Angular

Ignite your way with Infragistics Ultimate Developer Toolkit

Published Oct 31, 2019

Updated Feb 14, 2023

11 min read

This article was written over 18 months ago and may contain information that is out of date. Some content may be relevant but please refer to the relevant official documentation or available resources for the latest information.

Infragistics is celebrating its 30th anniversary! Throughout the years, Infragistics built its strategy around two strong pillars: embracing the latest and greatest technologies, and focusing on high-performance and speed. These main pillars enriched developers, and their communities, with toolsets that made development enjoyable, and productive at the same time.

Infragistics presents the Ultimate suite as a single platform for UX design, and enterprise app development, for the web, desktop, and mobile. The suite offers more than 100 beautifully styled, high-performance grids, charts, and other UI controls.

Infragistics thought of every detail in the development life-cycle process. They offer prototyping tools to help you sketch your designs from the client’s early inception stage, allowing you to work on the UX, finalize the layout, and even orient the developer to build the final app.

In this introductory article on their Ignite UI suite, I will explore the different platforms supported by Infragistics, and will then delve into more details on the Ignite UI for Angular suite.

Infragistics Ultimate Developer Toolkit

Infragistics provides UI components for a variety of frameworks and platforms. This includes ones for the Web (ASP.NET, Angular, React and JavaScript), Desktop (Windows Forms and WPF), and Mobile (Xamarin, iOS and Android).

The components are served in packages. For instance, when developing with React, you would only install the packages for Ignite for React.

Here’s a list of the supported platforms and their corresponding components.

Web

Indigo Design A unified workspace for visual design, UX prototyping, and code generation for Angular development.

Ignite UI for Angular Infragistics wraps together more than 50 Material-based UI native components, designed, and built on an Angular platform.

Ignite UI for React A set of native UI components for React developers, featuring a high-performance data grid, and real-time high-volume data charts.

Ignite UI for JavaScript This package offers more than 100 HTML5 / JavaScript jQuery components with wrappers for React, Angular & ASP.NET MVC.

Infragistics Ultimate UI for ASP.NET ASP.NET AJAX UI controls.

Desktop

Infragistics Ultimate UI for Windows Forms This package contains more than 100 fully-featured Microsoft Office-style UI controls.

Infragistics Ultimate UI for WPF This package contains WPF native UI controls.

Mobile

Infragistics Ultimate UI for Xamarin This package contains Xamarin native UI components including Charts, Grid, Scheduling, and much more.

Infragistics Ultimate UI for iOS This package contains native UI controls for both iPad and iPhone apps.

Infragistics Ultimate UI for Android This package contains lightning-fast native UI controls for Android apps.

Prototyping

Infragistics offers the Indigo.Design Desktop to build prototypes for User Stories to share with peers for review, and collaboration. This software comes in two flavors for both Windows and Mac OS machines. Here’s a link to the software’s official documentation.

In addition to all the packages listed, Infragistics puts great effort in delivering an easy-to-follow, and extensive documentation for all their platforms, and UI components. You can consult the document anytime by visiting the Infragistics Help documentation website.

Also, Infragistics offers a set of reference apps that you can look at, take ideas from, and that allow you to see, in real-time, how the UI components are being used and integrated inside apps. You can have a look at the reference apps by visiting the Infragistics Apps Gallery website.

Ignite UI for Angular

Infragistics has placed a great emphasis on developing their Angular suite. They offer native UI components for Angular that are based on the Google Material design standards. In addition, they enrich the Angular app development with a unique, and valuable experience, by offering the Sketch UI kits.

The Sketch UI kits have a one-to-one mapping with all the Angular components they offer. The designer opens Sketch, loads the Sketch UI kits, and then designs the app screens, using “native” Ignite UI for Angular components. The end result is a prototype that is uploaded to the Infragistics Cloud, and shared with peer developers, designers, and stakeholders to review, comment on, and use to produce a final design prototype.

The developers can then take prototype URLs, go to Visual Studio Code per se, install the Infragistics extension, and generate code assets for their Angular app, based on the prototype. The extension generates Angular Components based on the screens baked inside the prototype.

The Ignite UI for Angular suite aims to help developers build modern, high-performance HTML 5 JavaScript apps for modern desktop browsers, mobile experiences, and progressive web apps (PWA).

Prerequisites

Before you can start using Ignite for Angular, you must have the following installed on your machine:

Visual Studio Code (VS Code). You can use any other code editor, but in order to make full use of the rich support Infragistics offers for Angular development, it is recommended that you use VS Code.
Node.js and NPM. This requirement is standard for developing front-ends using Angular, React, Vue and even vanilla JavaScript.

