How To Replace Jquery With Angular

For many years, jQuery has been a go-to solution for developers to handle DOM manipulation, animations, and AJAX requests. However, as modern web development evolves, frameworks like Angular have gained popularity because they provide more structure and better practices to build scalable applications. In this blog post, we will show you how to replace jQuery with Angular in your projects.

1. Setting up your Angular project

Before diving into code changes, make sure you have the Angular CLI installed globally on your machine:

npm install -g @angular/cli

Create a new Angular project by running the following command:

ng new my-angular-app

Once the project is created, navigate to the project folder and run the development server:

cd my-angular-app
ng serve

2. Replacing DOM manipulation with Angular Components and Directives

In jQuery, you may use selectors and manipulation methods to change the DOM. In Angular, you should create components for each part of the UI and use directives to apply custom behavior. Let’s take a look at an example:

Suppose you have the following jQuery code for a simple accordion:

$(".accordion-header").click(function() {
  $(this).toggleClass("active");
  $(this).next().slideToggle();
});

In Angular, first create a new component by running:

ng generate component accordion

Then, replace the jQuery code with the following Angular code in the app.component.html file:

<app-accordion></app-accordion>

In the accordion.component.html file, add the following markup:

<div class="accordion-header" (click)="toggleAccordion()" [class.active]="isActive">
  Accordion Header
</div>
<div class="accordion-content" [style.display]="isActive ? 'block' : 'none'">
  Accordion Content
</div>

In the accordion.component.ts file, add the following code:

isActive = false;

toggleAccordion() {
  this.isActive = !this.isActive;
}

This code replaces the jQuery functionality with an Angular component and a click event listener.

3. Replacing jQuery AJAX with Angular HttpClient

Instead of using jQuery’s $.ajax function, you can use Angular’s HttpClient to make HTTP requests. First, import the HttpClientModule in your AppModule:

import { HttpClientModule } from '@angular/common/http';

Add HttpClientModule to the imports array in the AppModule:

@NgModule({
  ...
  imports: [
    BrowserModule,
    HttpClientModule
  ],
  ...
})

Now, you can use HttpClient to replace your jQuery AJAX calls. For example, replace the following jQuery AJAX call:

$.ajax({
  url: "https://api.example.com/data",
  method: "GET",
  success: function(data) {
    console.log(data);
  }
});

With the following Angular code in your component:

import { HttpClient } from '@angular/common/http';

constructor(private httpClient: HttpClient) {}

ngOnInit() {
  this.httpClient.get('https://api.example.com/data').subscribe(data => {
    console.log(data);
  });
}

Conclusion

Migrating from jQuery to Angular may seem like a big task, but with some simple changes, you can replace most jQuery features with Angular’s powerful tools. This guide has shown you how to replace jQuery’s DOM manipulation and AJAX calls with Angular components, directives, and HttpClient. Happy coding!