Angular

5 Angular Component Libraries to Use Today

Published Feb 24, 2022

Updated Feb 13, 2023

3 min read

This article was written over 18 months ago and may contain information that is out of date. Some content may be relevant but please refer to the relevant official documentation or available resources for the latest information.

As a Google Developer Expert in Angular, I’ve enjoyed an amazing relationship with the Angular Core Team over the years, and have appreciated the chances I’ve had to collaborate with the team on some amazing events, including semi-annual State of Angular events and so many more.

2022 is gearing up to be a fantastic year for the Angular team, including plans to integrate Strictly Typed Reactive Forms and Standalone Components. Beyond this, in a recent conversation that Core Team Member Mark Thompson had with the Modern Web Podcast, he expressed the team’s unequivocal support for third-party and community tools for supercharging the Angular framework to best serve developers. What will you build to help this reality in 2022??

One of the best supported and most popular classes of third party tools include Component Libraries, which are UI and UX design elements which can be used to simplify both the individual and collaborative developer experience.

But with all of the available products, it’s hard to know what Component Libraries are the best in which to invest your time in the coming year.

Below, I’ve compiled five well-supported Angular tools that developers can integrate into their builds today!

NGXS

NGXS is a state management library released in 2018 that is optimal for applications that rely on complex data structures by creating a predictable flow of data rooted in a global data store.

Because it is built using TypeScript features, it takes advantage of features including classes and decorators and reduces the need for boilerplates common within state management solutions, allowing developers to use components to interact directly with the store using Actions.

NGX- Bootstrap

NGX-Bootstrap is an open source library brought to the community by the team at Valor Software, and allows developers to quickly integrate all of the v3 through v5 Bootstrap components under Angular into their application. These components include accordions, pagination, tabs, timepickers, and much more.

The benefit of using this exciting component library is that it was built to be flexible, extensible, and optimized for modular systems, with the team also assuring users that they can expect the same degree of performance using these components across both web and mobile applications.

Ignite UI

Ignite UI is a framework agnostic JavaScript/JQuery component library, created by Infragistics, that offers components that can help developers build engaging, high performing applications in many frameworks, including Angular.

Specifically, the tool provides more than 60 components that work within the Angular framework, using Angular Material based native components, and are optimized for use in enterprise applications.

Kendo UI for Angular

Kendo UI for Angular by Telerik seeks to be the only component library a developer would ever need to build high performing web and applications, providing over 100 native Angular components, and built to promote ease of development, speed, and scalability.

If you want to learn more, I highly recommend this tutorial series by my friend Alyssa Nicoll!

NG-Zorro

NG-Zorro is an open source UI component library containing over 60 Angular Components built using TypeScript to support ease of use in enterprise Angular applications.

Some of its notable features include its support of OnPush mode, and its seamless internationalization, supporting the use of dozens of written languages, allowing developers to set the language as they create their applications.

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This is not an exhaustive list, and there are so many amazing tools and libraries being built every day. Do you have any other recommendations? I’d love to hear from you!

And if you’re interested in learning more about Angular every month, check out angularmeetup.com for ongoing events and updates!

This Dot is a consultancy dedicated to guiding companies through their modernization and digital transformation journeys. Specializing in replatforming, modernizing, and launching new initiatives, we stand out by taking true ownership of your engineering projects.

We love helping teams with projects that have missed their deadlines or helping keep your strategic digital initiatives on course. Check out our case studies and our clients that trust us with their engineering.

About the author(s)

Tracy Lee
Partner, This Dot Google Developer Expert (Angular, TC39, Web) RxJS Core Team & Lead for RxJS Learning Team Contributor to Angular, RxJS, EmberJS

Key Strengths:
- Teaching developer relations strategies
- Influencer marketing
- Developing brands
- Community strategies and maintenance
- Creating product launch strategies
- Leading marketing operations efforts & standards
- Effective conference presence & speaking strategies
@ladyleet @ladyleet

