Angular Framework released its new version Angular V16!
Angular V16 joined the Angular community with its updates, latest improvements, and special features to offer the developer community and tech wizards a better and more efficient framework. This Angular version addressed the various quality improvement across feature requests.
In this blog, we are going to see the major features and improvements in Angular v16. First, start with the famous signals.
Signals
This feature is a new way to manage state changes in the Angular application inspired by the one in Solid.js. Signals are functions that can be updated by calling them with a new value (set()), and they return a value (get()). Additionally, signals can depend on one another, creating a reactive value graph that automatically updates whenever there is a change in dependency. RxJS observables, which are still available in Angular v16, can be used with signals to construct robust and expressive data flows.
Reactivity Model and the Zone.js (Zoneless)
Two of the most anticipated changes in Angular v16 are the revamping of the reactivity model and the addition of Zone.js as an optional component. A package called Zone.js uses browser API monkey patches to detect changes and start change detection in Angular apps. While doing so makes Angular simple to use and create, it also increases the framework’s overhead and complexity. In Angular v16, Zone.js will be optional, giving developers the option to handle reactivity using RxJS or signals in its place.
Reaction Revised
When developing online applications, developer experience is of the highest importance. The new Reactivity Model is primarily intended to enhance developer performance and experience. This feature’s perfect backward compatibility and interoperability with the present system make it a remarkable benefit. The following are only a few advantages of this feature:
- less computations are needed during the change detection procedure, which improves runtime efficiency.
- A clearer conceptual model for responsiveness that highlights the interdependence of the view and data flow across the software
- Due to fine-grained reactivity, next releases can only verify changes in pertinent components.
- Future releases will provide the option to disable Zone.js by utilizing signals to tell the framework when the model has changed.
- Delivering computed properties without having to pay for their recalculation following each change detection cycle.
- increased RxJS compatibility as a result of the suggestion to use reactive inputs.
All of these enhancements increase the Angular framework’s usability and efficiency for your developers and provide it with more flexibility for further releases.
Required Component Inputs
The needed component inputs feature is one of the elements that will enhance the developer experience and code quality of Angular apps. With the use of this functionality, developers can designate specific component inputs as necessary, indicating the parent component must supply them in order for the component to function properly. This will make it easier to find errors and typos during compilation and make sure that components have all the information they need to work properly. Component input requirements will also help components become more self-documenting and user-friendly.
Ngcc or Angular Compatibility Compiler Removed
The core Angular team switched from the outdated view engine to Ivy, Angular’s newest compilation and rendering pipeline, with the release of Angular v9. To support the libraries built with the previous view engine, the ngcc was added. The ngcc and all other view engine-related scripts have been removed from the most recent version 16 of Angular, decreasing the size of the angular bundle. Additionally, v16+ no longer supports the use of the Angular View Engine modules. Despite not being officially supported, these libraries represent a severe breach in compatibility. With this, Angular’s switch from View Engine to Ivy is complete.
Non-Destructive Hydration
By affixing JavaScript behaviour and event listeners, the process of transforming server-side produced HTML material into a fully interactive and useful web page on the client-side is referred to as hydration in web development. This increases SEO and accessibility while decreasing the time-to-interactive (TTI). Hydration has long been a feature of frameworks like React or Next.js, but implementing it in Angular was challenging. Hydration will be supported out of the box in Angular 16, which will speed up and improve SSR apps.
Rest features and improvements
- Bind component inputs to router information
- You can now access a component’s destroy context using Angular 16’s DestroyRef ctx functionality. When a component is deleted, cleanup actions that need to be done can be facilitated by this.
- When a component or directive is destroyed, Angular 16’s take Until Destroyed pipe operator will immediately unsubscribe from an observable.
- Design token in Angular Material Library
Overall, the new features and improvements in Angular v16 are built from the thousands of reiterations and feature requests to make the framework more accessible and easier to the vibrant software developer and tech enthusiasts. Still, there will be more updates in the future, and the whole tech community is excited to see what that is all!