They said Angular is dying, and people using Angular are drastically reducing, but No!
Angular is relevant, here to stay and showing signs of a bright future. Angular's comeback has been happening with full force since past couple of versions
With its regular updates and feature enhancements, Angular continues to provide developers with a powerful toolkit for building dynamic and responsive web applications. In this blog post, we will take a detailed look at what's new in Angular 17, exploring the latest features and improvements that make Angular even more robust and developer-friendly.

Overview

Apart from the new fresh look, Angular 17 brings several exciting features and enhancements that aim to streamline development workflows, improve performance, and provide developers with more tools to build modern web applications.

The update claims to bring in some exciting stuff:

• Deferrable views

• Up to 90% faster runtime with built-in control flow loops

• Up to 87% faster builds for hybrid rendering and 67% for client-side rendering

• Fresh new look reflecting the future-looking features of Angular

• A Brand new interactive learning journey

  …and dozens of other features and improvements!

  Let's dive into some of the standout features.

Deferred Views: A Game-Changer in Angular 17

One of the standout features in Angular 17 is the introduction of deferred views. This powerful addition allows developers to defer the instantiation and rendering of certain components until they are actually needed. This is particularly beneficial for optimizing the initial loading time of applications, especially those with complex and nested component structures.

Let's take a look at a simple example to understand how deferred views work in Angular 17:

// app.module.ts
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { RouterModule, Routes } from '@angular/router';
import { DeferredModule } from 'angular-deferred';

import { HomeComponent } from './home/home.component';
import { AboutComponent } from './about/about.component';

const routes: Routes = [
  { path: '', component: HomeComponent },
  { path: 'about', loadChildren: () => import('./about/about.module').then(m => m.AboutModule) },
];

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
    HomeComponent,
  ],
  imports: [
    BrowserModule,
    RouterModule.forRoot(routes),
    DeferredModule.forRoot(), // Enable deferred views
  ],
  bootstrap: [HomeComponent],
})
export class AppModule { }

In this example, the AboutComponent is set to load lazily using Angular's loadChildren syntax. The DeferredModule is then imported and configured in the AppModule, enabling deferred views for the application.

// about/about.module.ts
import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { CommonModule } from '@angular/common';
import { RouterModule, Routes } from '@angular/router';
import { DeferredModule } from 'angular-deferred';

import { AboutComponent } from './about.component';

const routes: Routes = [
  { path: '', component: AboutComponent },
];

@NgModule({
  declarations: [
    AboutComponent,
  ],
  imports: [
    CommonModule,
    RouterModule.forChild(routes),
    DeferredModule.forChild(), // Enable deferred views for this module
  ],
})
export class AboutModule { }

By incorporating DeferredModule in the AboutModule, we specify that the AboutComponent and its associated views should be deferred until they are requested. This can significantly enhance the initial loading performance of the application.

Built-in control flow

Another game changer? Angular has introduced a new and powerful block template syntax. Specially focusing on *ngIf, *ngFor , *ngSwitch, under the hood, the Angular compiler transforms the syntax to efficient JavaScript instructions that could perform control flow, lazy loading, and more.

1. Conditional statements
   We have a else finally!

    <div *ngIf="loggedIn; else anonymousUser">
      The user is logged in
    </div>
    <ng-template #anonymousUser>
      The user is not logged in
    </ng-template>
   
    <!--new -->
    @if (loggedIn) {
      The user is logged in
    } @else {
      The user is not logged in
    }
   

2. Better type-narrowing in the individual branches in @switch which is not possible in *ngSwitch

    <div [ngSwitch]="accessLevel">
      <admin-dashboard *ngSwitchCase="admin"/>
      <moderator-dashboard *ngSwitchCase="moderator"/>
      <user-dashboard *ngSwitchDefault/>
    </div>
   
    <!-- new -->
    @switch (accessLevel) {
      @case ('admin') { <admin-dashboard/> }
      @case ('moderator') { <moderator-dashboard/> }
      @default { <user-dashboard/> }
    }
   

3. Built-in for loop

    @for (user of users; track user.id) {
      {{ user.name }}
    } @empty {
      Empty list of users
    }
   

Angular 17 Performance Improvements

Angular 17 places a strong emphasis on performance enhancements, ensuring that developers can build fast and responsive applications. Several optimizations have been implemented under the hood, resulting in improved change detection, reduced bundle sizes, and overall faster rendering.

1. Change Detection Optimizations

Angular 17 introduces more efficient change detection mechanisms, reducing the time it takes to detect and propagate changes throughout the application. This is achieved through smarter algorithms and optimizations in the change detection process.

1. Smaller Bundle Sizes

With advancements in tree-shaking and optimization techniques, Angular 17 produces smaller bundle sizes. This is crucial for web applications, especially those targeting users with slower network connections, as it minimizes the initial payload that needs to be downloaded.

1. Ahead-of-Time (AOT) Compilation Improvements

Angular's AOT compilation process has been fine-tuned in version 17, resulting in faster compilation times and improved runtime performance. This is particularly beneficial for large-scale projects where AOT compilation is essential for optimal performance.

Angular Material Enhancements

Angular Material, the official material design component library for Angular, has received several enhancements in Angular 17. These improvements focus on providing developers with more flexibility, customization options, and a streamlined development experience.

New Material Components

Angular 17 introduces new material components, expanding the library's capabilities. Developers can now leverage these components to enhance the user interface and overall user experience of their applications.

Enhanced Theming and Styling

Theming and styling options in Angular Material have been refined in version 17, allowing developers to customize the appearance of components more easily. The introduction of new theming APIs provides greater control over the visual aspects of the application.

Improved Accessibility Features

Angular Material now places an even stronger emphasis on accessibility. New features and enhancements have been introduced to ensure that Angular Material components are accessible to a wider audience, including users with disabilities.

Upgrading to Angular 17

Upgrading your existing Angular project is a straightforward process. The Angular team provides detailed documentation on the steps to update your application to the latest version. Before upgrading, be sure to check for any breaking changes and update third-party dependencies accordingly.

# Upgrade to Angular 17
ng update @angular/core@^17

The update looks very promising. The question is, is this the game changer we were looking for?