Angular 7 Features

Definition of Angular 7 Features

Angular 7 was one of the major release in Angular as it came with a whole new bundle of exciting features, improvements in performance & Error Handling. It has been most awaited release by a lot of Companies developing Web Apps. This version upgrade was mainly focused on the Ivy project which rewrote the compiler and runtime code to make Angular a much better framework

Features of Angular 7

1. Application Performance Improved
2. CLI Prompts
3. New Angular Compiler
4. Drag & Drop
5. Node v10 Support
6. Enhanced Error Handling
7. Virtual Scrolling
8. Angular Material & CDK
9. Bundle Budget
10. Dependency Updates

Let us discuss the features of Angular 7 in detail.

1. Application Performance Improved

There was an issue observed by Google’s Angular Development Team where unwanted file reflect-metadata was added in production as well whereas ideally this is needed only in case of Development. Due to this, the older versions of Angular were slower than the one with Angular 7. The issue was fixed by automatically removing this file from polyfill.ts file and by adding this file only during Build step. This way Angular 7 is said to have better and efficient performance.

2. CLI Prompt

As the name says, with Angular 7 the Angular CLI is not just a Common Line Interface but also prompts the developer to get various inputs such as themes to use, routing, etc. Angular 7 is upgraded to use CLI version 7.0.2. This is very useful when developers try to run commands like ng add @angular/material, ng new and they are prompted with questions to get the exact material downloaded based on requirement.

3. New Angular Compiler

Angular 7 came up with a feature of New Compiler, This new compiler in angular is called as Angular Compatibility Compiler (ngcc). The Angular Compatibility Compiler (ngcc) compiler has capability to run in 8 Phased Rotation Using Ahead of Time Compilation (AOT). Angular Compatibility Compiler ngcc tool converts the node_module compiled with non-ivy compiler to ivy compatible format. With this approach, Angular 7 applications can achieve a huge reduction in bundle size (upto 95-99%)

4. Drag & Drop

Providing Angular 7 developers with Drag & Drop Interface to easily manage and handle lists of elements. This new features will basically allows developers to use Component Dev Kit CDK with automatic rendering and re rending of Items/Lists of elements. This feature also supports custom drag options, free dragging, animations, placeholders, previews, etc. All this is achieved with CDK Drag Drop feature

5. Node version 10 Support

Another important feature and enhancement with angular 7 is that it provides Backward compatibility with node version 10 which has other more adds and benefits. Also along with this angular 7 will continue to support Node version 8 as earlier

6. Enhanced Error Handling

Error Handling is much more improved and proficient with Angular 7

7. Virtual Scrolling

Virtual Scrolling is something which is an add on to the existing scrolling effect. As we all know that older versions of Angular also had this feature of Scrolling but with Angular 7 you not only get scrolling feature but also Virtual Scrolling. Virtual Scrolling comes into picture when there is a huge list of element and developer needs to load and unload the data from the DOM based on visibility of the data in DOM. Thus, Virtual Scrolling increases the application performance by allowing the height of an application container to be same as the height of the remaining data which is not yet rendered. Using Virtual Scrolling only visible items in view are rendered, which provides with faster end-user experience.

8. Angular Material & Component Dev Kit

Angular Material has also been updated with few minor updates with Angular 7 Version release. The features with have been updated with Angular Material as well as Component Dev kit are refresh feature, dynamic loading, and unloading of data, virtual scrolling effect, feature of Drag and Drop with CDK, and many more have been added with Angular 7 release

9. Bundle Budget

Angular 7 came up with a new feature to manage the Bundle Limit of an Angular application. Earlier versions of Angular had the Bundle Limit set to default and did not have update ability. As of now with the new Angular 7 release, the Budget Limit of their Bundle Size can range from Lower limit to 2MB and Upper limit of 5MB. Changing this settings as per the developer requirement is possible now. It is important to note that whenever application reaches on or above the Upper Budget limit of 5MB, then Application will throw an error. This feature also improves the performance of Angular Application

10. Dependency Updates

Angular 7 came up with Support for a lot of Higher upgraded dependencies.

TypeScript 3.1 – The version of Typescript supported in Angular has been updated from 2.7 to 3.1 and also is mandatory to use this version when your application is using Angular 7

RxJs 6.3 – The latest and exciting features by RxJs can now be used with Angular 7

Also along with this Angular Material and Angular Core modules have been updated.

Conclusion

Angular 7 is one of the major release and comes with lots and lots of new features which are ready to use in any angular app right from Higher version supports to efficient performance for Large and complex application. Better performance, improved error handling, drag and drop feature, virtual scrolling, new compiler, and many more new features are provided by Angular 7. Moreover, it makes application easy to build and run making developers work much simpler.

This is a guide to Angular 7 Features. Here we discuss the definition and Features of Angular 7. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –

1. Angular 7 Components
2. AngularJS ng-if
3. AngularJS Date Filter
4. AngularJS ng-class