What is Angular Material? A Brief Introduction

In the domain of Web Development, it's vital to keep abreast of all the new tools and libraries that make our work easier and more efficient. One such prevalent tool in Web Development is Angular, which has several tools meant to integrate with it – one of which is Angular Material. In this blog, we will provide a brief introduction to Angular Material, as well as its key features and the benefits it provides. 

Table of Contents 

1) What is Angular Material? 

2) Key features of Angular Material 

    a) Pre-built themes 

    b) UI component library 

    c) Compatibility 

    d) Accessibility 

    e) Internationalisation 

    f) Responsive layout 

   g) Performance 

   h) Integration with Angular 

3) Benefits of using Angular Material  

4) Conclusion 

What is Angular Material?  

Before we delve into what is Angular Material, let's briefly explore what Angular is. Angular is a widely used platform for building web applications. Developed by Google, it's a complete rewrite of AngularJS and is now among the most popular JavaScript frameworks. Angular allows developers to create complex, robust, and highly scalable web applications.  

Angular Material is a User Interface (UI) component library for Angular Developers. It's built by the Angular team to integrate seamlessly with Angular. Angular Material implements Google's Material Design specifications, providing over 30 UI components that help you build attractive and functional web pages and web applications while following modern web design principles. 

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Key features of Angular Material  

This section of the blog will expand on the key features of Angular Material.

Pre-built themes  

Angular Material provides several pre-built themes that follow the Material Design guidelines. These themes are not just about colours but also typography, shadows, shapes and animations. Each theme includes three palettes — primary, accent, and warn — each of which can be fully customised.  

This feature can save countless hours for developers, enabling them to focus on implementing functionality instead of worrying about consistent design elements. Additionally, Angular Material provides the ability to create custom themes, offering further flexibility in design. 

UI component library  

One of the core strengths of Angular Material is its comprehensive UI component library. It offers a set of reusable, well-tested, as well as accessible UI components based on Material Design. From navigation menus, toolbars, pop-up modals, and progress spinners to form controls and data tables, all these components have been built to handle most of the scenarios developers come across. Furthermore, these components are designed to work out-of-the-box with different Angular functionalities such as forms, animation, and Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (ARIA) support. 

Compatibility  

Angular Material ensures your application looks and behaves consistently across all major browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple's Safari. This feature can be crucial as browser inconsistencies can create significant headaches for developers. By taking care of these problems, Angular Material provides more time for developers to focus on building the actual functionality of their applications. 

Accessibility  

Accessibility in Web Development implies making web content available and user-friendly for people with disabilities. Angular Material's components are designed with accessibility in mind. They support ARIA attributes and include features like focus indicators, keyboard navigation, and high-contrast themes, making sure your application is accessible to as wide an audience as possible. 

Internationalisation  

As businesses become more global, applications must cater to users from different parts of the world, speaking different languages and following different date-time formats. Angular Material supports bidirectional text for languages read from right to left (like Arabic and Hebrew). Additionally, Angular Material components support localisation, meaning components that handle data and time can adapt to different locales. 

Responsive layout  

With the variety of devices available today, applications must look good and function well across different screen sizes. Angular Material uses a flexible grid-based layout system that adapts to different screen sizes and orientations. This responsiveness ensures that your application's user interface remains consistent and functional, whether it's being viewed on a mobile phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop screen. 

Performance  

Angular Material is built for speed. The components are optimised for performance, keeping the application's load time to a minimum. This is essential for User Experience as slow load times can lead to user abandonment. Angular Material's components follow best practices such as lazy loading, which loads resources as needed rather than all at once, making the application faster and more efficient. 

Integration with Angular 

Angular Material integrates seamlessly with Angular applications. It leverages Angular's ecosystem, including features like the Angular Command Line Interface (CLI), RxJS Observables, and Angular's new HttpClient. Moreover, with the Angular Material Component Development Kit (CDK), developers can build their own components with common interaction patterns, allowing for greater customisation while still benefiting from the Angular Material's performance optimisations and accessibility features. 

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Benefits of using Angular Material   

In the domain of Web Development, libraries like Angular Material are a game-changer. Here's a deeper dive into some of the benefits that Angular Material brings to the table:

Consistency in design 

Angular Material provides a uniform and coherent design system that adheres strictly to Google's Material Design specifications. This helps to ensure consistent user experience across different parts of your application, regardless of the complexity of features or the number of developers working on the project. This uniformity extends to different platforms such as Web, Android, and iOS. Hence, users get a similar feel and experience of your application, regardless of their device or platform, resulting in improved user experience and satisfaction. 

Improved developer efficiency 

With Angular Material, developers can access various pre-built components and themes, drastically reducing the time needed to develop and design custom UI components from scratch. This allows developers to focus on crafting business logic, implementing unique features, and improving the application's functionality. Angular Material promotes productivity and faster development cycles by freeing up developer time and reducing complexity. 

Robust and scalable 

Angular Material components are designed for scalability and robustness. They are built to be performant and efficient, meaning they can handle complex operations and heavy loads without compromising performance. For instance, Angular Material's data table has sorting, pagination, and filtering built-in, which can be complex features to implement. This makes your application ready for growth, capable of handling increasing user loads, and adding more complex features in the future. 

Strong community support 

Angular Material, supported by Google, benefits from an active community of developers and contributors. This strong community support is invaluable when you run into issues or bugs. It also means that the library is continually being updated and improved, with new features and components being added regularly. Additionally, numerous tutorials, guides, and other resources are available to help you get the most out of Angular Material. 

Seamless integration with Angular 

Angular Material integrates flawlessly with Angular applications built by the same team. It leverages Angular's powerful features, such as declarative templates, dependency injection, end-to-end tooling, etc., providing a holistic and streamlined development experience. This tight integration reduces compatibility issues and makes it simpler for developers to add new features and maintain the application. 

Ease of customisation 

While Angular Material comes with pre-built themes for quick and easy styling, it also provides extensive options for customisation. Developers can develop their own themes or modify pre-existing ones, allowing for unique and creative design solutions. These custom themes can still align with Material Design guidelines, ensuring your application maintains a professional look and feel. 

Accessibility support 

In today's digital world, applications must be accessible to all users, including users with disabilities. Angular Material is built with accessibility in mind, implementing best practices such as ARIA roles and properties, keyboard navigability, focus indicators, and high-contrast themes. This not only broadens your user base but also improves the overall user experience. 

Internationalisation 

As businesses become global, so does the need for applications to cater to an international audience. Angular Material's internationalisation support ensures your application can handle different languages and cultural nuances. It supports bidirectional text for languages read from right to left, and its components can adapt to different locales for date and time formats. This makes your application globally friendly, increasing its reach and usability.


 

Conclusion 

Angular Material is a powerful tool for creating engaging and consistent web applications. It might have a learning curve, especially for beginners, but the benefits it offers can be substantial. If you're an Angular Developer aiming for robust, visually pleasing, and maintainable applications, Angular Material is a library worth considering. 

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