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This is helpful as it reduces the burden on the developer when making their applications accessible by ensuring that user expectations concerning interaction are met, and it can also potentially simplify the implementation of dialogs in general. Basic usage Adding a dialog using the new tag can be achieved with just a few lines of code. ` However, adding the dialog alone won’t do anything to the page. It will show up only once you call the .showModal() method against it. ` Then if you want to close it you can call the .close() method on the dialog, or press the escape key to close it, just like most other modals work. Also, note how a backdrop appears that darkens the rest of the page and prevents you from interacting with it. Neat! Accessibility and focus management Correctly handling focus is important when making your web applications accessible to all users. Typically you have to move the current focus to the active dialog when showing them, but with the dialog element that’s done for you. By default, the focus will be set on the first focusable element in the dialog. You can optionally change which element receives focus first by setting the autofocus attribute on the element you want the focus to start on, as seen in the previous example where that attribute was added to the close element. Using the .showModal() method to open the dialog also implicitly adds the dialog ARIA role to the dialog element. This helps screen readers understand that a modal has appeared and the screen so it can act accordingly. Adding forms to dialogs Forms can also be added to dialogs, and there’s even a special method value for them. If you add a element with the method set to dialog then the form will have some different behaviors that differ from the standard get and post form methods. First off, no external HTTP request will be made with this new method. What will happen instead is that when the form gets submitted, the returnValue property on the form element will be set to the value of the submit button in the form. So given this example form: ` The form element with the example-form id will have its returnValue set to Submit. In addition to that, the dialog will close immediately after the submit event is done being handled, though not before automatic form validation is done. If this fails then the invalid event will be emitted. You may have already noticed one caveat to all of this. You might not want the form to close automatically when the submit handler is done running. If you perform an asynchronous request with an API or server you may want to wait for a response and show any errors that occur before dismissing the dialog. In this case, you can call event.preventDefault() in the submit event listener like so: ` Once your desired response comes back from the server, you can close it manually by using the .close() method on the dialog. Enhancing the backdrop The backdrop behind the dialog is a mostly translucent gray background by default. However, that backdrop is fully customizable using the ::backdrop pseudo-element. With it, you can set a background-color to any value you want, including gradients, images, etc. You may also want to make clicking the backdrop dismiss the modal, as this is a commonly implemented feature of them. By default, the <dialog> element doesn’t do this for us. There are a couple of changes that we can make to the dialog to get this working. First, an event listener is needed so that we know when the user clicks away from the dialog. ` Alone this event listener looks strange. It appears to dismiss the dialog whenever the dialog is clicked, not the backdrop. That’s the opposite of what we want to do. Unfortunately, you cannot listen for a click event on the backdrop as it is considered to be part of the dialog itself. Adding this event listener by itself will effectively make clicking anywhere on the page dismiss the dialog. To correct for this we need to wrap the contents of the dialog content with another element that will effectively mask the dialog and receive the click instead. A simple element can do! ` Even this isn’t perfect though as the contents of the div may have elements with margins in them that will push the div down, resulting in clicks close to the edges of the dialog to dismiss it. This can be resolved by adding a couple of styles the the wrapping div that will make the margin stay contained within the wrapper element. The dialog element itself also has some default padding that will exacerbate this issue. ` The wrapping div can be made into an inline-block element to contain the margin, and by moving the padding from the parent dialog to the wrapper, clicks made in the padded portions of the dialog will now interact with the wrapper element instead ensuring it won’t be dismissed. Conclusion Using the dialog element offers significant advantages for creating dialogs and modals by simplifying implementation with reasonable default behavior, enhancing accessibility for users that need assistive technologies such as screen readers by using automatic ARIA role assignment, tailored support for form elements, and flexible styling options....

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These internal forums not only enhance user retention but also foster a space for developers to learn from each other, creating a sense of ownership and excitement around the product. And by diverting equity to these two programs, DevRel teams find new users, retain them, and receive invaluable feedback. Real-world examples, such as Doron Sherman's work at Cloudinary and Tessa Mero's leadership at Appwrite, showcase the effectiveness of DevRel in action, and highlight how DevRel programs contribute to the success and sustainability of developer-focused products. In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, DevRel emerges not only as a bridge between developers and organizations, but as a crucial driver of innovation, ensuring products remain relevant, adaptive, and deeply integrated into the communities they serve. 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Let's innovate together!

We're ready to be your trusted technical partners in your digital innovation journey.

Whether it's modernization or custom software solutions, our team of experts can guide you through best practices and how to build scalable, performant software that lasts.

5 Angular Component Libraries to Use Today

NGXS

NGX- Bootstrap

Ignite UI

Kendo UI for Angular

NG-Zorro

Tracy Lee

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