Top 10 Tools Used In Angular Js Development

2020 has been a tough year for all businesses. The Covid pandemic at its peak this year has pushed small as well as large businesses to rely on e-Commerce and online sales to maintain their revenues. This has made web-based as well as mobile applications the need of the hour. And predictably, exponential growth in the web development company and mobile development sector has been seen. According to reports, the Covid pandemic has generated a shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by many folds. Malls and departmental stores have seen a significant decline in their business which is predominantly based on foot fall. During the first quarter of 2020, sales at department stores and other retailers declined by 25%. And in the rest of the year, it declined roughly by a further 75%. In this era of high digital demand, most tech gurus and software specialists will suggest you use AngularJS to meet your web development requirements. 

According to Wikipedia "AngularJS is a JavaScript-based open-source front-end web framework mainly maintained by Google and by a community of individuals and corporations to address many of the challenges encountered in developing single-page applications. It aims to simplify both the development and the testing of such applications by providing a framework for client-side model–view–controller (MVC) and model–view–view-model (MVVM) architectures, along with components commonly used in web applications and progressive web applications." (Wikipedia, 2021) The main reason to have AngularJS for your dynamic web app development is its power-packed advantages, like:

• It is an efficient framework that is able to create Rich Internet Applications (RIA).
• It provides developers with an option to write client-side applications by using JavaScript in a clean Model View Controller (MVC) way.
• Applications which are written in AngularJS are cross-browser compliant. AngularJS thus automatically handles the JavaScript code suitable for every single browser.
• As AngularJS is open-source and completely free is being used by thousands of angular developers around the globe. AngularJS is licensed under version 2.0. Apache license 
• Overall, AngularJS is an efficient framework to build large scale with high-performance, as well as easy-to-maintain web applications.

With features like:

• Data Binding
• Scope 
• Controller 
• Services
• Filters 
• Directives Templates
• Routing
• Model View Whatever
• Deep Linking
• Dependency Injection

AngularJS is the go-to technology for your online presence.  If you are employing a web development team or you are a web developer who has a vision for the future. Google's AngularJS is the tool you need.   

Top AngularJS development tools

The development process for AngularJS is undoubtedly controlled by the tools it requires. Following are a few:

Visual Studio Code

One of the most used AngularJS development tools in Visual Studio Code. This tool has been created by Microsoft for the most used platform Windows, macOS, and Linux. It has an intelligent editor, it is one of the fastest AngularJS development tools. With features like: 

• IntelliSense offers smart completions of imported modules, function definitions, and variable types.
• It has a built-in GUI for GIT making it easy to see the changes done in the project.
• The special Peek Function opens up into an inline window giving a full view of the definition of the function.
• It is completely free and open source.

It is well placed to be the first thought for a tool in the AngularJS development tools set. Coming to its Pros:

• It has a Multi-OS Support i.e. it can run on Windows, macOS, and Linux
• It is free to use
• There is proactive support for the plug-ins
• An open-source platform

Nothing is without Cons so is Visual Studio Code:   

The debugging process of Visual Studio Code is quite in-efficient compared to other AngularJS development tools

Sublime Text

Most AngularJS developers consider Sublime Text as the best among AngularJS development tools.  It comes with several packages and customization options making it easy to work with. With features like: 

• "Goto Definition" that provide information by hovering over the code
• "Goto Anything" that makes it easy to jump to code, or lines
• Developer can change multiple lines or variables all at once using the Multiple Selections feature 
• sort properties in alphabetical order using the  CSS sorting feature 

It is the second most sought-after AngularJS development tool. Coming to its Pros:

• It has a wide range of plug-ins.
• Developers can work efficiently on multiple projects
• Can keep the platform lightweight through full customization 
• Easy file switching

Nothing is without Cons so is Visual Studio Code: 

• It is a proprietary framework

Aptana Studio

The third among the league of AngularJS development tools is Aptana Studio. It is a JavaScript development tool. Initially designed for fast development of Javascript based websites. Based on Eclipse, it is a flexible and efficient integrated environment benefits of AngularJS development.   With features like: 

• Git integration for better source code management
• Support for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript along with PHP, Ruby etc.
• Having a built-in debugger improving debugging activities
• Having a tree-based code browser

It is an important AngularJS development tool. Coming to its Pros:

• It has a built-in terminal making it easy to run common commands while coding
• It has a code assist feature
• It supports in authoring with HTML5
• It has a development wizard to work on  protocols such as FTP, SFTP among others

Aptana Studio has its share of Cons as well: 

• It may be unstable at times
• Very little support  in case of complex projects

Mocha.JS

Mocha.js is one of the top 10 AngularJS development tools. It is a testing framework that comes packed with features meant for asynchronous testing.  Best suited for AngularJS developers who are at the beginner’s level. With features like: 

• JavaScript API to be used for testing
• Features supporting asynchronous testing,
• Having a wide and varied range of code reporters

It is a really good tool. Coming to its Pros:

• It is a flexible, an optimum tool for reporting tests 
• It is compatible with most of the browsers in the market
• Has an easy to provide support to its generators
• Very much useful for TDD (Test-driven development) 
• For BDD (Behavior-driven development) it is a well-suited tool.

