3...2...1... Angular 5 Is Just Around the Corner! What New Features Should You Look Forward To?

Making it significantly easier for developers to build Google-driven progressive web apps! And significantly simpler for users to access services through their mobile phones, as well. This is the 2-in-1 prime concept behind Angular 5!

The latest version of Google's mainstream JS framework for building mobile and desktop applications is soon to be released to production. And its beta version's:

• bugfixes
• performance improvements
• new features

... have already “revealed” the Google team's principle of making progressive web apps accessible to everyone. To take out some of all that discouraging, heavy know-how that developers had to get themselves “equipped with” if they decided to take the dynamic AngularJS development's “bull” by the hornes.

And speaking of Angular 5's announced new features and enhancements, let's highlight the truly noteworthy ones, shall we?
 

New Angular 5 Features to Watch Out For

Here are some of the key features aimed to support the “simpler, faster, smaller” theme of version 5:

• forms: add options arg to abstract controls
   
• router: add events tracking activation of individual routes
   
• compiler: add representation of placeholders to xliff & xmb
   
• build optimizer: keeps code to its bare essentials, reducing, therefore, the app's size
   
• integrating Material Design Components and making them compatible with server-side rendering
   
• simplifying the whole progressive web apps' development process: so that the apps can get cached in the browser
   

Key Performance Improvements 

And speaking of enabling the development of progressive web apps (and implicitly of native-like experiences for the users), we can't leave out the notable performance enhancements brought to Angular 5:

• abstract class methods & interfaces
   
• the usage of native addEventListener for faster rendering
   

Google's engineering team's main goal has been to supercharge the fifth version of AngularJS with the needed out-of-the-box enhancements so that developers won't dread using the framework because of all the needed know-how. So that, instead, they should turn it into their first option for building their browser-based apps!
 

And Then... Get Ready to Welcome Angular 6, Too!

… which will step into the spotlight next year, April 16. So, there's a overcrowded (even “aggressive” we could say) release schedule awaiting the Google team.

Meanwhile, what the team developing Angular 6 can “disclose” is that they'll keep walking on Angular 5's path paved with the “easier, smaller, faster” principles. 

And that they'll keep their focus on making developers' “development time” spent building Google-based progressive web apps even more enjoyable: “We’ll continue that theme for version 6, just making [developers’] lives easier, making it possible to deliver apps better for their users” Brad Green, a Google engineering director, said.

In short: progressive web apps will get easier to build, thanks to all the built-in support streamlining development itself and easier (and therefore much more tempting) to use. 

So, now that you have your Angular 5 checklist, including all the key features and performance improvements (and you can find the list of bug fixes right here) save the date in your calendar (September 18) and get ready to... stretch test all these improvements and breaking changes!