Ignite UI CLI

Infragistics takes that extra step, and offers the Ignite UI CLI. This is a Command-Line Interface by Ingratistics.

The easiest way to create, and scaffold an app with Infragistics, is to use the CLI. This CLI is not only used with Angular, but can also be used for React and jQuery apps.

Here’s a step by step guide on how to generate your first app using the Ignite UI CLI.

You start by installing the Ignite UI CLI as a global dependency on your machine by issuing the following command:

npm install -g igniteui-cli

Once the installation process is finished, you can start the tool using either guided experience or specific commands.

For instance, to create a new Angular app, you issue the command:

ig new <project name> --framework=angular --type=igx-ts

To add a new Component to your app you issue:

ig add <component/template> <component_name>

You can read more about the CLI on the Ignite UI CLI official page.

Selection of Angular Components

Going through all of the Angular components in depth now, isn't useful. I have highlighted a few that interested me, and will give you a small overview of what is offered.

Financial Chart

The Financial Chart is one of the most popular and advanced charts offered by Infragistics. This type of chart is used to visualize financial data using a simple, and intuitive API.

To play with a live Financial Chart, here’s a sample hosted on StackBlitz: {% stackblitz angular-ytbzfi %}

Data Chart

Infragistics Angular Data Chart is the most extensive, and feature-rich, chart on the web today. It supports chart compositions (multiple charts overlaid), axis, series, legend, and annotation layers. Being highly customizable, it offers many more options, and features.

Something special about this chart is the long list of series types supported by default. The list includes, but is not limited to:

An example of a Radial Series chart is as follows:

You can find the entire list here: Data Chart Series Types.

To play with a live Data Chart, here’s a sample hosted on StackBlitz: {% stackblitz angular-bv857d %}

Mask

You apply the igxMask directive on a text input field, and you can control the user input, and format the visual value, based on configurable mask rules. You have a rich set of masking rules to choose from.

To use this directive, start by importing the following Angular Modules into your app module:

// app.module.ts

...
import { IgxMaskModule, IgxInputGroupModule } from 'igniteui-angular';

@NgModule({
    ...
    imports: [..., IgxInputGroupModule, IgxMaskModule]
    ...
})
export class AppModule {}

Then you can apply an Input Mask inside your components. The example below shows how you can use a Phone Input Mask:

<igx-input-group>
    <igx-prefix>
        <igx-icon>phone</igx-icon>
    </igx-prefix>
    <label igxLabel>Phone</label>
    <input igxInput type="text" [igxMask]="'(####) 00-00-00 Ext. 9999'"/>
</igx-input-group>

If you would like to play with a live Mask component, here’s a sample hosted on StackBlitz:

{% stackblitz angular-yh3dpu %}

The Navigation Drawer is one of my favorite components. It provides a smooth and smart navigation experience for developing Web apps that will be used on Mobile devices.

The Navigation Drawer is a side-navigation container. It can rest above content, and slide in/out of view or be pinned to expand/collapse within content. The component is highly configurable via its input properties: Mode (pinned, open, mini-variant) and Position (Right and Left). The mini-variant mode renders the side-navigation bar with icons only instead of showing both the icon, and text of the item.

Installing and using this component is no different from the rest of component offered by Ignite for Angular.

To play with a live Navigation Drawer component, here’s a sample hosted on StackBlitz: {% stackblitz angular-rsizth %}

Layout Manager

The Layout Manager directive, which is part of Ignite UI for Angular, is a wrapper on-top of Flexbox. You can organize and structure your HTML markup without having to write a single CSS selector for the layout.

The Layout Manager focuses on giving Angular developers a seamless design experience when developing, and laying out their apps.

To use this directive, start by importing the IgxLayoutModule Angular Module into your app module:

// app.module.ts

...
import { IgxLayoutModule } from 'igniteui-angular';

@NgModule({
    ...
    imports: [..., IgxLayoutModule ]
    ...
})
export class AppModule {}

Then you can apply the igxLayout, igxFlex, and other related directives to your HTML markup as follows:

<div class="layout-box" igxLayout igxLayoutDir="row">
              <div class="layout-box__el" igxFlex>1</div>
              <div class="layout-box__el" igxFlex>2</div>
              <div class="layout-box__el" igxFlex>3</div>
</div>

If you would like to play with a live Layout Manager component, here’s a sample hosted on StackBlitz: {% stackblitz angular-vtetkk %}

DataGrid

Infragistics claims to have developed the fastest high performance Data Grid for Angular platform.

