Around six months after the launch of Angular 2, new version Angular 4, or Angular v4 launched. But it’s development team decided it should be called just “Angular” onwards, instead of stating the version explicitly in the name. Whatever, the web development companies must be excited about the new features in this latest version. But many of you might be wondering why there is no Angular 3? Why did Google directly jump to Angular 4?

Well, as mentioned earlier, it will be only “Angular” from now on. Generally, Angular was given version “2” to differentiate between AngularJS and new Angular framework. So there is no great deal with the version numbers. The Angular 4 comes with improved semantic versioning as no big breaking changes should appear in it. Google made it 4 instead of 3 because Router 3.3.1 was already on Angular 2.3.1 and Angular 4 will be compatible with Angular 2.

Why Update to Angular 4?

It includes some major improvements and functionality. The Angular team has worked too hard to ensure that it would be easy for developers to update with this release.

1. Router paramMap:

Angular 4 has come up with some notable changes in Router. Now, a route can receive the parameters either using a snapshot property of ActiveRoute or by setting its property param. ParamMap allows developers to fetch particular parameter using two methods, get() and getAll().

Before, route parameters were stored in simple key-value object structure and accessed using standard JavaScript syntax like (parameterObjectk[‘parameter_name’]).

Now, using paramMap, parameters are also available as a map. By invoking simple method call, (parameterMap.get('parameter_name’)).

2. Smaller and Faster:

The applications developed with Angular 4 consume less memory as the size of source Code is reduced. It makes application to load faster and simultaneously improves the overall performance. It reduces the size of generated code by 60% in most cases. This feature of Angular 4 is very beneficial for the business areas like ecommerce development, m-commerce, and web development.

3. Redesigned Animation:

In previous versions of Angular, animations were provided as a part of @angular/core module. It was necessary to include this package in code even though there was no animation at all in an application. This unessentially made program bulky.

In Angular 4, animations have their own package- @angular/platform-browser/ animations. This is the major breakthrough as developers only use it whenever it is necessary and avoid illogical code in an application. New animation package also allows developers to find documentation easily and leverage the auto-complete feature.

4. Improved *ngIf and *ngFor

It is a quite regular thing to use 'conditional statements’ to display information based on some conditions. In older versions of Angular, developers need to use separate *ngIf statements because there was no else clause. It was mandatory to use multiple ngIf directives with opposite boolean conditions.

For example,

This has some tough consequences for maintainability and readability of the code. Also, if there are any changes, developers have to work on multiple lines of codes. This problem has been solved in Angular 4 with newly introduced *ngIf and *ngFor templates with an else clause. It uses a separately marked template in the else-case if the *ngIf is used in the code. The new syntax looks like-

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5. Angular Universal:

Angular Universal, the project that enables developers to run Angular on a server-side. Initially, it was a community driven project adopted by the Angular team and today, it is up to date with Angular 4.  

Now, it is possible to restore Angular applications outside of a browser. By doing this, websites can be optimized better for the search engines. The WebWorker Thread allows rendering the content of website outside the GUI Thread. JavaScript is not required for initial rendering. Later, content can be added to DOM Tree for the display.

6. View Engine:

Angular generates View-layer from the components and templates used. AOT (Ahead-of-Time) and JIT (Just-in-Time) compiler do this job for Angular. AOT creates executable JS code with embedded HTML fragments. It produces a lot of codes for Data-binding, Event-handling, and Change-detection to handle dynamic component creation. Application developed in this way are typically fast but a lot of code still slows down initial launch time.

Angular 4 uses a different approach and use other frameworks like Inferno.js as a reference for design and performance decisions. It creates extensive design documentation for the View Engine for the template layer in Angular. AOT- compiled templates in Angular 4 are small and load fast.

Angular 4 is backwards compatible means Angular 2 applications will work fine on it. This version surely provides great enhancements in terms of reliability and functionality making Angular applications smaller in size and faster in execution. 

So if you are interested in web development, you need to hire a developer who is well-experienced in the Angular framework and knows the importance of MVC pattern. Also, for the cost effective ecommerce development service, get in touch with Panacea Infotech, one of the leading website design companies in India.