Angular 16: Discover the Latest Enhancements and Features

May 24, 2023 |

13 minutes read

Angular has released its latest version, Angular 16 features, which comes with numerous new features for frontend developers and particularly Angular developers. Angular, a well-known web framework created by Google and based on TypeScript, is currently undergoing significant changes.

Angular Development Services are now using the new version of the framework to build better and more efficient web applications.
Angular version 16 includes a significant number of updates and new features that surpass those found in previous major releases like Angular 15 and Angular 14. Angular is transforming the web development industry with its features and Angular v16 is only the start.

What is Angular 16?

Angular v16 is the latest version of Google’s web development framework, which is based on TypeScript. It is a production release that showcases a new reactivity model. This model promises significant improvements to web performance and developer experience.

The latest version of Angular, v16, includes numerous improvements based on user feedback. These improvements have received over 2500 likes on GitHub. Let’s examine the enhancements more closely.

New Reactivity Model

Improving developer experience is crucial for web application development, and the newly introduced Reactivity Model is aimed at enhancing developer performance and experience. It’s important to note that this feature offers the advantage of complete backward compatibility and interoperability with the existing system. Some of the benefits of this feature include:

By minimizing computations during change detection, Angular Signals can enhance run time performance.
In future releases, the framework will use signals to notify when the model has changed, eliminating the requirement for Zone.js.
The computed properties are delivered without the need to recompute during each change detection cycle, resulting in improved performance.
A plan to introduce reactive inputs output language code has been outlined to improve interoperability with RxJS

Angular Signals

Angular applications now have a new feature called Signals that allows you to handle state changes. These Signals are similar to Solid.js functions in that they use the get() method to return a value, and you can update them by using the set() method to assign a new value.

Signals aid in developing a graph of reactive values that update automatically when their dependencies change. This feature can be combined with RxJS observables, which are still supported in the latest version of Angular, to construct potent and explicit data.

Angular Compatibility Compiler Removed

Angular v9 introduced a new compilation and rendering pipeline called Ivy and replaced the old view engine. The ngcc was introduced to provide support for libraries that still use the old view engine. The size of the Angular bundle has been reduced in version 16 by removing the ngcc and other view engine-related codes. However, the Angular View Engine libraries cannot be used anymore in version 16 and onwards. While these libraries were not officially supported, their removal creates a compatibility issue as they are no longer available.

Faster and Better Server-Side Rendering

Angular 16 new features is compatible with non-destructive hydration, improving the Server-side rendering. The web page becomes interactive and useful by using JavaScript behavior and event listeners in the browser.

Implementing SSR in Angular was difficult despite its benefits of improving SEO, accessibility, and reducing TTI. While React and Next.js have supported SSR for some time, it has not been as straightforward on the Angular framework.
The out-of-the-box feature of Angular 16 is Server Side Rendering (SSR), which can enhance the speed and quality of SSR applications.

The browser uses a non-destructive hydration method to hydrate the application, which means that it won’t delete any existing HTML content or attributes. This also saves and manages the editing done on Server-side HTML content. Moreover, non-destructive hydration prevents any conflicts or errors that may occur due to incorrect HTML content on both the client and server sides.

Esbuild Dev Server

Angular has experimental support for using esbuild with “ng build” and “ng serve” commands. This feature is included in Angular version 16, but it is still in infancy and requires further performance improvements and optimizations. However, it has already proven to be significantly faster than the webpack implementation, with at least two times faster startup time.

Angular CLI now uses Vite as the sole development server and esbuild for both Angular development and production builds.

Bind router Information to Component Inputs

This feature enables component inputs to directly access router data without the need to use ActivatedRoute to obtain the values. This can lead to a reduction in boilerplate code in our application when binding Router information to component inputs.

// Current approach, which would still work

@Component({

…

})

class SomeComponent {

route = inject(ActivatedRoute);

data = this.route.snapshot.data[‘dataKey’];

params = this.route.snapshot.params[‘paramKey’]

}

//New approach

@Component({

…

})

class SomeComponent {

@Input() dataKey: string;

@Input() paramKey: string;

//or

@Input() set dataKey(value: string){

//react to the value

};

@Input() set paramKey(value: string){

//react to the value

};

}

take Until Destroyed and DestroyRef

The Angular team has introduced the DestroyRef and takeUntilDestroyed rxjs operator with version 16.0. These can be used instead of ngOnDestory lifecycle hook which is tied to classes and cannot be used in functions. This is a more functional approach to writing code.

To use the takeUntilDestroyed operator outside of the constructor context, we need to pass destroyRef as an argument. This feature helps to clean up signal effects and eliminates the need for manual cleanup, similar to RxJS subscriptions.

@Component({}

class SomeComponent {

destroyRef = inject(DestroyRef);

store = inject(Store);

user

constructor() {

const sub = this.store.select(getUser()).subscribe((user) => {

this.user = user

});

destoryRef.onDestroy(() => {

sub.unsubscribe()

})

//OR

const sub = this.store.select(getUser()).pipe(takeUntilDestroyed())

.subscribe((user) => {

this.user = user

});

}

Dependency Injection Debugging APIs

You can now use a new feature in Angular applications to investigate and solve issues with the dependency injection system. The feature provides APIs that allow you to retrieve information about providers, tokens, injectors, scopes, and instances associated with your dependencies. It also enables you to simulate different scenarios and testing cases.

Required Component Inputs

The newest update of Angular material 16 changes includes an important feature that improves developers’ coding experience and the quality of their code. This feature lets developers classify inputs of a component as required, making sure that the parent component supplies them or generates an error. It helps find and fix errors and typing mistakes at the same time and guarantees that components receive all the essential information to perform optimally.

Other Features and Improvements

The platform now supports Tailwind CSS, which is a popular CSS framework using predefined classes that make styling easier.
The latest version of Angular has added support for CSS Isolation. This feature avoids conflicts between styles of components by binding them to elements. There are two ways to achieve this: shadow DOM or emulated encapsulation.
Angular’s most recent release includes Trusted Types, a built-in feature that improves security and helps prevent XSS attacks. This feature applies rigid regulations to string usage in sensitive contexts to ensure safer sanitization and rejection of unsafe strings.
The Dynamic Imports of Router Data Feature enables you to bind router information to your component inputs in a simpler and cleaner way without using the ActivatedRoute service. No new details or facts are added in this rewrite.
The Angular Material UI component library, which adheres to the Material Design standard, has added a date range picker component to Angular 16. With this component, users can effortlessly pick start and end dates from a calendar, thus improving the functionality and user experience of their web applications.

Are you ready to Upgrade Your Angular Application to Version 16?

Conclusion

Google’s Angular Team has released impressive updates and improvements that are sure to please Angular Development Company, tech enthusiasts, and the wider community. Angular 16 introduces significant changes with its latest features and updates. The team has made several improvements to enhance code efficiency and the overall developer experience, such as reactivity, hydration, and signals. Additionally, they have many other improvements in the works. The Angular Team is continuously innovating and pushing the boundaries to provide even greater updates.

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Jinal Shah

May 24 2023

The Managing Director of iFlair Web Technologies Pvt. Ltd. since 2004. He has spent 20+ years growing client businesses and assisting organisations ranging from Startups to Fortune 500 companies. Always shares cutting-edge topics on various technology platforms, Builds the prevailing concepts of the IT industry with interested readers.