AngularJS with Durandal? - angularjs

Is it possible to run AngularJS in a Durandal project? We are using Durandal now but want to move to AngularJS while still keep the site operational. Is it even a good idea to attempt this?
Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

You could run them side-by-side, but then you would just have two separate SPAs hosted on the same site. The doesn't seem like a good upgrade strategy to me. I think you would be better off to fully develop the new version and then replace the site altogether.
I would also advise that you wait for the release of AngularJS 2.0 (if possible). Rob Eisenberg has announced that he is currently working with the AngularJS team to provide core changes and plugins that will make Angular 2.0 more familiar to developers with Durandal experience, as well as to provide a migration path from Durandal to Angular 2.0.

The other answer isn't exactly correct. I have an example that proves it wrong.
Durandal is a module loader that can load any view / view model pair. If you choose to load an angular application and leave out the router portion it works just fine. It really isn't that difficult to get it set up.
Wrap your Angular.js application initialization code in an AMD module (view model) with a matching view and it just works.

Related

Upgrading from AngularJS1.2 to Angular

I am currently working in AngularJS 1.2 application, it is a medium size application with 25 modules, now I want to upgrade to angular new version. I can't write freshly because it is an old project, I don't know older requirements of this project. Please any one suggest me the best way to achieve it.
Its not that easy to convert a angular-1 project to Angular-2+. You must need a fresh start, because both the framework is totally different. For project requirement/ business logic, you must understand the logic and the code and then write a fresh code in Angular-2+.
You may copy and paste any javascript code from angular-1 to angular-2+. It will work properly.
This page helped me a lot when I upgraded to angular: https://angular.io/guide/upgrade
A very good handbook for upgrading to angular is: https://angular.io/guide/ajs-quick-reference
A good solution would be to use ngUpgrade: run both AngularJS and Angular at the same time. All Angular code is running in the Angular framework, and AngularJS code in the AngularJS framework.
What happens on top of this is that components and services managed by one framework can interoperate with those from the other framework. This happens in three main areas: Dependency injection, the DOM, and change detection.
Some main things to take into consideration when upgrading:
- Get AngularJS and Angular components and services talking to each other during the upgrade
- Replacing controllers
- Replacing $scope and $watch
- convert directives to components

How to upgrade from angular 1.4 to angular 5?

To upgrade from angular 1.4 to Angular 5 is it possible to use ngupgrade and follow incremental approach or it is strictly applicable to use ngupgrade from version 1.5. According to the image the prerequisites mentioned 1.5 is used for ngUpgrade.
There is official upgrade guide:
https://angular.io/guide/upgrade or https://angular.io/guide/upgrade-performance
But as a person who have written a big AngularJS application and now is working on a big Angular project, I recommend to start a new fresh project and step-by-step write a complete new application in the newest Angular. By my experience, switching between both frameworks is really hard and time-consuming.
In Angular things work totally different (better) and the framework itself offers much more than AngularJS.
If you still want to go the upgrade way, do it in 2 steps:
Upgrade to 1.5 (because there must be a reason why it is required)
Upgrade to Angular
Take a look at this article: https://angular.io/guide/upgrade
And you can upgrade or downgrade services and components between two frameworks.
You should know that there are two ways to bootstrap a Hybrid App:
Using UpgradeModule - Bootstraps both the AngularJS (v1) and Angular (v6) frameworks in the Angular zone
Using DowngradeModule - Bootstraps AngularJS outside of the Angular zone and keeps the two change detection systems separate.
I have tried both ways. And I recommend using DowngradeModule - it's better for performance and memory leaks.
If you google angular hybrid you will find a lot of articles and examples on github
Certainly look at https://angular.io/guide/upgrade to start. It's been a while since I've looked at it and it appears to have significant updates, which is nice. The "Preparation" section still reminds me of the joke: "How to be a millionaire and not pay taxes? Step 1: Get a million dollars." One section of preparation is "Using a Module Loader" which tells you why, but you're still on your own to figure out how to go from, say, grunt to webpack. It's beyond the scope of that page, sure, but that feels like big amorphous step to sort out.
I did find a developer, Sam Julien, that put together a guided video "course" which takes an app and walks through converting it. It is at https://www.upgradingangularjs.com and is certainly more comprehensive than any blog post I've seen. I'm not affiliated but it has gotten me started on laying out some of what we need to change.
It's not a trivial undertaking but being able to see the stages laid out ahead of time has made it seem incrementally possible. (Luckily, we are pretty close to the angularjs style guide already, which is another preparation step.) Good luck!

