Google recently launched a new update of its popular TypeScript-based framework, Angular, on May 12, 2021. Following the pattern, the Angular community comes up with a new update every six months, and today, we are here with the brand new version of the Angular framework – Angular 12.
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What is Angular 12
Angular 12 is the recent upgrade to Google’s most efficient TypeScript based platform and framework, Angular. The framework Angular is known for creating Single client page applications using TypeScript and HTML.
Today, this article will discuss the latest features and improvements of Angular 12 and how they will benefit you. If these advantages suit your business needs, you can hire professional Angular developers to create dynamic Single Page Applications (SPAs). But before diving into these features, let us learn about the ‘Ivy Everywhere’ term revolving around the Angular future space for a long time.
What do you mean by Ivy workspace in Angular
Are you aware of the term ivy in the Angular framework? Well, it is the code name for the next-generation compilation and rendering pipeline in Angular. By rendering pipeline, we mean a rendering engine that compiles the components and template written in TypeScript and HTML respectively into JavaScript.
This internal compiler and runtime engine, commonly known as View Engine, is being re-written, and that is what Ivy is all about. In the latest Angular 12 update, the old view-engine will no longer exist, and the current libraries using it will still work with the Ivy applications. However, the developers will have no work required, and as per the recommendations, library authors must start planning to move towards the Ivy transition.
Top features of Angular 12 update
Improved learning experience
Google always cares about its users, and that’s the reason it makes sure that they get the best out of everything. In this latest update, Google is striving hard to improve the user’s learning experience. Due to this, you will find some changes in the documentation in Angular 12 with an edition of the content projection guide.
Moreover, you will also find the contributor’s guide to help the developers improve the project’s documentation. In addition to this, there are also debugging guides that will ease out the web development process so that you can get your business SPAs more quickly.
Heading closer to Ivy everywhere
As mentioned earlier, the Angular team at Google is finally removing the old view-engine from the existing versions of the framework. After the deprecation of the view engine, it will not be available in the future major release.
This should not worry Angular developers., but the current library authors have to start planning for the Ivy transition. However, for the ones who are using these old libraries, these are still workable with the Ivy applications.
Switching from i18n Message IDs
Several legacy message ID formats, such as Whitespaces, ICU expressions, and many more, are being used in the i18n systems. Some of these message IDs are fragile and can cause problems within the system. Therefore, in the latest update of Angular 12, you will get a more intuitive and resilient message format that will help in minimizing the unnecessary translation invalidation and associated retranslation cost. Moreover, with Angular 12, the essential tools are now all set to migrate the translations.
Style improvisation
One of the best features of Angular 12 is that you will get support for inline SaaS in the Style field belonging to the Component decorator. Due to the limitations of the Angular compiler, earlier SaaS would only become possible with the help of external resources. Now, if you want to enable this feature in your existing applications, you have to add the following command in your JSON file: “inlineStyleLanguage”: “SCSS.”
When we talk about the Tailwind CSS, Angular v11.2 had already allowed the support for styling. To use it in projects, install the tailwind CSS package from NPN and then prepare Tailwind to produce the tailwind.config.js in your project.
Another notable update related to style improvements is that Angular CDK and Angular Material have adopted the latest SaaS model. For this, you have to download the SaaS npm package and switch from NodeS-SaaS to it.
Decision for Protractor
Do you remember about Protractor? It is an end-to-end framework used for testing purposes in Angular and AngularJS. Its core purpose is to manage the flow of asynchronous operations. However, it came out later that protractor does not help in up-gradation. Hence, it gets limited to use in Angular JS only, not in Angular.
Currently, the Angular team is on it to decide the future of the protractor. Until the feedback comes, the community has decided to prohibit the use of protractors in the new projects and suggested using third-party solutions in Angular CLI. For the present time, Cypress, Test Cafe, and WebDriverIO are its alternative solutions.
Some more benefits you can get in Angular 12
- Incremental Compilation: It allows incremental compilation to improve the compiler CLI performance.
Nullish Coalescing: It helps in writing more apparent codes in TypeScript classes. It now works with Angular templates. - Strict Mode: It assists in finding errors in the early stages of the development cycle. It is now enabled by default in the CLI.
- Removal of unused methods: Unused methods from DomAdapter have been removed to enhance the performance.
- Mapping legacy message IDs: The addition of a new format, known as legacy-migrate to localize extract, generates a JSON file to map legacy message IDs to canonical ones.
- Webpack 5 Module Bundler: You will get the Webpack 5 module bundler production-ready in Angular 12.
Wrapping up
The Angular team at Google strives hard to provide you with the best features and updates to make your web app development process easy and efficient. That’s why the users get a new updated version of Angular almost twice a year, packed with exciting features and modifications. Apart from the characteristics mentioned above, the latest Angular 12 also comes with many bug fixes present in the older versions. To access the benefits of these magnificent features in your SPAs, you can hire dedicated Angular developers and make your dream a reality with their proficiency and agile methodologies.