The Angular community gathered for NxConf 2023 in New York, and the long-anticipated syntax for the template extensions in Angular 17 has finally been settled.
NxConf 2023
The annual NxConf took place this year.
Nx serves as a powerful alternative to the Angular CLI. It accelerates the build process, testing, and linting by leveraging caching and identifying only the modified parts of the codebase. According to Juri Strumpflohner, Director of Developer Experience, another key feature of Nx is:
...is integrating it (Angular) with all those different tools. You know how hard it is to introduce tech stacks and make sure that they are updated and they work in a coherent way.
The single-day conference brought several new announcements. One notable feature is Distributed Task Execution, which allows tasks to be spread across multiple nodes within the Nx Cloud environment.
Additionally, the "nx release" tool was introduced. This utility assists with publishing npm packages, generating ChangeLogs, and other release-related tasks. It is particularly valuable for those who develop libraries.
Recordings of these presentations and other sessions are available on YouTube.
New Template Syntax: @defer, @if, @for, @switch
Angular 17 will introduce a new set of template extensions, which will render traditional structural directives like *ngIf or *ngFor obsolete. The new control flow commands will be native to the template itself.
Michael Egger-Zikes pointed out on Twitter that this change is a necessary stepping stone for the upcoming Signal Component. The existing structural directives will not be compatible with it.
The template will gain additional capabilities, including the ability to dynamically load components based on various criteria.
Early adopters have already begun experimenting, with Matthieu Riegler having created a playground on Stackblitz for testing.
The Angular team weighed two different syntax options before making their choice. The decision was made to go with the @ symbol prefix.
Meet Angular’s New Control Flow. This November, we’ll release Angular… | by Alex Rickabaugh | Sep, 2023 | Angular Blog
This November, we’ll release Angular version 17 with a number of new template features, including a new built-in syntax for control flow…
blog.angular.io
Additional extensions are on the horizon. Alex Rickabaugh, the Angular Core lead, has floated the idea of an "import template command".
Minor Releases
Several minor version updates were announced as well, including a new release of Cypress, the testing framework, which moved to 13.3.
ngx-formly, a robust library for automating the generation of dynamic forms, saw its 16.2 release.
PrimeNg, a UI component library, has been updated to version 16.4.