Improving Angular Frontend – User Interface/User Experience, Routing | Full MEAN Stack Course | Angular Frontend Tutorial

In this tutorial, we will be focusing on enhancing the Angular frontend by improving the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX), as well as implementing routing in our application. We will be using the MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express, Angular, Node.js) for this full course.

Prerequisites:

• Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Familiarity with Angular framework.
• Node.js installed on your computer.

Step 1: Setup Angular Project

1. Create a new Angular project by running the following command in your terminal:

   ng new angular-frontend

2. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd angular-frontend

3. Serve the application to make sure everything is running correctly:

   ng serve

Step 2: Enhancing UI/UX

1. Install Angular Material:

   ng add @angular/material

2. Follow the instructions to choose a theme and set up Angular Material in your project.
3. Update your app module to import the necessary Angular Material modules:

   import {MatButtonModule, MatIconModule} from '@angular/material';
   ...
   imports: [
   ...,
   MatButtonModule,
   MatIconModule
   ]

4. Create a new component for your UI elements (e.g., navigation bar, buttons, icons) and use Angular Material components to style them.

Step 3: Implementing Routing

1. Generate new components for the different pages of your application:

   ng generate component home
   ng generate component about
   ng generate component contact

2. Update the routing module to define the routes for each component:

   const routes: Routes = [
   { path: 'home', component: HomeComponent },
   { path: 'about', component: AboutComponent },
   { path: 'contact', component: ContactComponent },
   { path: '', redirectTo: '/home', pathMatch: 'full' },
   { path: '**', component: PageNotFoundComponent }
   ];

3. Add router-outlet directive in your app component to render the different components based on the route:

   <router-outlet></router-outlet>

4. Add navigation links to navigate between the different pages:

   <nav>
   <a routerLink="/home">Home</a>
   <a routerLink="/about">About</a>
   <a routerLink="/contact">Contact</a>
   </nav>

Step 4: Enhancements and Additional Features

1. Implement lazy loading for your routes to improve performance:

   const routes: Routes = [
   { path: 'home', loadChildren: () => import('./home/home.module').then(m => m.HomeModule) },
   { path: 'about', loadChildren: () => import('./about/about.module').then(m => m.AboutModule) },
   { path: 'contact', loadChildren: () => import('./contact/contact.module').then(m => m.ContactModule) }
   ]

2. Use Angular animations to add more interactivity to your UI:

   import { trigger, state, style, animate, transition } from '@angular/animations';
   ...
   @Component({
   selector: 'app-home',
   templateUrl: './home.component.html',
   styleUrls: ['./home.component.css'],
   animations: [
   trigger('fadeInOut', [
     state('void', style({ opacity: 0 })),
     transition('void <=> *', animate(1000)),
   ])
   ]
   })

Step 5: Testing and Deployment

1. Test your application locally by running:

   ng serve

2. Once you are satisfied with your frontend enhancements, build the application for deployment:

   ng build --prod

3. Deploy your application to a hosting service like Heroku, Netlify, or Vercel.

Congratulations! You have successfully enhanced your Angular frontend by improving the UI/UX and implementing routing in your application. You can now continue to add more features and functionalities to make your application even more dynamic and engaging. Happy coding!