs Let’s see how we can use view transitions ourselves. We will use examples adapted from demos created by the wonderful Jake Archibald and Bramus. There are some alterations to a few of the examples to make them work with the newest version of the View Transitions API, but otherwise, they’re mostly the same. The process of getting view transitions working for SPAs is as simple as calling document.startViewTransition right before starting navigation and replacing your page’s content immediately after that. You need to make this call in your router or in an event listener that triggers your page navigation. The following is an example of how you can hook into page navigation in a vanilla JavaScript application. This example uses the Navigation API if it’s available. As of the time of writing this article only Chromium-based browsers support the Navigation API, but there is a fallback to using a click listener on link elements so that this works with Firefox and Safari. ` If you’re using a framework, then there’s probably a better way to do this specific to that framework than by using this contrived example. For example, if you are implementing usage of this API with a Next application, you may opt for something like next-view-transitions. For this article, we’re going to focus on the way this is done in vanilla JavaScript so that the fundamentals of using the API are understood. Knowing how it’s implemented in vanilla JavaScript should give you enough understanding to implement this in the framework of your choice if there isn’t already a library that does it for you. Now we have a way to know when a navigation is being requested. Using the above utility function we can start the animation and replace our content as follows: ` getMyPageContentSomehow can be any function that returns HTML. How that is implemented will depend on your application and framework of choice. If you want to run these examples on your machine, the demo repository has instructions in its README. In essence, it’s as simple as hosting an HTTP server at the root of the project and visiting localhost. No fancy build system is required! By default, a fade is done that only lasts for a moment. The animation that happens can be configured using CSS with the ::view-transition-group pseudo-element on the element you want to animate, which in our case is the entire page, and we pass in root. ` Given that the animation properties are used, you have much control over what kind of animation to do. You can change the duration and the interpolation, add keyframes and gradients, and even add image masks. You can learn more about the animation properties in CSS on MDN. Using the View Transitions API for MPAs As mentioned, view transitions also work for MPAs with no client-side routing. Setting up view transitions for MPAs is much easier than for SPAs. All you have to do is include the CSS rule on all pages where you want the animations. ` Of course, like how it works with SPAs, you can customize the animations to your heart’s content using the view transition pseudo-elements. Conclusion I hope this article helped you understand the fundamentals of using the View Transitions API. Now that most browsers support it and it’s not too difficult to add it to existing applications, it is a great time to learn how to use it. You can view a full list of examples here (made by Jake Archibald and Bramus) if you want to see how advanced the animations can get. I like the Star Wars ones especially. The README explains how to get all the examples up and running (a total of 43!)....

