What’s new in Angular 5: easier progressive web apps

The popular JavaScript framework for desktop and mobile apps also produces better code and better supports Google’s Material Design.

Angular, Google’s popular JavaScript framework for building mobile and desktop applications, has had a whirlwind year, with two major upgrades in the past 11 months. It will reach the next milestone in its six-month release schedule in September, when Angular 5 is due to debut with major accommodations for Google-driven progressive web apps.

Despite the “5” designation, the upgrade will actually be just the fourth release for the framework, which already has undergone a rewrite since the 1.0 version, initially called AngularJS, debuted in 2012. Angular 5 is now in beta release and is scheduled for production release on September 18.

Its features include:

• An emphasis on making it easier to build progressive web apps, so apps can be cached in the browser.
• A build optimizer that makes the application smaller by eliminating unnecessary code.
• Making Material Design components compatible with server-side rendering.

The progressive web apps concept, the product of a joint effort between Google and Mozilla, is about enabling development of browser-based apps that offer a superior, native-like experience.

Supporting progressive web apps in Angular today requires a lot of expertise on the developers’ part; version 5 is intended to make usage easier. “We’re shooting to try and make progressive web apps something that everyone would use,” said Brad Green, a Google engineering director. “We’re trying to find the right set of defaults so that it just would be the default option for most developers, for both desktop and mobile web.”

Source : http://www.infoworld.com