In the current time, technologies are evolving way faster than we expected; new versions of these emerging technologies deliver more efficient features and help our business stay up to date to stay ahead in the competition. The release of Angular 13 was much awaited, and it was launched on Nov 03, 2021. The new update of Angular brings new possibilities that everyone was waiting for. Let’s dig into the details, but first, here’s a brief about Angular.
What is Angular?
Angular can be described as a development platform that is based on Typescript, and it includes a component-based framework, a collection of well-integrated libraries. These libraries come with a lot of features such as client-server communication, forms management, routing, and much more. It also comes with a suite of developer tools that helps businesses in building, testing, and updating their code.
Angular has delivered the flexibility and scalability to develop single-developer projects to enterprise-level applications. Angular has made updating the code simpler and more precise to make efficient applications. It is based on TypeScript, which is a superset of ECMAScript, which is also backward compatible with ECMAScript 5, which is JavaScript.
The naming of Angular versions made it complicated for developers around the world. Hence, the team came up with a solution and clarified that AngularJS is the first version and Angular without JS is the upper version, and so on. The second version rolled out in the year 2016, which is no longer supported. The Angular 10 rolled out in the year 2020 and has changed the way developers used to build applications. Now, the market is filled with the excitement of Angular 13, which is now out.
Let’s start with the details of the features that come with Angular 13 and the updates.
Features and Updates of Angular 13
The new version of Angular comes with Ivy-based features and optimizations that will help developers around the world with a stable update process. Ivy has helped in making optimizations easier and has opened up various opportunities. Let’s start with the updates and features.
Internet Explorer 11 is No Longer Supported
One of the most important updates is that Angular 13 no longer supports IE11. Dropping the support for IE11 has opened the possibilities for Angular to use native web browser features such as web animations and CSS variables. The use of these features will enable Angular to be lighter and faster, which means the UI will be better from now on. Earlier it has to include polyfills to support the IE.
As, Angular used to generate specific JavaScript bundles to support these browsers, which in turn slowed down the operation and increased the size of production builds. The new update automatically drops the old IE polyfills, which reduces the size of bundles during migration.
However, Angular 12 will continue to support the IE11 until Nov 2022. It is recommended for the companies still using IE to get updated and move forward with the trend.
No More View Engine Support
Another important update in Angular 13 is, View Engine is no longer supported. It is being considered the most required step for the Angular teams as without the support of View Engine; the team would be able to develop more evolutions for the framework.
However, removing the support to View Engine can also mean that Angular is planning to reduce its reliance on ngcc in the coming years which is a compatibility compiler for Angular. It can be better for the rate of development of projects as, without the metadata and summary files, the compilation process can be made faster than ever.
Major Changes in Angular Package Format (APF)
There have been major changes in the Angular package format as the libraries that are built with the latest version of the APF will not require the usage of ngcc; the reason is the standardization on various modern JS formats like ES2020. With these changes in the library, the developers can now hope for a leaner package output which ultimately translates to faster execution.
The new changes have also removed the older output formats such as View Engine-related metadata from the APF. The latest update in the APF has started the support of Node Package Exports that will definitely help developers from relying on the internal APIs.
Enhanced Testing
In Angular 13, the teardown behavior of the TestBed comes enabled by default which can result in enhanced speed testing, a big relief for the developers. However, it has been introduced in Angular 12, but now it comes by default. It allows you the option to remove the opt-in flag from the TestBed configuration.
Please note that an automatic migration will opt-out of this behavior in case it has not been opt-in in the previous steps. It is recommended to remove the teardown flag from the TestBed configuration in case the migration adds it to the process and proceed with the new behavior, which will result in faster ng tests.
Angular 13 Comes with TypeScript 4.4 Support
The new version of Angular comes with TypeScript support that simply makes it easy for the users to use a number of efficient language features. It is to be noted down that the new version no longer supports Typescript 4.2 and 4.3.
One of the most important things about this update that will be extremely beneficial for the Angular applications is that it no longer enforces the rule of getters and setters to have the same types. It was much needed as it was a little irritating in the case of input.
Enhanced API
The new Angular 13 comes with better API support that helps developers around the world in numerous ways. Let’s understand it with an example; in the previous versions, the developers had to create “ComponentFactory” by themselves, invoking “ComponentFactoryResolver.” In the new update, it will no longer be needed as ‘ViewContainerRef.create’ component will take of the creation of the factory transparently as it now accepts the component instance.