Aug 2, 2024

4 mins

JavaScript

The HTML Dialog Element: Enhancing Accessibility and Ease of Use

The HTML Dialog Element: Enhancing Accessibility and Ease of Use Dialogs are a common component added to applications, whether on the web or in native applications. Traditionally there has not been a standard way of implementing these on the web, resulting in many ad-hoc implementations that don’t act consistently across different web applications. Often, commonly expected features are missing from dialogs due to the complexity of implementing them. However, web browsers now offer a standard dialog element. Why use the dialog element? The native dialog element streamlines the implementation of dialogs, modals, and other kinds of non-modal dialogs. It does this by implementing many of the features needed by dialogs for you that are already baked into the browser. This is helpful as it reduces the burden on the developer when making their applications accessible by ensuring that user expectations concerning interaction are met, and it can also potentially simplify the implementation of dialogs in general. Basic usage Adding a dialog using the new tag can be achieved with just a few lines of code. ` However, adding the dialog alone won’t do anything to the page. It will show up only once you call the .showModal() method against it. ` Then if you want to close it you can call the .close() method on the dialog, or press the escape key to close it, just like most other modals work. Also, note how a backdrop appears that darkens the rest of the page and prevents you from interacting with it. Neat! Accessibility and focus management Correctly handling focus is important when making your web applications accessible to all users. Typically you have to move the current focus to the active dialog when showing them, but with the dialog element that’s done for you. By default, the focus will be set on the first focusable element in the dialog. You can optionally change which element receives focus first by setting the autofocus attribute on the element you want the focus to start on, as seen in the previous example where that attribute was added to the close element. Using the .showModal() method to open the dialog also implicitly adds the dialog ARIA role to the dialog element. This helps screen readers understand that a modal has appeared and the screen so it can act accordingly. Adding forms to dialogs Forms can also be added to dialogs, and there’s even a special method value for them. If you add a element with the method set to dialog then the form will have some different behaviors that differ from the standard get and post form methods. First off, no external HTTP request will be made with this new method. What will happen instead is that when the form gets submitted, the returnValue property on the form element will be set to the value of the submit button in the form. So given this example form: ` The form element with the example-form id will have its returnValue set to Submit. In addition to that, the dialog will close immediately after the submit event is done being handled, though not before automatic form validation is done. If this fails then the invalid event will be emitted. You may have already noticed one caveat to all of this. You might not want the form to close automatically when the submit handler is done running. If you perform an asynchronous request with an API or server you may want to wait for a response and show any errors that occur before dismissing the dialog. In this case, you can call event.preventDefault() in the submit event listener like so: ` Once your desired response comes back from the server, you can close it manually by using the .close() method on the dialog. Enhancing the backdrop The backdrop behind the dialog is a mostly translucent gray background by default. However, that backdrop is fully customizable using the ::backdrop pseudo-element. With it, you can set a background-color to any value you want, including gradients, images, etc. You may also want to make clicking the backdrop dismiss the modal, as this is a commonly implemented feature of them. By default, the <dialog> element doesn’t do this for us. There are a couple of changes that we can make to the dialog to get this working. First, an event listener is needed so that we know when the user clicks away from the dialog. ` Alone this event listener looks strange. It appears to dismiss the dialog whenever the dialog is clicked, not the backdrop. That’s the opposite of what we want to do. Unfortunately, you cannot listen for a click event on the backdrop as it is considered to be part of the dialog itself. Adding this event listener by itself will effectively make clicking anywhere on the page dismiss the dialog. To correct for this we need to wrap the contents of the dialog content with another element that will effectively mask the dialog and receive the click instead. A simple element can do! ` Even this isn’t perfect though as the contents of the div may have elements with margins in them that will push the div down, resulting in clicks close to the edges of the dialog to dismiss it. This can be resolved by adding a couple of styles the the wrapping div that will make the margin stay contained within the wrapper element. The dialog element itself also has some default padding that will exacerbate this issue. ` The wrapping div can be made into an inline-block element to contain the margin, and by moving the padding from the parent dialog to the wrapper, clicks made in the padded portions of the dialog will now interact with the wrapper element instead ensuring it won’t be dismissed. Conclusion Using the dialog element offers significant advantages for creating dialogs and modals by simplifying implementation with reasonable default behavior, enhancing accessibility for users that need assistive technologies such as screen readers by using automatic ARIA role assignment, tailored support for form elements, and flexible styling options....

