In this post, we will learn:
- What is Angular?
- What are Single Page Applications (SPA’s)?
- What are the prerequisites to create an angular application?
- What is NodeJS and Node Package Manager (npm)?
- What is Angular CLI?
What is Angular?
Angular is a framework developed by Google to design frontend applications. The Angular converts the complete application into a single-page application (SPA). The main advantage of single-page applications (SPA’s) is that the user can access different components and pages without reloading the website. Moreover, Angular application is bundled into a single HTML, CSS and JavaScript file, which greatly improves the overall performance of the application.
Prerequisites
We need NodeJS and Angular CLI to create an angular application.
- NodeJS
- Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript runtime environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a web browser
- Node.js provides a package manager (npm) to install libraries and packages
- We will use Node Package Manager (npm) to install Angular CLI on our computer
- To download and install the latest stable version of node.js, visit the official website https://nodejs.org/
- Angular CLI
- Angular CLI or Command Line Interface is a command-line tool for creating angular applications
- To install Angular CLI:
- Click ‘Start Menu’
- Type ‘cmd’ and open ‘Command Prompt’ as an administrator
- Type the command: npm install -g @angular/cli. This command will install Angular CLI globally on your computer which means that we can run Angular commands from any directory on our computer.
Verification
To verify that node.js and Angular CLI are installed correctly:
- Click ‘Start Menu’
- Type ‘cmd’ and open ‘Command Prompt’ as an administrator
- To check if NodeJS is installed, run the command node –version in the command prompt
- To check if Angular CLI is installed, run the command: ng –version in the command prompt
If node.js and Angular CLI are installed correctly, then we are all set to create our very first Angular project. In the next tutorial, we will learn how to create an Angular application using Angular CLI.