Front end material design stack with angular.js

I am trying to get better at coding and am trying to figure out exactly what front end stack I need. I have red a lot and about a lot of tools but it is too much and I don't know which ones work good together or not.
Currently my idea is to do a web app with the design principles of Material Design from google and use angular for the logic of the front end.
I have red about and used these tools: Angular.js, Material Design Lite, Angular-material, polymer, ionic, bootstrap, Materialize and other various material design frameworks.
I am playing with this demo that I wanted to try out Material Design Lite but went too further and ended up needing Polymer for some input drop-down components. Playing further more with MDL I found out that it is not sufficient as bootstrap as I am used to work and would like to have this in it, but don't get me wrong I like MDL.
ionic has some good features for the local server and easy set up of template app as well other nice things like export to ios,android app, push notifications, but I ended up deleting ionic.css cause it was interfering with MDL and Polymer
I am asking some more experienced web app developers to help me out with this stack dilemma. I would like to get this out of my mind so I can be free and develop more.
Also tools like GRUNT, BOWER and so on? which one is the best in my case?
note: if u got interested the back end would be cakePhP and Mysql and the data type is going to be JSON (angular will send json to php into DB).
It can be overwhelming trying to learn all the tools and using them at the same time. My advice is to just use the tools when you need to.
If your web app is simple you may not even need a framework like angular. If you want to play with material design, you can do that with the css classes that MD lite offers no matter if you use angular / polymer / or plain javascript. ( If you want to use Polymer you already have some material design styles included. )
Some people prefer starting with the most simple solution and keep adding more sophisticated tools gradually. Others prefer starting with a more complex solution that has integrated the best practices, and in that case using a "Starter kit" may be useful.
Regarding Grunt/gulp... etc. You could worry about that later when you need to have a "build system" to do tasks like compressing files, optimising images and other things that are important for publishing.
After years doing frontend development i realised that is not possible to master all the tools available ( and having a life outside code ). You eventually settle for some tools (everybody have different preferences) and the important experience comes with solving real problems.
i would recommend you to use angular-material for your project if :
you have good knowledge of angularjs or if you find it interesting to learn
you have gone through google design and you want to implement it in angularjs way
try implementing missing features or take online help
Angular-material team is working on adding more and more features as already build in directives and services. Check releases on github page & demo guide
( Drop downs are already there in latest version as menu)
Few points
Google has an awesome open source guide for design.
Angular-material is a framework that helps you implement and follow that design language and principles using angularjs.
Bootstrap is just a framework which gives implementation of css, js related to front end work. Look and feel will be entirely different from google design.
Ionic is again a completely different framework which provides implementation and guide for mobile app development.
You can read about diff in angular-material/bootstrap/ionic in my post here
Bower/Grunt
bower ( package manager) and grunt ( task runner) are tools which work in node environment.
if your development environment is nodejs you should use them to get work done quickly and efficiently.
Check there sites for more information.
cakePhp/mySql
If your backend runs on these and you have angularjs in frontend.
Angularjs can make restfull calls in JSON to your api and it would all work good.

Given the convergence of DurandalJS & AngularJS which should be chosen for a new project?

The owner of the DurandalJS project is now working at Google on AngularJS Next (v2?) in addition to keeping the current version of DurandalJS maintained. The two frameworks are converging.
http://blog.angularjs.org/2014/04/angular-and-durandal-converge.html
For a new mini-SPA project, which framework would be the best choice specifically with regard to the upgrade path?
I note that Rob Eisenberg has listed a number of tips to help existing DurandalJS users get ready for the next version, so it appears there will be an upgrade path available, but I'm wondering if the upgrade from AngularJS to the next generation framework would be simpler.
http://eisenbergeffect.bluespire.com/preparing-for-durandal-nextgen/
To be clear - I'm more concerned in making the right choice for the future (large SPA, split into multiple mini-SPAs) than for my current needs.
I'm not sure which one would be the best choice for now ... actually I'd say none of them is future save enough. Angular 2.0 is going to be definitely different from 1.0 and of course also from Durandal.
Nevertheless the framework itself maybe not that important. I think you should focus on separating code in reusable components. Whether it is a Angular Service/Factory/Provider or a clean Require Module in Durandal it actually doesn't matter. Getting it into the "NEW" Framework should be just a matter of adding the proper wrappers. As for 2-way-binding use the oberserver plugin to maintain clean POJOs.
The most important change from my perspective in NG2 will be the support of Lifecycle events, so even using those in Durandal now will be somehow supported in NG2. As for composition there for sure will be a way to simulate that easily in NG2 as well.
For current work the only two things important for the decision of the currently used Framework in my opinion are the use of RequireJS and Framework simplicity. Sure you can add it to Angular as well, there are several guides on that, but Durandal was built from ground up with RequireJS in mind. Especially in bigger projects this can save you a lot of headache from missing or wrong dependencies. As of the second argument -> porting Durandal to Angular is not that of a big deal because it's written in an easy and understandable way. Vice-versa may be a totally different story. Getting your custom Directives implemented as a combination of templating and ko-bindings can get pretty hard :)
So as a closing statement, if it's going to be a small project, but with the need for continuous support as well as update to NG2 in future, I'd go with Durandal. Besides RequireJS everything is exchangeable and adaptable. In the case of Angular I'm not sure how drastically the new DI system will change the way of development so that would be a show-stopper for me.
Btw. here is the design-document for NG2. So as you see there kinda everything that is important is gonna change:
Router
Persistance
Directives
Modularization (maybe we finally see RequireJS :) )