It simply means that instead of writing this:
@Directive({ … })
export class MyDirective {
constructor(
private viewContainerRef: ViewContainerRef,
private componentFactoryResolver: ComponentFactoryResolver
) {}
createMyComponent() {
const componentFactory = this.componentFactoryResolver.resolveComponentFactory(MyComponent);
this.viewContainerRef.createComponent(componentFactory);
}
}
Developers can start with writing this:
@Directive({ … })
export class MyDirective {
constructor(private viewContainerRef: ViewContainerRef) {}
createMyComponent() {
this.viewContainerRef.createComponent(MyComponent);
}
}
Updates in the Framework: RxJS 7.4 and NodeJS 16
The new update, Angular 13, now implements the use of RxJS 7.4 for the applications that are created by the use of ng new. Apart from that, the new Angular 13 no longer supports NodeJS versions that are below v12.20.0. It has also introduced support for the NodeJS versions upgraded version such as 16.10.
Enhanced Forms
The Angular Forms have received a lot of improvements in the new update. There are significant improvements in the type safety of reactive forms. A new specific type of form statuses has been introduced, which is called “FormControlStatus.” It can be described as the union of all possible status strings for form controls such as Valid, Invalid, Pending, Disabled.
There are a number of form methods that have been introduced in the new update of Angular 13. These methods have been added to the “AbstractControl.” Here are some of the new form methods.
- ‘addAsyncValidators’: It can be used to add one or more asynchronous validators to the control.
- ‘addValidators’: It can be used to add one or more synchronous validators to the control. It can be added without affecting the other validators that are present in the system.
- ‘hasAsyncValidator’: It can be used to check the presence of any asynchronous validator function in the control.
- ‘hasValidator’: It can be used to determine the delivery of a validator by a validator or validators array.
- ‘removeAsyncValidators’: It can be used to remove asynchronous validators from a specific control.
- ‘removeValidators’: It can be used to remove synchronous validators from a specific control.
Apart from these new additions, there have been significant improvements in the previous ones as now developers can disable or enable validators dynamically. In the all-new Angular 13, the ‘minLength’ and ‘MaxLength’ validators can be bound to null. This function allows the developers to disable validation and prevent the attributes from being added to DOM. The market talks dictate that disabling and enabling the validators dynamically will surely enhance the future of applications built of Angular 13.
Enhanced Templates
In the new update of Angular 13, auto-completion for string literal union types is supported. With the new update, the language service of Angular can now automatically insert the optional chaining operator, which is ‘?.’ whenever property access (“.”) is done by a symbol that is nullable.
In the new version, ‘fullTemplateTypeCheck’’ has been eliminated, and the developers now have to use ‘StrictTemplates.’ Along with that, an older syntax for binding has also been eliminated.
Router Updates
In Angular 13, developers would be able to change the router settings and modify them easily. Among other additions, a new output has been added to the ‘routerLinkActive’ directive, which is called ‘isActiveChange.’ It simply performs the function of showing when the link becomes active or inactive. A new addition in the public API of the angular router has been done, which is named ‘canceledaNavigationResolution.’ This allows configuring the router behavior when navigation is cancelled.
Accessibility Updates
The accessibility of Angular Material MDC-based components has been significantly improved in the Angular 13 update. It has drastically enhanced the user experience. The new updates have reviewed all the MDC-based components in detail and have enhanced the accessibility.
The team of Angular has highlighted the touch target size changes for various components such as the radio button and check box. Apart from that, it also has a better high contrast mode for multiple components.
Ready to Develop Applications with Angular 13?
In Angular 13, there are a lot of improvements and several minor changes. These changes have made significant improvements in the application development process. If you are planning to develop applications in Angular 13, Matellio can help you with custom solutions. Our team of developers is well updated with all the new changes and improvements in Angular 13.
With more than a decade of experience, we understand the market trends and their effects on business better than anyone. Our team of experts has hands-on experience with next-gen technologies. Our engagement models deliver the flexibility to control your budget in control without compromising on the quality. If you have any doubt about the Angular development or Angular 13, please get in touch with our experts over a 30-min free consultation call!
