Angular Material – Backend server using Node JS Typescript

Angular Material is a popular design framework for building responsive and beautiful web applications. It provides a set of reusable UI components based on the Material Design guidelines from Google. In this article, we will explore how to set up a backend server using Node JS and Typescript to support an Angular Material frontend application.

Setting up Node JS and Typescript

Node JS is a runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript on the server side. Typescript is a superset of JavaScript that adds static types and other features to the language. To start, you will need to have Node JS and Typescript installed on your machine. You can install Node JS from the official website and Typescript using npm by running the following command:

        
            npm install -g typescript
        
    

Creating a backend server

Once you have Node JS and Typescript installed, you can create a new folder for your backend server and initialize a new Node JS project by running the following commands in your terminal:

        
            mkdir backend-server
            cd backend-server
            npm init -y
            tsc --init
        
    

This will create a new folder for your backend server, initialize a new Node JS project, and create a default configuration file for Typescript. Now you can create a new file called server.ts and start writing your server code.

Writing the server code

In your server.ts file, you can use the express framework to create a new HTTP server and define your API endpoints. Here’s an example of how you can create a simple server that listens on port 3000 and responds with a message when a client makes a request:

        
            import express, { Request, Response } from 'express';

            const app = express();

            app.get('/', (req: Request, res: Response) => {
                res.send('Hello, world!');
            });

            app.listen(3000, () => {
                console.log('Server is running on port 3000');
            });
        
    

Compiling and running the server

After writing your server code in Typescript, you can compile it to regular JavaScript using the Typescript compiler. To do this, you can run the following command in your terminal:

        
            tsc
        
    

This will generate a new server.js file in the same directory as your server.ts file. You can then run your server by executing the following command in your terminal:

        
            node server.js
        
    

Conclusion

In this article, we have explored how to set up a backend server using Node JS and Typescript to support an Angular Material frontend application. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can create a robust and scalable backend server that provides the necessary data and services for your Angular Material frontend application.