Oct 25, 2024

4 mins

HTMLJavaScript

Exploring Open Props and its Capabilities

Exploring Open Props and its Capabilities With its intuitive approach and versatile features, Open Props empowers you to create stunning designs easily. It has the perfect balance between simplicity and power. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting, Open Props makes styling websites a breeze. Let's explore how Open Props can help your web development workflow. What is Open Props Open Props is a CSS library that packs a set of CSS variables for quickly creating consistent components using “Sub-Atomic” Styles. These web design tokens are crafted to help you get great-looking results from the start using consistent naming conventions and providing lots of possibilities out-of-the-box. At the same time, it's customizable and can be gradually adopted. Installing open props There are many ways to get started with open props, each with its advantages. The library can be imported from a CDN or installed using npm. You can import all or specific parts of it, and for greater control of what's bundled or not, you can use PostCSS to include only the variables you used. From Zero to Open Props Let's start with the simplest way to test and use open props. I'll create a simple HTML file with some structure, and we'll start from there. Create an index.html file. ` Edit the content of your HTML file. In this example, we’ll create a landing page containing a few parts: a hero section, a section for describing the features of a service, a section for the different pricing options available and finally a section with a call to action. We’ll start just declaring the document structure. Next we’ll add some styles and finally we’ll switch to using open props variables. ` To serve our page, we could just open the file, but I prefer to use serve, which is much more versatile. To see the contents of our file, let's serve our content. ` This command will start serving our site on port 3000. Our site will look something like this: Open-props core does not contain any CSS reset. After all, it’s just a set of CSS variables. This is a good start regarding the document structure. Adding open props via CDN Let's add open-props to our project. To get started, add: ` This import will make the library's props available for us to use. This is a set of CSS variables. It contains variables for fonts, colors, sizes, and many more. Here is an excerpt of the content of the imported file: ` The :where pseudo-class wraps all the CSS variables declarations, giving them the least specificity. That means you can always override them with ease. This imported file is all you need to start using open props. It will provide a sensible set of variables that give you some constraints in terms of what values you can use, a palette of colors, etc. Because this is just CSS, you can opt-out by not using the variables provided. I like these constraints because they can help with consistency and allow me to focus on other things. At the same time, you can extend this by creating your own CSS variables or just using any value whenever you want to do something different or if the exact value you want is not there. We should include some styles to add a visual hierarchy to our document. Working with CSS variables Let's create a new file to hold our styles. ` And add some styles to it. We will be setting a size hierarchy to headings, using open props font-size variables. Additionally, gaps and margins will use the size variables. ` We can explore these variables further using open-props’ documentation. It's simple to navigate (single page), and consistent naming makes it easy to learn them. Trying different values sometimes involves changing the number at the end of the variable name. For example: font-size-X, where X ranges from 0 to 8 (plus an additional 00 value). Mapped to font-sizes from 0.5rem up to 3.5rem. If you find your font is too small, you can add 1 to it, until you find the right size. Colors range from 0-12: –red-0 is the lightest one (rgb(255, 245, 245)) while –red-12 is the darkest (rgb(125, 26, 26)). There are similar ranges for many properties like font weight, size (useful for padding and margins), line height and shadows, to name a few. Explore and find what best fits your needs. Now, we need to include these styles on our page. ` Our page looks better now. We could keep adding more styles, but we'll take a shortcut and add some defaults with Open Props' built in normalized CSS file. Besides the core of open props (that contains the variables) there’s an optional normalization file that we can use. Let's tweak our recently added styles.css file a bit. Let’s remove the rules for headings. Our resulting css will now look like this. ` And add a new import from open-props. ` Open props provides a normalization file for our CSS, which we have included. This will establish a nice-looking baseline for our styles. Additionally, it will handle light/dark mode based on your preferences. I have dark mode set and the result already looks a lot better. Some font styles and sizes have been set, and much more. More CSS Variables Let's add more styles to our page to explore the variables further. I'd like to give the pricing options a card style. Open Props has a section on borders and shadows that we can use for this purpose. I would also like to add a hover effect to these cards. Also, regarding spacing, I want to add more margins and padding when appropriate. ` With so little CSS added and using many open props variables for sizes, borders, shadows, and easing curves, we can quickly have a better-looking site. Optimizing when using the CDN Open props is a pretty light package; however, using the CDN will add more CSS than you'll probably use. Importing individual parts of these props according to their utility is possible. For example, import just the gradients. ` Or even a subset of colors ` These are some options to reduce the size of your app if using the CDN. Open Props with NPM Open Props is framework agnostic. I want my site to use Vite. Vite is used by many frameworks nowadays and is perfect to show you the next examples and optimizations. ` Let's add a script to our package.json file to start our development server. ` Now, we can start our application on port 5173 (default) by running the following command: ` Your application should be the same as before, but we will change how we import open props. Stop the application and remove the open-props and normalize imports from index.html. Now in your terminal install the open-props package from npm. ` Once installed, import the props and the normalization files at the beginning of your styles.css file. ` Restart your development server, and you should see the same results. Optimizing when using NPM Let's analyze the size of our package. 34.4 kb seems a bit much, but note that this is uncompressed. When compressed with gzip, it's closer to 9 kb. Similar to what we did when using the CDN, we can add individual sections of the package. For example in our CSS file we could import open-props/animations or open-props/sizes. If this concerns you, don't worry; we can do much better. JIT Props To optimize our bundled styles, we can use a PostCSS plugin called posts-jit-props. This package will ensure that we only ship the props that we are using. Vite has support for PostCSS, so setting it up is straightforward. Let's install the plugin: ` After the installation finishes, let's create a configuration file to include it. ` The content of your file should look like this: ` Finally, remove the open-props/style import from styles.css. Remember that this file contains the CSS variables we will add "just in time". Our page should still look the same, but if we analyze the size of our styles.css file again, we can see that it has already been reduced to 13.2kb. If you want to know where this size is coming from, the answer is that Open Props is adding all the variables used in the normalize file + the ones that we require in our file. If we were to remove the normalize import, we would end up with much smaller CSS files, and the number of props added just in time would be minimal. Try removing commenting it out (the open-props/normalize import) from the styles.css file. The page will look different, but it will be useful to show how just the props used are added. 2.4kB uncompressed. That's a lot less for our example. If we take a quick look at our generated file, we can see the small list of CSS variables added from open props at the top of our file (those that we use later on the file). Open props ships with tons of variables for: - Colors - Gradients - Shadows - Aspect Ratios - Typography - Easing - Animations - Sizes - Borders - Z-Index - Media Queries - Masks You probably won't use all of these but it's hard to tell what you'll be using from the beginning of a project. To keep things light, add what you need as you go, or let JIT handle it for you. Conclusion Open props has much to offer and can help speed your project by leveraging some decisions upfront and providing a sensible set of predefined CSS Variables. We've learned how to install it (or not) using different methods and showcased how simple it is to use. Give it a try!...