Mocha.js has its share of cons as well: 

• It is not at all easy to run random tests in Mocha.js
• It requires assertion libraries, not an easy thing for novice developers.
• Requires mocking utilities.

Webstorm

Another great tool among AngularJS development tools is Webstorm. It offers a great set of intelligent coding options. Having a great navigation tool and also great error-detecting features. With features like: 

• Having coding assistance features for different scripting languages
• Has a highly efficient debugging feature. 
• An efficient testing and tracing feature 
• A very good profiling feature
• has the ability to run JSLint, ESLint, TSLint , Stylelint, JSCS and JSHint 
• Has a great customization feature.

It is really a very good tool. Coming to its Pros:

• Has the great feature of cohesive work the removes the need for scrolling
• Has a built-in spellings checker that avoid silly mistakes
• Has a multilingual coding assistance
• Has an intelligent code completion feature having word expansion and structural completion

Webstorm has its share of Cons as well: 

• It is not an open source development tool so it cannot be shared freely
• Opening multiple projects in a single go is problematic.

Karma

Another great tool among AngularJS development tools is Karma. It is one of the most widely used tools for AngularJS. You can code on phones and even tablets using Karma along with laptops and desktops.   With features like: 

• Developers can work very efficiently with all types of browsers using Karma.
• Karma offers test coding in multiple browsers
• Has an open-source community in GitHub
• It is very easy to integrate with Jenkins, Travis,  and Semaphore

Coming to its Pros:

• It has powerful testing functions that work across several browsers
• It is a very efficient framework that has a command line and a great IDE
• It is an open-source platform that has some great plug-ins 

Karma has its share of Cons as well: 

• Developers need to have Node.JS installed in their system
• It has a significantly slower testing performance compared to other tools.

Angular Fire

Another great tool among AngularJS development tools is Angular Fire. It is basically a backend development tool.  It facilitates dynamic API features, 3-way data binding. It has a superior development capacity. With features like: 

• Automatic data storage for offline use
• Has a synchronized real-time binding
• Easy management of binary data files such as images, videos, and blobs
• has the official support of AngularJS binding for Firebase

Coming to its Pros:

• It has a very flexible and a very dynamic API
• Provides a real-time data synchronization
• Has a great developer experience

Angular Fire has its share of cons as well: 

• It has a very nominal documentation feature

Protractor

Another great tool among AngularJS development tools is Protractor. It is an open-source framework, which has an automatic and interactive framework that enables and facilitates superior app development. It has this great feature that combines several technologies such as Cucumber, Mocha, Jasmine, and Selenium. With features like: 

• Having a great end-to-end testing facility
• Has an automatic syncing feature for web pages and tests
• It offers testing on real browsers as well

Coming to its Pros:

• It is great with angular and also non-angular apps
• It is very easy to set up
• It has a superb speedy testing feature that gets rid of unnecessary “sleep” and “wait” time
• It can be used to run on real as well as headless browsers

Protractor has its share of cons as well: 

• There may be lagging in debugging features for certain projects
• Developers need to have a good knowledge of Selenium in order to use APIs.

Angular IDE

Another great tool among AngularJS development tools is Angular IDE. It is considered a great IDE tool for beginners and also experts. It is developed by CodeMix, this development tool has several unique features. With features like : 

• Having a syntax-aware IDE.
• Has a source coloring feature, 
• Has a real-time validation feature, 
• Has auto-completion of code features.
• Has a unique HTML template IntelliSense feature that allows auto-completion of codes and detecting wrongly defined tags.
• Has a superb auto-completion of code feature
• It has a block and full-formatting settings along with advanced settings

Coming to its Pros :

• Angular IDE  has superb support through Live Chat from its developers CodeMix.
• Has a super enhanced CLI integrated for a seamless working experience
• Angular IDE  can be used in tandem with Eclipse plug-ins
• It is a great tool for beginners

Protractor has its share of Cons as well : 

• It is a proprietary product with subscription pricing.

Djangular

Another great tool among AngularJS development tools is Djangular. It uses Django and the Angular framework for an easy creation of content for different projects.  With features like : 

• Facilitating easy app integration with better flexibility.
• Having a namespacing of content feature according to the Django app
• A very flexible framework having all necessary components

Coming to its Pros :

• It has a very good security feature that comes with CSRF protection
• It is a reusable app and hence can be used more than once
• Facilitates developing project-specific content
• Open source product and so easily available

Protractor has its share of cons as well : 

• It is a very difficult tool for beginners to learn.

To conclude

Technology is all about upgrading and staying updated. With the ever-evolving technology trends; while you are hiring AngularJS developers to develop your next website; consider how much they are aware of these AngularJS development tools. Also, if you plan to train your web development team, you may want to focus on these tools.