Accessible website build - with a test!?
In 2020 I was chosen to do a site redesign and migration for a new client. They told me they wanted to stay with Joomla because of accessibility. The admins both liked WordPress more but it was because of Gutenberg and accessibility but I really didn't understand the WHY (with not using WP) ... that was until reading Nic's breakdown today.
Quoted "I am against the inclusion of the block editor (Gutenberg) having worked with it both as a user and as a developer.
Let's start with the fact that it is completely inaccessible to users with motor or vision issues, something its developers not only refuse to accept BUT went as far as deleting comments on WordPress.org saying that and banning the users who posted that.
Let's continue with the fact that it produces something which is not exactly HTML, it's a farce. There are no P tags. There are two newlines. Yeah, I kid you not. Want to write some decent HTML? Not possible. Want to make an HTML template? Not possible. All of which is possible with TinyMCE!"
Ohhhh now I get it! Properly accessible text requires correct HTML for screen readers to navigate properly. I knew their new website required it to be accessible and I knew about the correct HTML but didn't get the link to Gutenberg.
Well the good news was my site did pass the test by their own visually impaired team with only slight adjustment and I was also granted the job to migrate their user site as well the next year.
If you want to read the explanation you can do so below. I have been using Nic's extensions since I started building with Joomla years ago and his Akeeba Backup has saved me so many times I've kept a paid membership even though the free version does the job as well. Support your extension developers so they are able to keep doing what they do.
Full thought from Nikolaos Dionysopoulos, creator of Akeeba Backup, post on GitHub Aug. 6, 2022
"I am against the inclusion of the block editor (Gutenberg) having worked with it both as a user and as a developer.
Let's start with the fact that it is completely inaccessible to users with motor or vision issues, something its developers not only refuse to accept BUT went as far as deleting comments on WordPress.org saying that and banning the users who posted that.
Let's continue with the fact that it produces something which is not exactly HTML, it's a farce. There are no P tags. There are two newlines. Yeah, I kid you not. Want to write some decent HTML? Not possible. Want to make an HTML template? Not possible. All of which is possible with TinyMCE!
Then let's get to how it's extended. The plugins are a weird form of React.JS with some custom cruft which is almost nowhere documented.
Even if we want to ignore the fact that the Joomla 3PD pool does not have the skillset to develop such plugins readily available (we learn fast, whatever) we have to get to how configuration parameters of block instances are stored with the article. If you guessed “inside HTML comments, as simple key-value pairs with no thought about updating / migrating them” you won! Yeah, they are actually far worse than the way we use “plugin code” in Joomla the past 17 years! This has already come to bite WordPress block developers in the butt. New versions of their plugins simply break with old articles. They have no idea how to fix that problem. Meanwhile, Joomla's custom fields and template overrides offer a far better future-proof alternative, albeit with more code involved.
Ignoring all of that — and at this point I feel that your suspension of disbelief has crumbled far worse than the subprime mortgage market did in 2010 — we have the other “small” detail: how do you RENDER these blocks in the front end. WordPress is an utter disaster. Each block plugin spits out its HTML and adds a number of CSS to support it. Even though in Joomla we could use layouts (easier to override) we still have to contend with the fact that we'll be loading a bazillion CSS files, moving the state of the art back by 20 years and making slow as molasses sites.
Let's say that you are somehow willing to accept all these problems — I understand, some people are clinically stupid and we can't fix stupid. Is the block editor a good solution for your end users? There's nothing to prevent them from mixing blocks in a way that makes no sense and breaks the layout of the page. Yeah, you can KINDA create “templates” for them to follow... but so does TinyMCE so what now, did we reinvent the wheel only making it square?!
The way the WordPress market “solved” these issues is by using... THIRD PARTY PAGE BUILDERS! Well, never mind that the content created there is no longer core content and any redesign of the site requires the site integrator to redo all the content with the new layouts. Page builders are not a novel thing. They have existed for a long time and they even do exist in Joomla as well. Also, with custom fields and template overrides a site integrator can create a far more future-proof page builder.
Finally, as an end user, please do try to write long-form content — even something like Joomla's release announcement — using the block editor. You will do one of two things. You will curse the entire extended family tree of the morons who inflicted this subpar crap upon you, requiring you to use the mouse to define headlines, links, bold text etc. Or, you will just say f..k it and write all your content in a single HTML block, with far less features than TinyMCE, thus completely negating the reason of existence of the block editor!
The block editor is a useless gimmick which works against the user, the developer and the site integrator. Even worse, it drastically increases the Total Cost of Ownership of a site which is anything other than a quick throw-away marketing affair. Then again, WordPress is made for quick, throw-away marketing affairs so no wonder they went with the block editor.
PS: The block editor in WordPress also has a politics reason of existence. Matt Mullenweg said very clearly back in WPEU 2017 in Paris that his vision for the next 10 years of WordPress is that WordPress would be a hosted CMS with pure JavaScript-based plugins delivered as SaaS. Are you sure you want to bring that crap over to Joomla? Or were you totally unaware of the connotation?"