The Grid is, by far, the most customizable Data Grid currently existing for the Angular ecosystem. The team at Infragistics have thought of every single detail a developer might need and want to customize in a Data Grid.

The features include data binding, live data binding (data streaming), editing, row editing, paging, filtering, advanced filtering, sorting, grouping, column moving, column pinning, column resizing, column hiding, searching, toolbar, multi-column header, exporting to Excel, pasting from Excel, and so much more.

You are in the presence of the Infragistics version of Excel Spreadsheets!

Importing and using the Data Grid cannot be simpler!

Start by importing the IgxGridModule Angular Module to the app module:

// app.module.ts

import { IgxGridModule } from 'igniteui-angular';
// Or
import { IgxGridModule } from 'igniteui-angular/grid';

@NgModule({
    imports: [
        ...
        IgxGridModule.forRoot(),
        ...
    ]
})
export class AppModule {}

To embed a Data Grid inside the HTML markup, add the following component:

<igx-grid #grid1 id="grid1" [data]="localData" [autoGenerate]="true"></igx-grid>

To reference the Data Grid from inside the Angular Component code-behind, add the following:

import { IgxGridComponent } from 'igniteui-angular/grid/';
// Or
import { IgxGridComponent } from 'igniteui-angular'
...

@ViewChild('myGrid', { read: IgxGridComponent })
public grid: IgxGridComponent;

It’s that straightforward to start using the Data Grid component for Angular!

Check the Infragistics extensive docs to learn more about customizing, and enabling more features in the Data Grid.

If you would like to play with a live Data Grid component, here’s a sample hosted on StackBlitz: {% stackblitz angular-4oqzke %}

Excel Library

An Excel Library comes as part of the Ignite UI for Angular. The Infragistics Angular Excel Library allows you to work with spreadsheet data using familiar Microsoft Excel spreadsheet objects like Workbooks, Worksheets, Cells, Formulas, and many more.

You can export your app data to an Excel sheet, and also load data from an Excel sheet into your app.

Have a look at the Excel Library page for more examples on all the options, and possibilities available for you.

Moreover, Infragistics offers an Export to Excel service that you can use inside your Angular components, and services.

To use this service, you start by importing the IgxExcelExporterService into the app module:

// app.module.ts

...
import { IgxExcelExporterService } from "igniteui-angular";

@NgModule({
  providers: [ IgxExcelExporterService ]
})

export class AppModule {}

Then, you inject the IgxExcelExporterService into the constructor of the component or service:

// component.ts

...
import { IgxExcelExporterService, IgxExcelExporterOptions } from "igniteui-angular";
...

constructor(private excelExportService: IgxExcelExporterService) {
}

And finally, to export your data to Excel, you call the exportData() function:

// component.ts

...

public localData = [
  { Name: "Eric Ridley", Age: "26" },
  { Name: "Alanis Brook", Age: "22" },
  { Name: "Jonathan Morris", Age: "23" }
];

public exportButtonHandler() {
  this.excelExportService.exportData(this.localData, new IgxExcelExporterOptions("ExportedDataFile"));
}

Indigo Design System

The Indigo Design System offered by Infragistics caught my attention to the extent that I wanted to dedicate a section to talk about this design system, and its versatility, especially for designers, and developers working on Angular apps.

Indigo Design System offers a unified platform for visual design, UX prototyping, code generation, and app development.

You’ve got your designers, and developers, both integrated into a single platform. This design system has a workflow that is depicted as follows:

Designers create designs in Sketch using the Indigo.Design System. The Indigo Design System integrates with Sketch in the form of:
Indigo-Components (Design library with 50+ components that match Ignite UI for Angular)
Indigo-Patterns (A collection of common UI patterns composed of Indigo-Components)
Indigo-Styling (Customize colors, typography, icons, and elevations to match your brand)
Designers share and test prototypes with peer developers, designers, and stakeholders, via a common platform known as cloud.indigo.design.
Use Sketch to create interactive prototypes of your designs and screens.
Share and Collaborate with others: View prototypes on any device, and collect feedback using comments.
Developers generate Angular components, and code from prototypes
Install the Infragistics Extension for VS Code
Load-in a prototype by URL and the code generation process starts

Conclusion

To explore and try all the features of Infragistics Ultimate Developer Toolkit, would require writing books and articles! This article introduces the Infragistics Ultimate Developer Toolkit, and related hyperlinks, that you can follow to read more about the topics.

Still, what has been discussed in this article is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the modern and efficient development ecosystem Infragistics offers!

The Infragistics design model for their components and controls is, by far, one of the easiest, and most straightforward model to follow. For instance, when using the Ignite UI for Angular components, you get the feeling that you are using Angular built-in components and services. They’ve done an excellent job giving Angular developers a seamless experience when using their UI components.