Jun 7, 2024

9 mins

CSS

Understanding the Difference Between `:focus` and `:focus-visible` in CSS

Understanding the Difference Between :focus and :focus-visible in CSS I have learned my fair share about the importance of keyboard accessibility, so I know that visual indication of the focused element is very important. But the well-known :focus pseudo-class is not always the best fit for this job. That's where :focus-visible comes in. Let's look at the differences between these two pseudo-classes and explore the best practices for using them effectively. What is the :focus Pseudo-Class? The :focus pseudo-class is a CSS selector that applies styles to any element that receives focus, regardless of how that focus was triggered. This includes focus events from keyboard navigation, mouse clicks, and touch interactions. Example Usage of :focus ` In this example, the button will display a blue outline whenever it is focused, whether the user clicks on it with a mouse, taps it on a touchscreen, or navigates to it using the keyboard. What is the :focus-visible Pseudo-Class? The :focus-visible pseudo-class is more specialized. It only applies styles to an element when the browser determines that the focus should be visible. This typically occurs when the user navigates via the keyboard or assistive technologies rather than through mouse or touch input. Example Usage of :focus-visible ` Here, the button will only show a blue outline when focused through keyboard navigation or another input method that usually requires visible focus indicators. Key Differences Between :focus and :focus-visible :focus - Behavior: Applies to any element that receives focus, regardless of the input method. - Use Cases: Ensures that all interactions with the element are visually indicated, whether by mouse, keyboard, or touch. :focus-visible - Behavior: Applies styles only when the focus should be visible, such as using a keyboard or assistive technology. - Use Cases: Ideal for scenarios where you want to provide focus indicators only to keyboard and assistive technology users while avoiding unnecessary outlines for mouse and touch users, typically required by design. Accessibility Implications :focus - Pros: - Guarantees that all users can see when an element is focused, which is critical for accessibility. - Cons: - Can lead to a suboptimal experience for mouse users, as focus styles may appear unnecessarily during mouse interactions. :focus-visible - Pros: - Enhances user experience by showing focus indicators only when necessary, thus keeping the interface clean for mouse and touch users. - Tailors the experience for keyboard and assistive technology users, providing them with clear visual cues. - Cons: - Additional considerations may be required to ensure that focus indicators are not accidentally omitted, especially in older browsers that do not support :focus-visible. - There may be cases where you want to show focus indicators for all users, regardless of input method. Best Practices for Using :focus and :focus-visible To achieve the best accessibility and user experience, combining both :focus and :focus-visible in your CSS is often a good idea. Combining :focus and :focus-visible ` Here is a Stackblitz example of what such styling could look like for you to try out and play with. Additional Tips - Test with Keyboard and Assistive Technology: Ensure that your web application is navigable using a keyboard (Tab, Shift + Tab, etc.) and that focus indicators are visible for those who rely on them. It's never a bad idea to include accessibility testing in your e2e testing suite. - Provide Clear Focus Indicators: Make sure that focus indicators are prominent and easy to see. A subtle or hard-to-spot focus indicator can severely impact accessibility for users who rely on keyboard navigation. Conclusion The :focus-visible pseudo-class offers a more refined way to manage focus indicators, improving accessibility and user experience, particularly for keyboard and assistive technology users. By understanding the differences between :focus and :focus-visible, and applying best practices in your CSS, you can create more accessible and user-friendly web applications. Remember, accessibility should never be an afterthought. By thoughtfully applying focus styles, you ensure that all users, regardless of how they interact with your site, can easily navigate and interact....

Nov 8, 2024

3 mins

AccessibilityCSSPlaywright

Let's innovate together!

We're ready to be your trusted technical partners in your digital innovation journey.

Whether it's modernization or custom software solutions, our team of experts can guide you through best practices and how to build scalable, performant software that lasts.

Component Testing in Svelte

Component Testing in Svelte

Starting a new project

Installing required dependencies

Configuring tests

Creating a new test

Events

Props

Wrapping up

Ignacio Falk

You might also like

Making Seamless Page Transitions with the View Transitions API

The HTML Dialog Element: Enhancing Accessibility and Ease of Use

Exploring Open Props and its Capabilities

Understanding the Difference Between `:focus` and `:focus-visible` in CSS

Let's innovate together!

You might also like

Making Seamless Page Transitions with the View Transitions API

The HTML Dialog Element: Enhancing Accessibility and Ease of Use

Exploring Open Props and its Capabilities

Understanding the Difference Between `:focus` and `:focus-visible` in CSS