While AngularJS applications are incredible, you may decide to migrate from AngularJS to Angular. Before attempting such migration, you should confirm the effort it would take and the built-in tools and decide if it will be worthwhile.

Let’s explore how to migrate from Angular.JS to Angular.

AngularJS to Angular Migration Plan

To successfully upgrade AngularJS service to Angular, you should perform the upgrade incrementally, running both programs side by side within an application. You need to align AngularJS with the Angular framework and decouple the code (break the code into segmented pieces).

Prepare

When structuring the AngularJS application for the first time, you may use any techniques we will explore; you may soon realize that some techniques may work better than others. Observing a technique’s behavior can determine when a technique or a process will lead to a faster and more efficient upgrade.

Follow the AngularJS Style Guide

Over the years, the AngularJS style guide has gathered techniques and processes to maintain a clean code within the framework. If you want to upgrade using the style guide, you should follow what to do, but most importantly, check what should not be done and avoid such techniques.

While the AngularJS style guide is an excellent resource, remember that Angular offers a lot more than clean code, and there are other migration options. For example, you can use the upgrade/static module and achieve the same results — or even better.

Follow the Rules

One Component Per File Rule

You should operate just a component within a file and not multiples. Remember that Angular simplifies and de-clogs the coding structure of AngularJS. Putting only a component in a file ensures that each component, controller, service, and filter is contained within its source file. It makes the components easy to navigate, helping you navigate from one component to the other one at a time.

Folder-by-Feature Structure Modularity

With this modularity, you place different parts of an application in different directories and NgModules.

Use a Module Loader

Structuring application codes into different components per file break your code into smaller files, irrespective of the application code’s size. It’s vital to break complex projects into smaller and simpler units using a module loader like SystemJS, Browserify, or Webpack gives you access to the built-in module system of Typescript.

Why People Welcome Moving from AngularJS to Angular

Lazy Scripting: Unlike AngularJS, Angular loads modules per need, making applications lightweight and offering faster downloads.

Architecture: Angular uses MVC—model-view-controller instead of AngularJS’s scope and controller. MVC’s architecture allows the reuse of elements, enhancing the system’s capacity to instill a dynamic user interface. MVC also improves the maintenance and testing of different elements while in use.

Structure: While AngularJS was flexible, its non-component structure made it quite challenging to exchange data or maintain larger applications. Angular’s structure is component-based; the framework is divided into specific components, achieved through clean coding, allowing developers to work seamlessly on large applications.

Language: Angular has the type-checking feature from the TypeScript language. With AngularJS, the absence of type-checking resulted in developers missing errors in compile-time checking. Typescript and Javascript have backward compatibility, allowing coders to spot errors early in the project, ultimately reducing application building time and effort.

Material Design: When Google introduced its Material Design Specification in 2014, it greatly enhanced responsive design but was limited to Angular JS 1.x. version. Today, Angular’s Angular Material helps developers implement an even more responsive design that is more flexible and has better functionality than the Material Design Specification.

Tooling Support: Angular’s CLI, Command-Line-Interface, shortens the time-to-market of applications, while AngularJS’s reliance on third-party tools like Webstorm increases the time it takes to create applications.

Mobile Browser Support: Developers can use AngularJS to build web pages; however, they would lack complete mobile functionality. However, the Angular framework supports mobile browsers and devices. While Angular has cross-platform capacities, you can also use the framework to build native mobile applications.

Moving from AngularJS to Angular takes specific processes, and if you are trying to run it on your application, it might be best to hire specific AngularJS to Angular programmers. However, following the Angular style guide is an excellent place to start if you want to self-achieve it.