FYI: accessibility prospects for LiveView 0.18

[Linux for blind general discussion]

"And the big thing I'm focusing on in LiveView 18 is Accessibility ..."

Chris McCord, the prime mover behind the Phoenix web framework, says that a11y will be a major goal for the current version (0.18.x) of LiveView.  The intent is to make features such as focus handling Just Work, with little effort on the part of web developers.
 
# Some Background

A typical Phoenix app runs almost entirely on the server, exchanging very minimal data with the client (JavaScript) code.  Phoenix, which is written in Elixir, runs on the Erlang VM. This gives it a performant, failsoft foundation, built-in support for concurrency and distribution, etc.  LiveView takes advantage of this, providing highly interactive sessions with almost no client-side code.

# The Plan

Having tried to write accessible web code in the past, Chris knows that it isn't easy to do, let alone get right.  So, he wants to build ally support into the framework, so that developers are more likely to incorporate it.  As part of the basis for this, he plans to use predefined components from the Tailwind CSS framework.

Here are some useful links, for the curious:

- Elixir - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_(programming_language)
- Erlang - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(programming_language)
- LiveView - https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix_live_view/Phoenix.LiveView.html
- Phoenix - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(web_framework)
- Tailwind CSS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailwind_CSS

Chris discussed his goals and approach in a recent talk.  The part concerning a11y starts at 27:05, but be warned that the talk includes a lot of Elixir code and visual material:

ElixirConf 2022 - Chris McCord - Phoenix + LiveView Updates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-rqBLjr5Eo

However, I strongly suspect that Chris will be publishing blog posts on this topic as he proceeds.  I also expect a11y support to start showing up in various LiveView demo pages, etc.  So, interested parties should be able to follow along...

-r