This article will take a closer look at what’s new in Angular 12. Angular 12 has introduced various significant updates to Google’s TypeScript-based web framework. The update primarily revolves around ‘Google’s Ivy Everywhere Approach,’ which helps streamline the software development process. In addition to the move to Ivy, Angular 12 offers substantial improvements in styling aspects, message-id format, nullish coalescing, ng API, and more. Angular 12 also offers an array of tools and new features that are simple to deploy in AWS.

What is Angular?

Angular is an open-source, TypeScript-based JavaScript framework that is primarily used to build single-page applications. Maintained by Google, Angular has become increasingly popular among developers due to its structured approach to app development. With Angular, developers have access to a standardized structure that helps create maintainable, large-scale applications.
JavaScript is a widely used client-side scripting language that allows developers to add interactivity to web pages. However, when it comes to building single-page applications that require modularity, testability, and developer productivity, using JavaScript on its own may not be the best option.
Thankfully, there are a variety of frameworks and libraries available to address these issues in front-end web development. Angular is one such framework that offers a comprehensive solution to many of the problems developers face when using JavaScript alone.
The structured approach offered by Angular ensures that developers can create applications with greater ease, resulting in higher productivity. Moreover, Angular enables developers to create modular applications, making it easier to maintain and test the code. Angular’s use of TypeScript also ensures that type errors are caught early in the development process, reducing the chances of bugs occurring in production.
Overall, Angular provides a powerful and robust framework for building single-page applications that are easy to develop, maintain, and test. While JavaScript is a versatile language with a wide range of use cases, using a framework like Angular can help address many of the challenges developers face when building modern applications.

Most Popular Benefits of Angular

Custom Components

One of the key features of Angular is that it allows developers to create their own components. These components can encapsulate functionality along with rendering logic, which can then be reused throughout an application. With the help of these components, developers can create and maintain large applications in a more structured and organized manner.

Data Binding

Angular enables developers to move data from JavaScript code to the view seamlessly. It also enables developers to respond to user events without having to write any code manually. The data binding feature allows for two-way communication between the view and the model, which is particularly useful for building single-page applications.

Dependency Injection

Angular makes it easy to write modular services that can be injected wherever they are needed. This feature is particularly useful for building complex applications, as it improves the testability and reusability of services.

Testing

Angular has been designed from the ground up with testability in mind. The framework provides first-class tools for testing, allowing developers to test every part of their application. This feature is particularly useful for building applications that require high reliability and quality.

Comprehensive Functionality

Angular is a comprehensive framework that provides out-of-the-box solutions for server communication, routing within applications, and more. This feature makes it easier for developers to build complex applications with ease.

Browser Compatibility

Angular is cross-platform and compatible with multiple browsers. An Angular application can typically run on all major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, as well as operating systems such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. This feature enables developers to build applications that can run on a wide range of devices and platforms.

What’s New in Angular 12 – Updates & Features You Should Know

The latest version of Angular, Angular 12, comes with many significant updates that improve the framework’s efficiency and functionality. 

View Engine

One of the most important updates is the deprecation of the View Engine, which was the old legacy compilation and rendering pipeline. The next release will completely remove the rendering pipeline, and libraries that were previously working with View Engine will function with Ivy. The shift to Ivy will be facilitated by a compatibility compiler and a smooth update path. This will enable the entire ecosystem to move to Ivy everywhere, making Angular 12 much more efficient.

Canonical Message-ID Format

Another major improvement in Angular 12 is the introduction of a canonical message-ID format. The previous message-ID format was inconsistent in its translation, making it vulnerable to whitespace and translation invalidation issues. The new message-ID format in Angular 12 eliminates errors occurring due to format templates and ICU expressions, and developers can migrate any legacy localization IDs to canonical message-ids using the latest algorithms.

Nullish Coalescing

Angular 12 also offers a new feature called nullish coalescing, which enables developers to write cleaner code in templates. By using nullish coalescing operators (??), developers can improve complex conditionals by using the new syntax structure. Angular 12 also enables strict mode by default in CLI, making it easier to catch bugs and perform application examinations quickly. Moreover, the new NG API upgrade in Angular 12 enables key information about application workings during runtime. The addition of new functionalities like getDirectiveMetada and esetProfiler simplifies and thoroughly inspects applications to debug APIs.

TypeScript 4.2

Angular 12 also benefits from an upgrade in TypeScript 4.2, which brings improvements in operator, type alias, tuple types, and abstract classes. This improved TypeScript version returns substantial valid aliases and the right types, reducing repetition and errors. 

Styling Improvements

Angular 12 also introduces several styling improvements, such as support for inline Sass in the component decorator-style field, and Angular Material and Angular CDK’s internal adoption of a new Sass module framework. Additionally, Angular 12 now also supports Tailwind CSS.

Other updates in Angular 12 include the addition of minified UMDs, redirected source files, strict null checks, emit event options, HTTP status codes, and Webpack 5 support. Overall, Angular 12 offers developers an enhanced experience with more efficient tools and new features that can be easily deployed.

Conclusion

Angular 12 marks yet another milestone in the evolution of the popular web framework. Its enhanced performance, language service, form validation, and compiler services are some of the features that provide developers with more control than ever before. Compared to its previous version, Angular 12 offers greater stability, making it a reliable foundation for future updates such as Zone.js choices, which are part of the upcoming Zoneless Angular and Angular’s Marquee Project. 
In conclusion, Angular 12’s new and improved features provide developers with greater control and more efficient tools for building web applications. As competition for Angular-related jobs remains high, developers can stay ahead of the curve by keeping up with the latest advancements in the framework and incorporating them into their skill set.