Updated June 9, 2023
Definition of Angular 7 Features
Angular 7 was one of the major release in Angular, as it came with a whole new bundle of exciting features, improvements in performance & Error Handling. It has been the most awaited release by many Companies developing Web Apps. This version upgrade mainly focused on the Ivy project, which rewrote the compiler and runtime code to make Angular a better framework.
Top Features of Angular 7
- Application Performance Improved
- CLI Prompts
- New Angular Compiler
- Drag & Drop
- Node v10 Support
- Enhanced Error Handling
- Virtual Scrolling
- Angular Material & CDK
- Bundle Budget
- Dependency Updates
Let us discuss the features of Angular 7 in detail.
1. Application Performance Improved
Google’s Angular Development Team observed an issue where unwanted file reflects metadata was also added in production. In contrast, ideally, this is needed only in the case of Development. Due to this, the older versions of Angular were slower than the ones with Angular 7. The issue was fixed by automatically removing this file from polyfill.ts file and by adding this file only during the Build step. This way, Angular 7 is believed to have improved performance, becoming more efficient.
2. CLI Prompt
As the name says, with Angular 7, the Angular CLI is not just a Common Line Interface but also prompts the developer to get various inputs such as themes to use, routing, etc. They upgraded Angular 7 to use CLI version 7.0.2. This is very useful when developers try to run commands like ng add @angular/material, ng new, and they are prompted with questions to get the exact material downloaded based on the requirement.
3. New Angular Compiler
Angular 7 came up with a feature of the New Compiler; this new compiler in angular is called Angular Compatibility Compiler (ngcc). The Angular Compatibility Compiler (ngcc) compiler can run in 8 Phased Rotation Using Ahead of Time Compilation (AOT). Angular Compatibility Compiler ngcc tool converts the node_module compiled with non-ivy compiler to ivy compatible format. With this approach, Angular 7 applications can achieve a huge reduction in bundle size (upto 95-99%)
4. Drag & Drop
Providing Angular 7 developers with Drag & Drop Interface to easily manage and handle lists of elements. These new features will allow developers to use Component Dev Kit CDK with automatic rendering and re-rending of Items/Lists of elements. This feature also supports custom drag options, free dragging, animations, placeholders, previews, etc. The CDK Drag Drop feature achieves all of this.
5. Node version 10 Support
Another important feature and enhancement with angular 7 are that it provides Backward compatibility with node version 10, which has other adds and benefits. Also, along with this, angular 7 will continue to support Node version 8 as earlier
6. Enhanced Error Handling
Error Handling is much more improved and proficient with Angular 7
7. Virtual Scrolling
Virtual Scrolling is something that is an add-on to the existing scrolling effect. As we all know that older versions of Angular also had this feature of Scrolling but with Angular 7 you not only get a scrolling feature but also Virtual Scrolling. Virtual Scrolling comes into the picture when there is a huge list of elements, and the developer needs to load and unload the data from the DOM based on the visibility of the data in DOM. Thus, Virtual Scrolling increases the application performance by allowing the height of an application container to be the same as that of the remaining data, which is not yet rendered. By utilizing Virtual Scrolling, Angular ensures that only the visible items in view are rendered, resulting in a faster and smoother end-user experience.
8. Angular Material & Component Dev Kit
Angular Material has undergone minor updates in conjunction with the release of Angular 7. The features that have been updated with Angular Material as well as Component Dev kit are refresh feature, dynamic loading, and unloading of data, virtual scrolling effect, a feature of Drag and Drop with CDK, and many more have been added with Angular 7 release
9. Bundle Budget
Angular 7 developed a new feature to manage the Bundle Limit of an Angular application. Earlier versions of Angular had the Bundle Limit set to default and had no updated ability. With the new Angular 7 release, the Budget Limit of their Bundle Size can range from the Lower limit to 2MB with and Upper limit of 5MB. Changing this setting as per the developer’s requirement is possible now. It is important to note that whenever the application reaches or is above the Upper Budget limit of 5MB, the Application will throw an error. This feature also improves the performance of Angular Application
10. Dependency Updates
Angular 7 came up with Support for a lot of Higher upgraded dependencies.
TypeScript 3.1 – The version of Typescript supported in Angular has been updated from 2.7 to 3.1, and it also is mandatory to use this version when your application is using Angular 7
RxJs 6.3 – The latest and exciting features of RxJs can now be used with Angular 7
Also, along with this, Angular Material and Angular Core modules have been updated.
Conclusion
Angular 7 is one of the major releases and comes with many new features ready to use in any angular app, right from Higher version supports to efficient performance for Large and complex applications. Angular 7 provides several new features, including better performance, improved error handling, a drag-and-drop feature, virtual scrolling, a new compiler, and many others. Moreover, it makes applications easy to build and run, making developers’ work much simpler.
Recommended Articles
This is a guide to Angular 7 Features. Here we discuss the definition and top features of Angular 7, respectively. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –
