Angular has been around for about a decade. It is popular as a web application framework that allows users to build quality and easy maintenance web apps. Especially for applications that need to be designed to a large scale and require top-level performance. This overview will discuss some of the main features that make AngularJS a good choice for web development services.
Templates:
Angular uses standard HTML for a template. No changes are made by Angular or manipulation through strings. The input in this case is browser DOM. Not HTML string. The way this works is as follows: Templates are parsed into the DOM by the browser. This then goes on to be the input for the compiler. The DOM template provides any rendering instructions (directives). After that, all the directives go into the setup for data-binding, which gives you the application view.
For Angular, the data-bindings have nothing to do with innerHTML changes but are actually DOM transformations. The key difference to notice here is that instead of strings we are using DOM as the input. This means you can take the directive vocabulary and further expand on it to design your own rendering instructions. If you are a developer or designer, this offers a much closer workflow between you and your team.
MVC Use:
Model-View-Controller. The implementation of this model covers a few key elements. First, the data in the application. The model is objects or data in the script. This eliminates the need for a few things including special methods to access the objects, use any proxies, or go into framework classes. The system is straightforward and easy to use. No extra complications.
Second, the view is what you have after everything is compiled. This is the HTML parsed with any bindings or rendering.
Finally, the controller. The controller controls behavior. The main job is to set up the initial state and augment the scope. Here, the state is not stored by the controller and doesn’t do anything with remote services. By doing this, AngularJS gives you a better starting point to build your app. All together you can get to the data you need, define all behavior, and allows the controller to respond during interaction properly.
AngularJS requires Less Code:
Everyone wants to minimize the workload they have to do. For Angular, you won’t be writing more code for the MVC. You can attribute this to the simplicity of HTML when building the interface for your app. Everything is kept short. Removing the complexity from the elements and the attributes or tags that go into it. Manual moving of the data won’t matter as much because of the data binding helps handle that work. Plus, when it comes to the rendering instructions and application code, they are separate. This is really important because it means you can work on both at the same time. Dividing up the labor as effectively as possible.
When you start to get into application code you won’t need to be rewriting multiple parts of code for each device. You can easily rely on one code that goes with just one application. Then, you can move to other platforms with the one application you have ready.
Better Data-Binding:
Another feature that makes sure you don’t have to spend as much time putting together code. Many web apps will use most of their code on just interacting with the DOM. For Angular, you get to forget about that big chunk of code. Which is great because the majority of your effort should go into the actual app design.
With the data-binding features, you can take your model, which asks as a hub for all application updates or processes, and goes straight to the app view. No effort, and super easy. The old way was to go in and change the DOM yourself to meet whatever attributes required it. In this case, everything affects each other. The DOM makes the changes to the model, and the model moves changes to the DOM. Of course, the person behind the program has to handle all this and understand what is going on in order to update as necessary. The more size and complexity, the worse it will become. AngularJS removes any work in this department.
Better Communication
In a non-context sensitive system, you can run into trouble when messages need to be read by specific controllers with each node. This can get tricky when you are dealing with messages that could be read by parent or child controllers, but you need to go through one but not the other. Angular changes this up by having broadcast default all messages to child controllers. While emit will do the opposite.
You can also do get context-aware communication through the data-binding. As the controller moves a message to look at an update, it will also give the view of the update with changes to the properties. These properties will be on only one side of the controllers, and the other controllers do not always have to get the same properties. They could adjust them before they inherit the new properties. This whole process updates automatically by the other controllers as well.
Dependency Injection:
A lot of the features on this list are focused on things that make your life easier. Well, the included dependency injection is no different. It takes everything about the application and makes it more developer-friendly. The process eliminates you from having to make dependencies yourself or go out and discover them. You simply can ask for what you want, making understanding the process, and testing a whole lot easier. The Dependency Injection will take on the task of building and providing what you need.
All need to do is take service and go add it as a parameter. The instance will become available once the system realizes you requested that service. Or if you’d like, you can put together custom service requests for the dependency injection process. The more automation, the easier your life becomes!
Directives:
We mentioned these before, but the directives are a great feature that on their own that allows for much more control during design. It can be difficult to implement, but can easily become a rewarding process.
If you want to design your own HTML tags to build custom functions, you can use directives. For the creative developer, you can get quite unique with elements and DOM attributes. Manipulating the behavior to new results. If you follow the model of building your app with individual parts, you can make changing functionality much easier. Adding and deleting parts as needed, or making updates as you go.
Simple Testing:
Another streamlined and simplified process. You may be used to build a test page each time you needed to do testing. Then having the page test the results of the component. Well, not anymore. AngularJS has DI to manage the controllers for you and allow data to pass. The DI will generate the needed data to figure out the behavior of each controller.
You will also find a full and unit test runner built-in. The documentation allows the user to quickly see how everything should work. Figuring out issues or how your app is performing is now a breeze. It makes the whole process much easier and encourages better practices in writing testable applications.
Summary:
There is a lot to discover with AngularJS. These features are just the tip of the iceberg in what kind of functionality you can expect. A program is definitely worth checking out for anyone with web development services in mind.