DEV Community: Samyuktha Ganeshkumar

Markdown Accessibility Github Action

Samyuktha Ganeshkumar — Mon, 22 May 2023 14:59:39 +0000

What I built

I built a GitHub action called "Markdown Accessibility" that improves the accessibility of Markdown files in a repository by automatically adding alternative text to images that do not have it.

Category Submission

Maintainer Must-Haves

App Link

Published on GitHub Marketplace: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/markdown-accessibility

Screenshots

Here is a workflow in a sample repo where the alt text checker in this GitHub action checks for files that have images with missing alt text.

Here is the commit made by this GitHub action when included in the workflow showing the insertion of alt text.

Here are the linting errors produced by the markdown-lint-cli2-action. Note: It does not fail the entire workflow.

Description

This action searches through all markdown files in all folders. If an image does not have an alt text, the action uses the microsoft/git-base-coco model from HuggingFace to generate alt text. The end user can also create and use their Azure Computer Vision resource for alt text generation by providing their key and endpoint as repository secrets. When using the Azure Computer Vision Resource, they can also specify a language for alt text generation for this action in their workflow file. The alt text from both these ways will be inserted into the markdown file and a new commit on the user repo is created showing this change.

It supports both PNG and JPEG image formats in HTML and Markdown styles. Additionally, the markdownlint-cli2-action runs each time to lint all the markdown files and fix errors if possible.

Link to Source Code

sam9111 / markdown-accessibility-helper

Markdown Accessibility Helper

A GitHub action that helps improve the accessibility of Markdown files in your repository by automatically adding alternative text to images that do not have it.

Features

Automatically adds alternative text to images in all markdown files that do not have it.
Recursively searches through all markdown files in all folders.
Supports both PNG and JPEG image formats.
Using the Azure Computer Vision Resource, you can specify a language for alt text generation. Supported languages: en - English (Default), es - Spanish, ja - Japanese, pt - Portuguese, zh - Simplified Chinese.
The markdownlint-cli2-action runs each time to lint all the markdown files and fix errors if possible.

Usage

Action Permissions: This action requires read and write access to your repository to modify the markdown files. You can update the permissions for this action in the Actions tab of your repository settings under Workflows Permissions. This only…

View on GitHub

Permissive License

This project is licensed under the MIT License

Background (What made you decide to build this particular app? What inspired you?)

People with limited eyesight or those who are surfing without visuals can better grasp the content of the image you're using if you provide other explanations. Although GitHub utilises the file name you upload as the alt element, it does not provide a person who cannot view the picture enough context. I chose to build this project because I strongly believe in the power of accessibility. I wanted to create a solution that could automatically enhance the accessibility of documentation in other projects.

How I built it (How did you utilize GitHub Actions or GitHub Codespaces? Did you learn something new along the way? Pick up a new skill?)

I developed this project using Python and utilized libraries such as transformers and azure-cognitiveservices-vision-computervision. This hackathon opened me up to the world of CI/CD pipelines in GitHub. Learning how GitHub Actions work and how to modify files in another repository using this action was fun and it was indeed very challenging since I had to overcome my fear of making git errors!

Additional Resources/Info

Here is a video demo of my solution!

Hello World 📰

Samyuktha Ganeshkumar — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 16:46:29 +0000

Overview of my Submission

Hello World is a web app that fetches headlines from all over the world through the NewsCatcher News API and performs sentiment analysis on it using Azure Text Analytics. The backend is a FastAPI which I have deployed using Azure App Services while the frontend fetches the sentiment-analyzed news from the API and uses the react-globe package to render a React + ThreeJS globe visualization of the world news!

The thought process behind Hello World ( the most innovative name right? 😂 ) started in my head when I learned about the whole concept of "data streaming". And then I thought of how cool it would be to visualize real-time news. But what would the visualization convey? That was when I learned about sentiment analysis and thought why not build something that analyses the sentiment of headlines from all over the world and display it in a super cool and interactive way for anyone to get a sense of what is happening on the other side of the world. And that is exactly what my project Hello World is!

This is my first-ever hackathon submission though I feel like I have been a developer for ages! 🥳

It was definitely an amazing experience to test out my skills in Python and React and realize how much I still don't know. I also just realized that I spent more than 20 hours on this single project! ( PS. I used Wakatime for this )

The data is supposed to be updated every 24 hours but I cannot seem to figure out how to make it work. To anyone reading this, I would be more than happy if you could help me out! Do let me know in the comments below 😊

Submission Category

Wacky Wildcards

Link to Code on GitHub

sam9111 / HelloWorld-FastAPI

Fast API for Hello World

This is the FastAPI backend for the HelloWorld webapp which fetches news from the NewsCatcher News API and performs sentiment analysis on it using Azure Text Analytics.

Deployment

This API has been deployed using Azure App Services and can be found here:

https://hello-world-fastapi.azurewebsites.net/

API Reference

Get all news fetched every 23 hours

  GET /api/news

Get all data processed using text analytics

  GET /api/data

Get all point objects being rendered as markers in the front end

  GET /api/points

Environment Variables

To run this project, you will need to add the following environment variables to your .env file

API_KEY

Your NewsCatcherAPI key

AZURE_API_KEY

Your subscription key for the Azure Text Analytics Service

ENDPOINT

Endpoint for the above service

Run Locally

Clone the project

  git clone https://github.com/sam9111/HelloWorld-FastAPI

Go to the project directory

  cd HelloWorld-FastAPI

Install requirements

  pip install -r requirements.txt

Start the server

  uvicorn main:app --host 0.0.0.0 --reload

…

View on GitHub

Demo

Here is a demo video for my project!

My Learning Notion Template

Samyuktha Ganeshkumar — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 12:00:35 +0000

My template

Duplicate the template into your Notion space and you are ready to go!

I created this Notion template just a few days ago since I felt I wasn't retaining enough from what I learn and it always seems like I learn about so many new stuff everyday but I can never recall anything. After surfing on how others are tracking their own learning journey, I came up with this template for myself!

The template has a Table and Calendar view.

Here are my reasoning for the columns:

Completed? : Acts as a motivation for you to complete what you are learning without giving up.
What : What are you learning about?
Why : Always define a purpose for learning about that particular topic.
When : Date of learning
Where : Links to what you are learning.
Tags : Create tags with the common topic of what you are learning so that you can later filter entries when you need to recall what you learnt about that topic.
Duration : Minutes you learnt for.

Everytime you sit to learn something new, create an entry and time yourself. That puts you under pressure to use the minutes wisely without getting distracted!

Do let me know if this template helps you and how we can improve it!❤️

Confused in Tech

Samyuktha Ganeshkumar — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 11:26:29 +0000

After shying away from online communities and only being a passive reader, with the start of an okayish 2022, I am looking to become a more confident and active contributor to the tech space.

When I joined college 2 years ago, I knew nothing about programming but of course, courses I took in college made me more confident in coding and it is certainly something I like doing. But it is definitely not something I love or see myself doing everyday for the rest of my life.

This does not mean I do not want to be in tech and I do not think anyone would not want to be in such a fast space where you can make loads of money with smartness. I certainly want to be in tech but I want everyday in my career to be different. A different project. A different problem. And a different solution I hope I solve for.

But first, I need the SKILLS. And I want to document my journey of learning in the tech space so that I can look back on how I have grown.

Everything I learn will be documented here in dev.to and hopefully it helps someone as confused but passionate as me. And hey if you are that person, hit me up! Let's talk about anything tech and see how we can thrive here!❤️