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Marouane CHOURI
Marouane CHOURI

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What's New in Angular 18? 

title: "What's New in Angular 18?"
tags: [Angular, JavaScript, Web Development, Frontend]
description: "Discover the exciting new features that Angular 18 brings to the table, including improvements to the framework, simplified syntax, and enhanced performance."
cover_image: "https://example.com/angular-18-cover.jpg"
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What's New in Angular 18?

Angular, the popular front-end framework developed by Google, continues to evolve with each release, cementing its place in the web development landscape. With the arrival of Angular 18, the community is buzzing about the new features and enhancements that promise to make developers' lives easier. In this post, we’ll dive deep into the latest changes, features, and improvements in Angular 18 that you need to know about.

Improved Standalone Components

One of the most anticipated features in Angular 18 is the continued enhancement of standalone components. Introduced in Angular 17, standalone components allow you to build Angular applications without the need for Angular modules.

What's New?

In Angular 18, the standalone component architecture has received several enhancements:

  • The @Component decorator now supports additional properties, improving the flexibility of standalone components.
  • Improved support for lazy loading, making it easier to load these components on demand without bulky modules.

Code Sample

Here's a simple example of a standalone component:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-hello-world',
  template: `<h1>Hello World!</h1>`,
  standalone: true
})
export class HelloWorldComponent {}
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You can then use this component directly in your application without surrounding it with a module, significantly simplifying your project structure.

Enhanced Angular CLI Features

Angular 18 brings several efficiency improvements to the Angular CLI. These improvements focus on speeding up development cycles and enhancing developer experience.

What's New?

  • Faster Builds: The build process harnesses enhanced caching mechanisms that significantly reduce build times.
  • Interactive Commands: Angular CLI commands have been made more interactive, allowing better feedback and prompts during command execution.
  • New Generate Options: You can now generate components, services, and modules with more customizable options right from the CLI.

Code Sample

Generating a new component with additional settings is now easier:

ng generate component my-new-component --style=scss --flat
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This command generates a new component without its own folder and applies SCSS styles by default, streamlining the workflow.

Performance Improvements

With each version, Angular's team focuses on optimizing the performance of the framework to provide fast, smooth applications. Angular 18 is no exception, featuring several performance tweaks.

What's New?

  • Better Change Detection: Angular 18 introduces an improved change detection strategy that excels in fine-tuning performance, especially in large applications.
  • Tree Shaking: Enhanced tree-shaking capabilities ensure that only the necessary code is bundled, reducing the overall size of the final build.
  • Improved Server-Side Rendering: Rendering speeds for server-side applications have dramatically improved, contributing to better performance out of the box.

Code Sample

With the new change detection strategy, you can leverage the OnPush strategy effectively:

import { Component, ChangeDetectionStrategy } from '@angular/core';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-user',
  template: `<div>{{ user.name }}</div>`,
  changeDetection: ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush
})
export class UserComponent {
  user = { name: 'John Doe' };
}
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Using the OnPush strategy judiciously helps improve performance by limiting the checks Angular performs, critical for larger applications.

Improved Forms API

Angular's Forms API has undergone a refresh, designed to provide more flexibility and ease of use for developers. The update introduces new directives and functionalities that facilitate dynamic form creation.

What's New?

  • Better Control of Validation: You can now define custom validators more seamlessly, allowing for reactive updates without additional boilerplate code.
  • Dynamic Forms: Create dynamic forms with new structural directives, simplifying the addition or removal of fields at runtime.

Code Sample

Here’s an example of a dynamic form setup in Angular 18:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { FormBuilder, FormArray, FormGroup } from '@angular/forms';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-dynamic-form',
  template: `
    <form [formGroup]="form">
      <div formArrayName="fields" *ngFor="let field of fields.controls; let i = index;">
        <input [formControlName]="i" />
      </div>
      <button (click)="addField()">Add Field</button>
    </form>
  `
})
export class DynamicFormComponent {
  form: FormGroup;

  constructor(private fb: FormBuilder) {
    this.form = this.fb.group({
      fields: this.fb.array([]),
    });
  }

  get fields() {
    return this.form.get('fields') as FormArray;
  }

  addField() {
    this.fields.push(this.fb.control(''));
  }
}
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This simplistic approach leverages Angular's reactive forms capabilities, enabling dynamic interactions without excessive complexity.

A Step Towards Better Accessibility

In Angular 18, the Angular team has been committed to improving accessibility (a11y) across the framework. Aiming for inclusive design, Angular 18 introduces features that make it easier to develop accessible applications.

What's New?

  • ARIA Support: Enhanced support for ARIA attributes to ensure that developers can easily make their applications more accessible.
  • Improved Documentation: Angular's documentation now includes better guidelines and examples for implementing a11y best practices.

Conclusion

Angular 18 packs several exciting new features and critical performance improvements, laying a solid foundation for modern web applications. The focus on standalone components, enhanced CLI features, performance upgrades, revamped Forms API, and better accessibility are just a few highlights that make this release noteworthy.

With these advancements, Angular continues to be a leading choice for developers who are looking to build dynamic and responsive applications easily. So, whether you are an existing Angular developer or someone considering the framework, Angular 18 is sure to speed things up and make your development experience more enjoyable.

Call to Action

Curious to know more about Angular 18? Try upgrading your projects today and explore these features hands-on! Don't forget to share your experiences and thoughts in the comments below. Happy coding!

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