Angular 18: Latest Features, Improvements, and Upgrades

The Angular framework keeps upgrading itself with every major release. Angular 18, released on 22nd May 2024, is the new big update that promises exciting new features and functionalities to make the development process even more productive. Backed by Google, the Angular team actively addresses developer issues, gathers community feedback, and updates the framework accordingly. It has significantly focused on better routing and optimizing developer tools to enhance performance and streamline the development process.

Hire Dedicated AngularJS developer to upgrade to the latest version of Angular and take full advantage of its new features and improvements. 

What’s New in Angular 18: Latest Features, Improvements, and Upgrades 

Angular 18 is by far the latest version, offering new and advanced features. The priority is to enhance the existing strengths and bring performance optimization. Let’s have a look at what all the buzz is about and whether Angular 18 is worth it.

1) Zoneless application: The most significant upgrade in the Angular framework is zoneless change detection. Previously, Angular developers relied on Zone.js to detect changes within your application. Though Zone.js enabled smooth operations, it came with downsides like complexity and performance overhead. Zoneless change detection removes this dependency, offering faster loads, better performance, and easier debugging.

2) New Redirect Command: Another powerful feature introduced in Angular 18 to simplify the navigation is RedirectCommand. It allows developers to create smoother and dynamic navigation to streamline user experience in their Angular application. The RedirectCommand class can even manage complex navigation and patterns with Guards and Resolvers. It also allows the class to handle routing problems while providing a redirection method. With the help of this new feature, you can control redirects, such as keeping track of extra clues. Hire AngularJS Developers to know in detail about the New Redirect Command. 

3) TypeScript 5.4 Support: The new version of Angular allows you to leverage the new version of TypeScript- TypeScript 5.4. It welcomes new language features and type safety. The code maintainability and readability are also improved, which poses a positive impact on the application’s performance. The main highlights of this feature are- 

• It assists developers in availing the security benefits and making effects more secure with precise type definitions. 
• It allows developers to define types of templates accurately and catch the errors effortlessly. 
• Helps to manage codes in a more efficient manner. 

4) Routes Redirect used as a Function: Another prominent feature of Angular 18 is the routes redirect where developers can handle the redirect function smoothly. They can replace strings with specific functions to allow redirecting URLs within the redirectTo property of the Route object. URLTree is another useful tool in Angular 18 to simplify website navigation for users. It includes a URL and breaks it into elements like routing, page name, title, and query. URLTree also plays a role in improving the security function, giving you control over certain pages, and ensuring a seamless navigation experience within the AngularJS web App Development application. 

5) Event Replay: Another addition that sparks up the buzz of Angular 18 is its event replay feature. It is especially helpful in situations where user events occur before the page is fully interactive. Let’s understand this with an example. Imagine you are scrolling a website, and you click on the “like” button on a video, but your internet is working slowly. So earlier, the click would not register until the full video was loaded. But with Angular 18, the website registers your actions despite network conditions. 

6) Angular.dev for Developers: Yet another exciting feature added to the new version of Angular–an official documentation website for Angular coders. It displays a modern look and gives you a feel of an interactive environment where you can test your creativity on multiple topics. Angular.dev has all the necessary information you may need to develop a complex or simple navigation. 

7) Deferrable Views: This feature was much talked about in the community and probably the most requested one. Deferrable views were already a part of Angular 17, allowing you to declaratively lazy-load a part of your HTML. In simpler words, you can now select a specific part of your component tree, which should be in a different chunk, and lazy-load on a particular action. So this feature was on an experimental basis in the earlier version. However, in v18, Angular’s team worked more on this feature and made it permanent–meaning developers can now confidently use it in their applications. To use deferrable views, just wrap the section of your template that you want to defer in a @ defer block. 

8) Firebase App Hosting Enhancement: It has become of utmost importance to host your applications today because of the increasing complexity of web platforms. Furthermore, apps with hybrid rendering, like client-side rendering and server-side rendering, have different hosting needs. Keeping this in mind, Google has added Firebase app hosting to manage all developers’ requirements. The Firebase app hosting streamlines the development process of Angular apps and gives a smoother experience to the user. It offers built-in framework support and works well with Firebase products like Cloud Firestore and Authentication. 

9) Unified Control State Changes Event: Angular 18 introduces Unified Control State Change Events feature to simplify form handling process. Earlier, tracking form changes required separate listeners for each user-triggered event, like field edits or validation updates. This process was tedious and complex. But with the new feature in Angular 18, a single “events” property for form controls like FormControl, FormGroup, and FormArray is provided. And by subscribing to “events”, developers can monitor all the changes related to a form control, all in one place. 

10) Default Content: In Angular 18, you can add default content using the ng-content tag. This directive automatically creates a position in the component template where the content can be inserted dynamically. The new ng-content template makes creating and utilizing templates much easier. You can even reuse templates and maintain them for later. Also, if the ng-content tag already exists in the content, it will follow the default content only. 

11) Improved Reactivity Model: The Reactivity model, which manages how well your application responds to the data changes, has come improved in the new version–Angular 18. It has made the state management and data flow more straightforward. This improvement decreases boilerplate code, which helps handle complex state interactions. Another plus point is that there is a significant improvement in the performance of an application since the updates are processed more efficiently in Angular 18. 

Is Angular 18 Worth It?

Yes, upgrading to Angular 18 is worth it for better performance, improved tools, and easier project management. So don’t hesitate to contact Brain Inventory, as we can help you in accessing the latest features and implementing them in your web application wherever required. 

How Can You Upgrade Angular v17 to Angular v18?

Follow this checklist to upgrade from Angular 17 to Angular 18: 

• Before you start the update: No changes are required while switching between both the versions. 
• While updating the new version: Check for a few things like, you must use a supported Node js version before upgrading your application. Angular 18 supports Node.js versions v18, 19, and above. Also update TypeScript to version 5.4 or latest. 

Conclusion 

The Angular team has been constantly active at Google and has released exciting updates in its latest version. Angular 18 is set to raise the bar with performance upgrades and tools, and future versions are expected to bring even more exciting features for businesses and developers.

If you are looking to leverage these latest features and upgrades of Angular in your application, partner with an AngularJS Development Company. Their expertise and practical application of knowledge will help you to fully utilize the capabilities of Angular 18 in your project. Our company is one of the leading names in custom web development. Contact us now to schedule a meeting!