Latest Improvements in Angular 17: All You Need to Know

Based on research conducted by Statista, Angular is the most used web development framework, leveraged by 17.46% of respondents^[i]. To maintain this position, improve performance, and simplify coding, the Angular team released its new version – Angular 17 on 11th September 2023.

The renewed Angular framework is guided by the vision of Sarah Drashner, Director of Engineering at Google and head of the Angular team. It brings incremental improvements, ensuring backward compatibility while aligning with the latest trends in front-end frameworks.

With Angular 17, businesses and developers can picture an enhanced developing experience. Here, the new control flow syntax, improved Server-Side Rendering (SSR) support, a CLI turbocharged by esbuild, and other updates contribute to a smoother and more dynamic development workflow.

In this blog post, you can decode the new improvements and updates in the Angular 17 web development framework. You’ll also understand why developers should leverage it, facilitating collaboration, encouraging code reusability, and ensuring the creation of scalable & maintainable web applications.

Let’s begin!

Key Features and Improvements in Angular 17

1. Documentation Geared Towards the Future

Angular 17 introduces a significant enhancement to its documentation with the development of a new home at angular.dev. This overhaul includes a revamped structure, updated guides, enriched content, and a cutting-edge platform that fosters an interactive learning journey for Angular and Angular Command Line Interface (CLI).

The beta preview of angular.dev marks the beginning of a new era, with plans to make it the default website for Angular in version 18. The highlight incorporates WebContainers, enabling users to harness the Angular CLI’s power directly within a modern web browser. This further promises a future-forward and immersive documentation experience.

2. Built-In Control Flow

In Angular 17, a notable enhancement is the introduction of new control block syntax, replacing the traditional structural directives like *ngIf, *ngFor, and *ngSwitch. This evolution provides developers with greater flexibility and improved readability in template code.

For instance, the @if and @else blocks provide a cleaner way to conditionally render content, using logical expressions. The @for block simplifies iterating over collections, enabling more expressive and concise code. Additionally, the @switch, @case, and @default blocks facilitate efficient control flow, enhancing the handling of multiple conditions.

To embrace these improvements, developers can migrate existing templates using the provided schematic. This will lead to a more modern and streamlined approach to template development in Angular 17.

3. Built-In @for Loop

The built-in @for loop feature, in Angular 17 depicts a significant improvement in both developer experience and rendering speed. This syntax addresses a common performance bottleneck seen in applications that rely on *ngFor by mandating the use of “track” for efficient change detection. It also ensures a faster rendering process.

Unlike its predecessor, the “track” functionality is seamlessly incorporated as an expression within the template, eliminating the need for an additional method in the component’s class. Notably, the built-in @for loop also provides a convenient shortcut for handling collections with zero items through an optional @empty block. This feature not only streamlines development but also enhances the performance of Angular applications significantly, marking a noteworthy milestone in the framework’s evolution.

4. Deferrable Views

In Angular 17, a significant enhancement called Deferrable Views has been introduced in response to the Angular community’s request for an intuitive mechanism to lazy load components, directives, and pipes.

This new feature aims to make the process of deferred loading of dependencies more intuitive and convenient. Deferrable Views enable developers to declaratively lazy load portions of their templates until they are required, optimizing the initial bundle size and improving the application’s initial load time. This is achieved through the use of the new “@-syntax” control flow syntax in templates.

As Deferrable Views provide built-in and managed solutions for deferred loading, developers can express their intent without managing verbose dynamic imports, intersection observers, or event handlers. This feature also supports prefetching for faster resource availability.

Furthermore, developers can use integrated triggers and custom conditions to specify when and how deferred loading should occur. Additionally, Deferrable Views reduce boilerplate code, automatically handling dependency management behind the scenes.

5. Enhanced Server Side Rendering (SSR)

The server-side rendering capabilities of Angular 17 enable developers to elevate application performance and user experience. The Hydration Boost feature streamlines the client-side JavaScript hydration process, minimizing flickering and ensuring a smoother transition to interactive web pages.

Angular 17 also adopts the standardized EcmaScript Modules (ESM) format for SSR, simplifying builds and enhancing compatibility with popular tools. Additionally, it focuses on reducing SSR bundle sizes through code-splitting techniques, leading to faster server responses and enhanced search engine optimization. These advancements position Angular 17 as a compelling choice for building high-performance and SEO-friendly web applications.

6. Stable Signal

Angular 17 introduces a groundbreaking development with the stabilization of Signals, a pivotal tool for reactivity enthusiasts. Shedding its “developer preview” label, Signals now stands as a robust solution for managing state and facilitating component updates.

The integration of Signals with Change Detection.OnPush brings a level of precision. This ensures components refresh only when their specific signal changes, optimizing performance by avoiding unnecessary re-renders. The retirement of the mutate method in favor of immutable updates further enhances predictability and cleanliness in maintaining state history. While Signals takes the spotlight, Effects, still in developer preview, provides a glimpse into the future of Angular’s state management, presenting powerful capabilities for asynchronous operations.

In essence, Angular 17 equips developers with a refined toolset, including stable Signals, OnPush integration, immutable updates, and the evolving potential of Effects. This ultimately fosters the creation of well-structured applications.

7. Performance Building With esbuild

The adoption of esbuild in Angular 17 marks a significant stride in enhancing build performance for Angular projects. Originally relying on Webpack, the Angular CLI has transitioned to leveraging esbuild, a newer tool celebrated for its user-friendly nature and remarkable speed, boasting over 20,000 weekly downloads.

The integration of esbuild was implemented in Angular 16 as a developer preview and has now matured into a stable implementation in Angular 17. This integration has become the default builder for new projects via the Application Builder. For existing projects, developers are encouraged to consider the switch to esbuild by updating the builder entry in angular.json.

With this integration, both ng serve and ng build operations showcase a substantial boost in speed, leveraging the Vite dev server for efficient npm package building only when necessary. The CLI team’s incorporation of various performance optimizations further contributes to an accelerated build process, with ng build often achieving a factor 2 to 4 speed improvement. This transition underscores Angular’s commitment to providing developers with tools that not only simplify workflows, but also significantly enhance project build efficiency.

8. Standalone Components

“Standalone components” is a groundbreaking feature in Angular 17 that enables the creation and utilization of components without the need for a parent module. In this paradigm shift, the root component, exemplified by “AppComponent”, is marked as standalone using the “standalone: true” property in the component decorator. This attribute signifies that the component operates independently of a parent module. Furthermore, instead of relying on a module, the component utilizes the “imports” array to bring in the necessary dependencies, such as the router module.

The “bootstrapApplication” function is then employed to initiate the application, demonstrating a departure from the traditional NgModule-centric approach. The newfound flexibility of standalone components facilitates a modular and encapsulated development style, showcasing Angular’s commitment to evolving and enhancing component architecture.

How to Migrate to Angular 17?

To upgrade your existing Angular application to version 17, follow these steps:

• First, globally update your Angular CLI to version 17 using the command ‘npm install -g @angular/cli@17’.

• Next, update your Angular core packages by running ‘ng update @angular/core’.

• If you use additional Angular packages, update them individually, using code, such as ‘ng update @angular/material’ for Angular Material.

• Then, thoroughly test your application to ensure it functions as expected after the updates.

Some tips that you can follow here, include upgrading to minor versions between major updates, backing up your code and database before the upgrade, and checking third-party library compatibility. You should also consult Angular documentation and community forums for assistance if issues arise during the upgrade process. These streamlined steps will ensure a smooth transition to the latest Angular version while minimizing potential challenges.

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References:

^[i] Statista