Is it possible to use ExtJS components in AngularJS?

I'm really enjoying learning to use AngularJS. Now I'm looking for components I can use with it. I've been looking at Angular-UI components but I'd like to know if it's possible to use the nice, supercharged components in ExtJS. Does anyone have experience with this? Any hints or tips or Angular directive libraries?
The company I work for is making a similar move. We currently rely heavily on an older version (3.x) of ExtJS, and the effort to upgrade to the current (5.0) version is at least equal to the effort required to move to angular.
To answer the question (to the best of my limited knowledge):
They can exist together in the same JS application.
Can you use UI elements of ExtJs with Angular?
You can put angular in control of markup via HTML templates in Ext.
Is this a wise idea?
Probably not.
Why would I consider doing this?
I need absolute control over the markup and don't care about possible page load issues
I need to serialize or de-serialize in some special way that Ext doesn't innately provide
I need to do something special like pub/sub (still totally possible with Ext)
In our case, it is a proof of concept for a few modals. If I am biased, I am biased in the direction of ExtJs (which is a huge statement given my background). The more exposure I have to ExtJS, the more I personally like it. I've used several frameworks in the past like Ember, Backbone, KnockoutJs and AngularJs and they are excellent tools that are reaching a level of maturity that makes them excellent choices. That said, they don't follow the same development model/pattern that ExtJs does, and I don't think a direct compare is fair to either side.
It would be almost like comparing Ext to Node (silly, I know).
If your project requires some special functionality that you don't believe is possible in Ext, you are probably like me and have limited experience with it. If you have a lot of experience with Ext, and want to try what we are trying, I say go for it. The single downfall of Ext is the size of the built package that is delivered. Another small framework isn't going to help that, but it also isn't going to cause more pain.
In the end, for me, I just love JS and expanding my knowledge of how things work now and in the future.
For the post above asking about the lack of traction for Ext: the answer is simple... it's not free, and thus not an option for many of us who aren't writing commercial software that fits well with the license.
In our AngularJS app at work, we have integrated a 3rd party ExtJS app with it, not for its UI components though. We open certain popups of that app based on user input and when the user commits data in the popup, we respond to ExtJs events to refresh our app. AngularJS is flexible enough to integrate with any other Javascript code/libraries as long as the library has public events to respond to. I would recommend going through the Directive and scope documentation on how to effectively create directives and respond to scope events.
Personally I do not feel ExtJS and AngularJS would be needed together, unless you are forced to use it like me. There is http://angular-ui.github.io/ that brings in a lot to the table. Again any given JQuery plugin can be integrated using directives, filters etc in AngularJS. So you may want to investigate into that before trying to bother with ExtJS.
Why do you need AngularJS anyway if you have ExtJS? I agree learning Ext can be somewhat difficult though once you've bitten through it there is nothing better at the moment. The only disadvantage is the heavier footprint but who cares? It's not like it's causing any problems... We use nothing but ExtJS at work and the progress in our apps is amazing. It integrates seamlessly with Spring MVC. We don't need to hack in HTML directly which I consider more of an advantage than a disadvantage: no more writing tags, no more open/close tag issues, you can still use css and Ext handles any browser incompatibilities so what else do you need more?? Angular is just the new kid on the block but in total it can not (yet) compete with ExtJS. It doesn't even com close. Just my 2$.
Sencha is planning to add support in the framework. Please find the link at the bottom for reference:
At SenchaCon in Las Vegas on November 7-9 2016, Sencha will be introducing the ability to use Ext JS components, layouts, and themes within an Angular 2 application, which we are currently calling the Ext JS Bridge to Angular 2 (also known as ‘The Bridge’).
https://www.sencha.com/blog/first-look-ext-js-bridge-to-angular-2/

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