This post was originally posted at 2020-11-26.
Oh wow! It has been 5 weeks since my last email. It is already week 48 and my last email was week 43.
Many exciting things happened. I ran a mobile web technologies competition in Macao. We used cypress.io to assess most of the points. The process is fast and transparent to all competitors. It saved a lot of marking time and yet create a standardized and fair assessment environment. There are also judgment marks for the usabilities and code quality checking. I also included many aspects regarding accessibility, hoping to raise the awareness of creating accessible websites.
I completed another Python automation course and finished 80% of a mobile-first web design course. Even in 2020, there are still websites that use both viewport meta and desktop min-width. This combination makes the web difficult to read on iOS.
Let me continue the Paperlike topic from my last email. After using the Paperlike for weeks, the writing experience is much better than writing on glasses. The color on screen is still great after having the Paperlike attached, at least fulfilling both my entertainment and handwriting usage every day.
Speaking of the handwriting, I use both Moleskine Flow and Lock screen’s Apple Note. I treat all my handwritten notes as analog input and they are all further organized into my knowledge base system.
The reason to use Apple Note is obvious. The instant access by tapping the Apple Pencil on the lock screen is critical when I need to write down something immediately. And it is deep OS integration that only Apple Notes can do.
When I am not that urgent, I use Moleskine Flow to jot down my notes or sketches. The most favorite feature I like is the infinite horizontal canvas.
The biggest thing I don’t like in Flow is the full canvas exporting feature. The app divides the infinite canvas into pieces of images instead of a single image. I have to glue them together during the post-process procedure. But this downside won’t prevent me to enjoy their most paper-like sketch feeling on the app. So it is a perfect match with the Paperlike screen-protector, creating a Moleskine sketching experience.
Links worth sharing
→ Useful accessibility testing tools and techniques
https://blog.sapegin.me/all/accessibility-testing/
From ESLint to Axe to browser extension. This post covers the essential tools and techniques to get started with Accessibility testing.
→ Apple Small Business Program to reduce App Store commission from 30% to 15%
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-store-small-business-program/
After 12 years of App Store debut, this is the first time general App Store commission reduction.
“Developers can qualify for the program and a reduced, 15 percent commission if they earned up to $1 million in proceeds during the previous calendar year.”
→ Let’s Encrypt alternative by more free CAs
https://scotthelme.co.uk/introducing-another-free-ca-as-an-alternative-to-lets-encrypt/
It is always good to have alternative options.
→ Accessibility: Font-size and CSS Clamp
https://css-tricks.com/linearly-scale-font-size-with-css-clamp-based-on-the-viewport/#comment-1763216
Please be careful with maximum text size, particularly on sites/pages that face the general public or employees. If you prevent the text from scaling up 200%, then that is a WCAG SC 1.4.4 failure at Level AA. Viewport units have their own call-out as a major risk in WCAG.
No matter what technique you use, be sure that the page text can be zoomed at least 200%. Unsurprisingly, I have written about responsive type and zoom, and have cautioned against min(), max(), and clamp().
I understand the examples are for demonstration purpose only, but none allow me to scale the text past 175%. If the example code was copied as-is into a project, that project would likely fail an accessibility audit.
→ Does Apple really log every app you run? A technical look
https://blog.jacopo.io/en/post/apple-ocsp/
TL;DR
No, macOS does not send Apple a hash of your apps each time you run them.
You should be aware that macOS might transmit some opaque information about the developer certificate of the apps you run. This information is sent out in clear text on your network.
You shouldn’t probably block
ocsp.apple.com
with Little Snitch or in your hosts file.
Code worth sharing
→ A basic example of CSS ::marker pseudo-element
https://jsbin.com/pedopus/edit?html,css,output
It matches the styles of numbers in an ordered-list to the list item content.
::marker {
font-size: 1.5rem;
font-weight: bold;
}
Until next week, Stay safe and healthy,
Thomas Mak
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