Angular’s component model offers strong encapsulation and an intuitive application structure. It also makes your app easier to unit test and maintain. It uses TypeScript, which is safer and helps you spot errors early in the development process.
The framework’s key features include modules, components, templates, metadata, data binding, directives, and services. Two-way data binding synchronizes the DOM with your program’s data and logic.
Angular’s architecture
The Angular Framework has a modular and component-based architecture that makes it easy to build scalable web applications. The framework uses a Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern to separate application logic, data, and user interface components into distinct pieces that are easier to manage and test. Angular’s components, services, and directives work together to create applications that are scalable, fast-performing, and easily maintainable.
Components are like building blocks that define and control a specific section of the application’s user interface. They communicate with one another and accept events to respond to changes in the UI. Components are built using template syntax, which integrates program data with views and provides a more consistent structure for the application.
Services provide common functionality and can be used by multiple components. They are registered with the ngInjector and made available to components via dependency injection. They can be anything from a simple value to a complex backend service. Angular also provides an in-browser compiler that can automatically update files, run unit tests and end to end testing. This real-time compilation allows developers to write Angular applications faster and more efficiently.
Components
Angular components are the building blocks of Angular applications. They contain templates, data, and behavior in reusable and modular parts. These parts are grouped by function and have clear responsibilities, which makes them easy to test. This helps developers create a more flexible front-end application. The component architecture also enables rapid flexibility, since each part can be broken down and replaced easily.
Each component has a TypeScript class that contains its application logic, data, and behavior. It is then associated with a template that defines a view. A template combines HTML with Angular directives and binding markup to render the view for display in a browser. The class definition has the @Component() decorator to identify it as a component and to provide metadata for the associated template.
Angular’s popularity is growing among big businesses that use it to build structural dynamic web applications. Some of the top industry verticals that effectively employ this frontend framework include computer electronics & technology, arts & entertainment, news and media, and finance. With this framework, you can create a user interface that is both responsive and aesthetically pleasing.
Services
Services allow you to share code across components, helping you to create loosely coupled applications. They also help you separate your logic from the view layer, making your application more scalable and easier to test.
Angular’s Dependency Injection (DI) system uses services to deliver a class’s dependencies to its constructor. When a component, directive, or pipe needs a service, the DI framework searches for it in its dependency injection hierarchy. The search begins at the local injector and bubbles up until it reaches the root injector. You can also use a service provider to register a dependency with a specific class via the @Injectable metadata.
Using a service allows you to handle asynchronous data and make observable changes in the DOM. This makes your UI more responsive to user input and ensures that your application responds to changes in the target environment. Additionally, you can use a service to manage state in your application. This can be useful for applications that need to update the DOM based on their route or other data. You can even implement two-way data binding with a service, making it easy to modify your HTML and DOM elements to reflect changes in your program data or logic.
Directives
Angular directives offer developers a powerful tool to shape the behavior and appearance of HTML elements in their application. This allows them to create reusable components, enhance code reusability, and improve overall application readability.
In addition to being able to define navigation rules, directives can also act as service classes. They can handle common tasks such as fetching data from the server or validating user input, freeing up component classes for more complex functions.
Directives use metadata to describe their expected behaviour. These attributes are used to configure the class at compile time. For example, a directive can specify its own function to handle data binding, or that it should use the default route.
In Angular, there are three types of directives: structural, dynamic and custom. Structural directives change the DOM layout by adding and removing elements. Angular offers several built-in structural directives, including NgIf, NgFor and NgSwitch. Structural directives can also be combined using shorthand syntax. For example, the NgFor directive can be paired with the ngIf directive to display a list of items.
Data binding
Data binding is a feature in Angular that automatically keeps your view and model in sync. It enables you to link your TypeScript code with HTML templates by assigning values to DOM elements and component properties. This allows you to create dynamic and interactive web applications.
Data Binding can be used to bind any property in the DOM to a property in the component. This enables you to update your views instantly when the underlying data changes. In addition, you can also use it to bind DOM events to component methods.
There are two types of data binding: one-way and bidirectional. One-way binding, which is also known as interpolation, binds data from the component to the template. The template then displays the data in the DOM. Changes in the DOM are not reflected in the component.
Bidirectional binding is more complex and requires more resources. It watches for changes in the model and reflects them in the view, but it can also cause performance bottlenecks. Therefore, it is not recommended for large or complex applications.