Last month in my post Source Order Matters I wrote about why we need to consider how the source order of the HTML of a page can affect users when the CSS re-orders the content visually. While I used a recipe as an analogue and cited WCAG conformance rules, I failed to provide specific examples. I prepared one for my talk at Accessibility Camp Toronto, but have since expanded on it with more examples.
I want to make sure that we all understand that the source order versus display order discussion is not unique to CSS Flexbox. It is not unique to CSS Grids. Many developers have been dealing with this (correctly and incorrectly) since CSS floats and absolute positioning were introduced (and even earlier with tabled layouts). As such, I have examples of each in this post (no tabled layouts).
Kind: Reads
These days, as the giant social networks behave more and more reprehensibly, many people are looking back to the “good old days” of the web, when self-published blogs were the primary means of sharing one’s thoughts.
Brian Warren has taken this enthusiasm, and combined it with his nostalgia for another classic resource: the links page.
When people talk about “accessible” PDF files, they are usually referring to “tagged” PDF files. PDF tags provide a hidden, structured representation of the PDF content that is presented to screen readers. They exist for accessibility purposes only and have no visible effect on the PDF file. There is more to an accessible PDF file than tags, but an untagged PDF would not be considered “accessible”.
Cool front-end developers are always pushing the envelope, jumping out of their seat to use the latest and greatest and shiniest of UI frameworks and libraries. However, there is another kind of front-end developer, the boring front-end developer. Here is an ode to the boring front-end developer, BFED if you will.
WordPress 3.7 was released on October 24, 2013 and introduced an automatic update mechanism to ensure security fixes would be automatically deployed on all WordPress sites, in an effort to prevent recently-patched vulnerabilities from being massively exploited in the wild. This is widely regarded by security experts as a good idea.
However, the WordPress automatic update feature had one glaring Achilles’ heel: If a criminal or nation state were to hack into the WordPress update server, they could trigger a fake automatic update to infect WordPress sites with malware.
This isn’t just a theoretical concern, it could have happened if not for WordFence’s security researchers finding and disclosing an easy attack vector into their infrastructure.
WordPress 5.2 was released on May 7, 2019 and provides the first real layer of defense against a compromised update infrastructures: offline digital signatures.
This essay closely examines the effect on free-expression rights when platforms such as Facebook or YouTube silence their users’ speech. The first part describes the often messy blend of government and private power behind many content removals, and discusses how the combination undermines users’ rights to challenge state action. The second part explores the legal minefield for users—or potentially, legislators—claiming a right to speak on major platforms. The essay contends that questions of state and private power are deeply intertwined. To understand and protect internet users’ rights, we must understand and engage with both.