Since its inception in 2010, AngularJS has taken the lead role in the front-end development. In fact, as per SimilarWeb, today 389,659 websites worldwide are actively using AngularJS. This includes prominent sites like Google, IBM, Deutsche Bank, etc.
In a relatively short span of time, it has carved its own niche amongst startups, large enterprises, SMEs looking to develop robust, interactive single-page web applications in less time frame.
One of the reasons that AngularJS continues to shine through are its advanced development tools. Thanks to these tools, developers don’t have to struggle anymore with common issues like writing code from scratch, finding bugs manually, manual testing, etc.
In this blog, we will go through popular AngularJS tools to make your development easy and stress-free. But before that, let's understand what AngularJS is and what all you can do with it.
Why AngularJS?
AngularJS is an open-source front-end JavaScript framework popularly known for building single-page applications (SPA) and interactive web apps.
Backed by Google, AngularJS is a more established framework and continues to grow and expand. Popular amongst developers, it draws its popularity for two key reasons. Foremost, it's two-way data binding features enable the development of interactive online apps that combine data from server-side and user-side sources to produce a seamless user experience without requiring the page to reload.
Second, it includes integration capabilities that support a variety of plugins and tools that facilitate easy creation without sacrificing the capabilities of the final product, whether it be in terms of utilities, features, or visual appeal
It also stands out from other JavaScript frameworks thanks to its opinionated approach. Unlike ReactJS, which gives freehand, Angular follows a stricter approach to ensure quality of code.
Some Top AngularJS Features Loved by Developers
- Avoid large amounts of code - AngularJS supports rapid development, where you can almost instantly start development without spending hours setting up the environment or writing long lines of code for simple functions.
- It's opinionated - The last thing you need on a large-scale project is confusion in code. AngularJS is an opinionated language, which means it has a standard structure that every Angular coder must follow. This ensures that the code is consistent throughout the application.
Also Read: Angular Features: What It Brings to Us?
How can you boost your productivity with AngularJS Development Tools?
Having understood AngularJS, and its capabilities, one would surely ask why is AngularJS such a popular software development framework? The key is Angular JS development tools.
Angular tools refer to a range of software utilities, libraries, and resources that enhance the development, testing, debugging, and maintenance of Angular applications.
These tools make it simpler and more accessible for the developers to work with Angular, and speed up the development process, and improve code quality for building dynamic web applications.
Apart from making the software development cycle easier, Angular development tools also help with the following aspects:
- Security,
- Browser compatibility
- Creating custom components
- Automated code injection and so much more!
For your benefit, we have jotted the seven best AngularJS development tools for 2024 and beyond, so that you can harness their capabilities to build a dynamic and highly interactive web app.
7 Best AngularJS Development Tools in 2024
#1. Karma
Karma is one of the most in-demand, open-source Angular development tools. It's used for unit testing in Angular projects. Developers use it to automate testing and gain feedback on their code's quality and reliability.
It contains several helpful features, such as parallel testing, to speed up the process and generate test coverage reports to understand which code is covered, etc.
Key Features:
- Built for Angular with Angular in mind: Karma understands Angular's testing demands and provides a suitable environment for testing Angular components, services, and modules.
- Run unit tests: This allows you to write and run tests for individual code units in isolation, ensuring each component behaves as expected.
- Compatible with all popular browsers: You can run tests in real browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and others.
- It's built for automation: It integrates well with CI/CD pipelines to enable automation. This allows you to run tests whenever code changes are pushed to your repository. Thus, helping identify and address issues much early in the process
#2. Visual Studio Code (Best IDE for Angular)
Visual Studio Code needs no introduction. As per Stack Overflow survey, VSC is preferred by 80% of developers worldwide.
Key Features:
- Intelligent Code Assistance: The IDE offers excellent code auto-completion, IntelliSense, and code navigation features to help you code faster and with fewer errors.
- Integrated Git: Git integration is built into VS Code, making managing version control within your Angular projects easy.
- Debugging Tools: VS Code provides powerful tools that can help you identify and fix issues in your Angular applications efficiently.
- Integrated Terminal: It includes an integrated terminal, allowing you to run command-line tools and scripts without leaving the editor.
#3. AngularFire
AngularFire is a primary backend development tool used for its API features, 3-way data binding, etc. It's a library that provides seamless integration between Angular and Firebase, a popular cloud-based backend-as-a-service platform. Through it, you can easily manage binary files like videos and documents.
Key Features:
- Build real times apps: You can build an app that can instantly react to changes in the data. Thus, making it a good choice for chat apps, collaborative tools, and other real-time scenarios.
- Painless Authentication: Quickly integrate social logins like Google, Facebook, and Twitter through authentication APIs provided with AngularFire.
- Cloud Functions: Firebase Cloud Functions can be easily integrated into your Angular app using AngularFire. This allows you to execute serverless functions in response to events in your app, such as database changes or HTTP requests.
- Storage: Easily manage user-generated content like documents and images thanks to the Firebase cloud.
#4. Compodoc
Documentation is another critical aspect of development. Compodoc is a renowned documentation tool designed specifically for Angular projects. It helps generate visually appealing documentation within minutes.
Key Features:
- Automated document generation
- User-friendly documentation
- Supports AngularCLI.
#5. ESlint
Nothing is more frustrating when code crashes because of errors. These errors are often very not easy to find manually. That's where a linting tool like ESlint helps. ESlint is excellent at fixing syntax errors, duplication and unused variables. Also helps with code conventions to prevent future issues.
Key Features:
- Customized rules: It's a highly customizable tool to suit your project requirements.
- Define and enforce best code practices to maintain high code quality.
- Angular integration available: There are many Angular specific integrations like eslint-plugin-angular and eslint-config-angular to make things easy.
#6. NgRX
If you regularly work with large-scale architectures, you know how important it is to manage object states. But, unlike backend development, where databases handle object states, front-end development tools like Angular have no such avenue.
That's where tools like NgRx help. NgRX is an Angular library for state management and reactive extensions. It makes Angular development easy by simplifying the object's state and enforcing unidirectional data flow.
Key Features:
- Predictable State Management: Redux pattern simplifies debugging and understanding of how data changes in your application.
- Improved Scalability: It structures state management into well-defined reducers and actions, making it easier to handle complex application states.
- Time-Travel Debugging: Strict adherence to immutability and single-state tree help developers with debugging. Developers can replay past actions to diagnose issues, making it easier to identify and fix bugs.
- Reactive Approach: NgRx relies on RxJS Observables to manage state changes. This reactive approach simplifies asynchronous operations, such as handling user input, making HTTP requests, and managing real-time data updates.
#7. Angular GetText
Angular Gettext, also referred as "angular-translate," is a top library used for internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) in Angular applications. It also supports pluralization and context, which is critical in international language translation.
Key Features:
- Multilingual Support: It allows you to easily translate your application's content and user interface elements into different languages, making your app accessible to a wider audience.
- Message Format Support: Ensures that translated content appears natural to users in different languages.
- Easily integrates with Angular: It integrates well with Angular, so you can use Angular's data binding, directives, and other features seamlessly.
That said, developers play a key role in delivering successful projects. Finding the right AngularJS developer who knows his craft is key to this entire process.
Conclusion:
Now that you know about Angular development tools, your projects are ready to grow to new heights. Carefully selecting the right tools is key to unlocking heightened productivity and achieving exceptional results.
While the tools we've explored here represent just a fraction of the vast Angular ecosystem, our experts vouch for their effectiveness.
Keen to hire top-notch AngularJS developers on board for your project? We're here to assist you. Let's start this journey together.