Angular, a popular web development framework, released its major version upgrade, Angular 16, on May 3, 2023. This update brings several significant improvements and new features that enhance the developer experience. In this article, we will delve into the top 7 features introduced in Angular 16.
- Angular Signals:
- Angular Signals is a groundbreaking feature allowing developers to define reactive values and express dependencies between them.
- It enables efficient management of state changes within Angular applications.
- Signals, inspired by Solid.js, notify others of value changes and facilitate the creation of derived states in a declarative way.
- While optional, Angular Signals offer a powerful way to handle state in Angular applications.
- Server-Side Rendering (SSR):
- Angular 16 addresses a longstanding drawback by introducing significant improvements in server-side rendering (SSR) support.
- Non-destructive hydration is a new approach preventing UX issues like screen flickering, enhancing Core Web Vitals such as LCP or CLS.
- Developers can enable non-destructive hydration by adding
provideClientHydration()as a provider when bootstrapping the application.
- Experimental Jest Support:
- Responding to developer requests, Angular 16 introduces experimental support for Jest, a widely-used testing framework.
- Installation involves using npm to install Jest and updating the angular.json file to include the necessary configurations.
- esbuild-Based Build System:
- Angular 16 adopts an esbuild-based build system for the development server (
ng serve), powered by Vite. - While still in the developer preview stage, developers can enable it by updating the angular.json file.
- Angular 16 adopts an esbuild-based build system for the development server (
- Required Inputs:
- Angular 16 allows developers to define input values as required, enhancing the clarity of component interfaces.
- Developers can use the @Input decorator or the @Component decorator inputs array to achieve this.
- Router Inputs:
- Binding route parameters into component inputs is now simplified in Angular 16.
- Developers can use RouterModule and enable the
bindToComponentInputsproperty in the app.module.ts file to enable this feature.
- Standalone Project Support:
- Building on the support for standalone components introduced in Angular 14, Angular 16 allows the creation of standalone projects.
- Developers can use the –standalone flag with the ng new command to generate a project without NgModules.
In addition to these top features, Angular 16 brings various other improvements, including auto-importing of components and pipes through the language service, TypeScript 5.0 support, and more.
In conclusion, Angular 16 marks a significant milestone with its feature-rich update, offering developers a more powerful and flexible framework for building modern web applications. Developers are encouraged to explore Angular’s official documentation for seamless upgrades and take advantage of the new features introduced in this