Angular Developer: JavaScript to TypeScript

Chris Shatrov Angular, Articles, JavaScript, React, TypeScript 1 Comment

New JavaScript frameworks and libraries are created every day. This generates a dilemma: which solution should we use when starting a project?

My web development experience over the last few years has mainly included the AngularJS and Backbone.js frameworks. Angular, jQuery and traditional JavaScript have been in my comfort zone. When I ended up being face-to-face with TypeScript, it felt new, scary, and pretty confusing. I want to make that transition easier for you!

The goal of this post is to provide you an understanding of TypeScript, particularly when you come from an Angular web development background. To do so, we will first give an introduction to TypeScript. We will then discuss the differences between the different versions of Angular & Angular vs. React, with an eye for what you need to know to understand the JavaScript tooling landscape TypeScript plays in. And, lastly, weโ€™ll go through a tangible TypeScript example for a look into syntax & structure.

The Joy of Forms with React and Formik

Mat Warger Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, React, Tutorial 9 Comments

React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. That’s it. It’s a way to use JavaScript to define UI elements based on user-defined properties and internal state.

It has a clean, functional style. You can create simple components that compose very well into larger components, which you can then use to compose pages and entire applications. This simple composability is one of the main reasons I enjoy working with it.

But, it is not an application framework. It doesn’t pretend to be. This can be useful when all you want is some quick UI. But, as the application grows, you will need to depend on outside libraries for things like state-management, routing, and forms.

In this article, learn how to handle form input with React, from basic form input using simple state through advanced form components using Formik….

Getting to Know Custom CSS Properties

Lawrence Chabela Articles, CSS & HTML, Development Technologies & Tools 1 Comment

CSS custom properties are very powerful way for you to spice up your style sheets. They are a way to separate JavaScript behavior and styling, as shown in the ability to set information in the JavaScript for the CSS to use for its styling.

Even if you’re using a preprocessor for your CSS, there is still a place for CSS custom properties to be directly embedded in your CSS.

In this blog: we introduce custom CSS properties, show why you want to use them, how to define them, and how to change them with and without JavaScript.

An Example Progressive Web App on Android

RJ Dela-Cruz Angular, Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, Mobile 6 Comments

In my experience, the best way to learn a new technology is to create something tangible with it. I recently sought out to learn Angular and Angular Material. So, I developed an experimental Angular app that uses omdbapi to query Movie Posters. It’s aptly named Movie Poster Finder.

Developing the Movie Poster Finder application, I ran into a thing called PWA, which is also known as Progressive Web Applications. I thought it was really neat that both Android and mobile Chrome treat them as native applications.

In this post, I will show an example Progressive Web Application in action, explaining what I encountered when turning an experimental Angular web application into a PWA.

A Conversation About Conversations

David Pitt Articles, Conversational Apps, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, Keyhole Creations, Mobile, Node.js, React Leave a Comment

We created a platform that supports developing a โ€œconversationalโ€ type application through SMS. The user experience between a user and an SMS application can be thought of as a conversation. A user texts a question or topic, and a reply is returned, then another question and reply is performed until a desired result is accomplished.

Now, this is not a universal user experience, but for many use cases it can provide an easy to deliver users functionality quickly and conveniently. There is no need to install or download apps, or pop open a browser and type in a URL; just have a conversation through your texting app.

In this blog: Why conversational applications are handy, examples of conversational applications we have created, and a walkthrough of the application architecture used to develop those SMS applications. Includes how to make texting a richer experience, state, and session handling insights.