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About the author(s)

Bilal Haidar
Author, Developer, and Mentor: Professional ASP.NET 3.5 Security, Membership, and Role Management with C# and VB | A Complete Guide to VueJS
@bhaidar @bhaidar

Overview of the New Signal APIs in Angular

Overview of the New Signal APIs in Angular Google's Minko Gechev and Jeremy Elbourn announced many exciting things at NG Conf 2024. Among them is the addition of several new signal-based APIs. They are already in developer preview, so we can play around with them. Let's dig into it, starting with signal-based inputs and the new matching outputs API. Signal Based Inputs Discussions about signal-based inputs have been taking place in the Angular community for some time now, and they are finally here. Until now, you used the @Input() decorator to define inputs. This is what you'd have to write in your component to declare an optional and a required input: ` With the new signal-based inputs, you can write much less boilerplate code. Here is how you can define the same inputs using the new syntax: ` It's not only less boilerplate, but because the values are signals, you can also use them directly in computed signals and effects. That, effectively, means you get to avoid computing combined values in ngOnChanges or using setters for your inputs to be able to compute derived values. In addition, input signals are read-only. The New Output I intentionally avoid calling them signal-based outputs because they are not. They still work the same way as the old outputs. The Angular team has just introduced a new output API that is more consistent with the latest inputs API and allows you to write less boilerplate, similar to the new input API. Here is how you would define an output until now: ` Here is how you can define the same output using the new syntax: ` The thing I like about the new output API is that sometimes it happens to me that I forget to instantiate the EventEmitter because I do this instead: ` You won't forget to instantiate the output with the new syntax because the output function does it for you. Signal Queries I am sure most readers know the @ViewChild, @ViewChildren, @ContentChild, and @ContentChildren decorators very well and have experienced the pain of triggering the infamous ExpressionChangedAfterItHasBeenCheckedError or having the values unavailable when needed. Here is a refresher on how you would use these decorators until now: ` With the new signal queries, similar to the new input API, the values are signals, and you can use them directly in computed signals and effects. You can define the same queries using the new syntax: ` Jeremy Elbourn mentioned that the new signal queries have better type inference and are more consistent with the new input and output APIs. He also showcased a brand new feature not available with the old queries. You can now define a query as required, and the Angular compiler will throw an error if the query has no result, guaranteeing that the value won't be undefined. Here is how you can define a required query: ` Model Inputs Jeremy and Minko announced the last new feature is the model inputs. The name is vague, but the feature is cool—it simplifies the definition of two-way bindings. Until now, to achieve two-way binding, you would have to define an input and an output following a given naming convention. @Input and @Output had to be defined with the same name (followed by "Change" in the case of the output). Then, you could use the template's [()] syntax. ` ` That way, you could keep the value in sync between the parent and the child component. With the new model inputs, you can define a two-way binding with a single line of code. Here is how you can define the same two-way binding using the new syntax: ` The html template stays the same: ` The model function returns a writable signal that can be updated directly. The value will be propagated back to any two-way bindings. Conclusion The new signal-based APIs are a great addition to Angular. They allow you to write less boilerplate code and make your components more reactive. The new APIs are already in developer preview, so you can start playing around with them today. I look forward to seeing how the community will adopt these new features and what other exciting things the Angular team has in store for us, such as zoneless apps by default....

Apr 3, 2024

3 mins

AngularJavaScript

Using HttpClient in Modern Angular Applications

Introduction With all the wonderful treats that the Angular team has given us during the recent "renaissance" era, many new developers are joining in on the fun. And one of the challenges they'll face at some point is how to call an API from your Angular application properly. Unfortunately, while searching for a guide on how to do this, they might stumble upon a lot of outdated information. Hence, this article should serve as a reliable guide on how to use the HttpClient in Angular >= 17. The Setup To make an HTTP request in Angular, you can take advantage of the HttpClient provided by the @angular/common/http package. To use it, you'll need to provide it. Here's how you can do that for the whole application using the bootstrapApplication function from @angular/platform-browser: ` With that, you should be good to go. You can now inject the HttpClient into any service or component in your application. Using HttpClient in Services Let's take a common example: You have a database object, say a Movie, and you want to implement CRUD operations on it. Typically, you'll want to create a service that provides methods for these operations. Let's call this service MovieService and create a skeleton for it with a method for getting all movies. ` Implementing the Method using HttpClient Let's assume we have a GraphQL API for our movies. We can implement our getAllMovies using HttpClient to make a request to fetch all movies. First, we will need to define a new type to represent the response from the API. This is especially important when you are using GraphQL, which may return a specific structure, such as: ` When working with a real API, you'll likely use some code generator to generate the types for the response from the GraphQL schema. But for the sake of this example, we'll create an interface to represent the response manually: ` Now, we can implement the getAllMovies method using HttpClient: ` > Note: The post method is used here because we are sending a request body. If you are making a GET request (e.g. to a REST API), you can use the get method instead. The getAllMovies method returns an Observable of MoviesListResponse. In this example, I have typed it explicitly to make it obvious at first glance, but you could also omit the type annotation, and TypeScript should infer it. > Note: While I'm excited about signals as much as the next guy, making HTTP requests is one of the typical async operations for which RxJS Observables are a perfect fit, making a great argument for RxJS still having a solid place in Angular alongside signals. Using the Service in a Component Now that we have our MovieService set up, we can use it as a component to fetch and display all movies. But first, let's create a Movie interface to represent the structure of a movie. Trust me, this will prevent many potential headaches down the line. Although using any at the beginning and implementing the types later is a valid approach in some cases, using data fetched from an API without validating the type will inevitably lead to bugs that are difficult to solve. ` Now, we can start implementing our standalone MoviesComponent: ` In this component, we are calling the getAllMovies method from the MovieService in the constructor to fetch all movies and assign them to the movies property which we will use to display the movies in the template. ` In this case, placing our code inside the constructor is safe because it doesn’t depend on any @Input(). If it were, our code would fail because the inputs aren’t initialized at time of instantiation. That's why it is sometimes recommended to place logic in ngOnInit instead. You could also put this call in an arbitrary method that is called e.g. on a button click. Another way to handle the subscription is to use the async pipe in the template. This way, Angular will automatically subscribe and unsubscribe from the observable for you and you won't have to assign the response to a property in the component. Due to the structure of the returned data, however, we'll need to use the RxJS map operator to extract the movies from the response. ` > Note using the pipe method to chain the map operator to the observable returned by getAllMovies. This is a common pattern when working with RxJS observables introduced in RxJs 5.5. If you see code that uses the map operator directly on the observable and wonder why it isn't working for you, it's likely using an older version of RxJS. Now, we can simply apply the async pipe in the template to subscribe to the observable and display the movies: ` Conclusion HttpClient in Angular is pretty straightforward, but with all the changes to RxJS and Angular in the past few years, it can pose a significant challenge if you're not super-experienced with those technologies and stumble upon outdated resources. Following this article, you should hopefully be able to implement your service using HttpClient to make requests to an API in your modern Angular application and avoid the struggle of copying outdated code snippets....

Mar 27, 2024

4 mins

AngularJavaScript

Nuxt.js for Complete Beginners

The Vuejs Amsterdam online conference was held at the end of February in 2021. It brought together Vue.js enthusiasts and community members from around the world. Many interesting topics were presented and covered. The focus, of course, was on Vue.js 3. In addition, the creators of Nuxt.js had the opportunity to showcase it from the current standpoint in development, to their intentions for it down the track. They even demonstrated a pre-alpha version of Nuxt.js 3, that’s based on Vue.js 3. This article will start by briefly covering general Nuxt.js concepts, creating a new Nuxt.js app using the create-nuxt-app CLI, and finally, going through the different files and folders that Nuxt.js auto-generates for us. Let’s start! Nuxt.js Concepts Nuxt.js is a web development framework that builds on top of the Vue.js framework. It allows you to use your Vue.js skills to build a more confident, structured, SEO friendly website purely in Vue.js. Remember when you had to mess with the Vue.js SSR module and the Vue Meta module to build a SEO friendly website? On top of that, you had to install and use Vuex and Vue Router too! Well, Nuxt.js takes care of that! No more chaotic setup and scaffolding to start a new Vue.js app. With the help of the create-nuxt-app CLI, you can scaffold a Nuxt.js app in no time. What’s remarkable about Nuxt.js is its capacity to enforce convention over configuration. This means, you write less configuration files by sticking to a specific directory structure that makes Nuxt.js happy and saves you a ton of time! Apps supported by Nuxt.js Nuxt.js supports building a variety of web apps, including the following: Server-Side Rendering (SSR) SSR apps are also known as Universal Apps. The app gets rendered on the server-side before it is sent to the client-side, and is displayed in the browser. This is the best option when working on an SEO friendly website written in Vue.js. You can read the full documentation for the SSR apps here: SSR Apps Single Page Apps (SPA) This is what you’ve been doing so far with Vue.js. The app is compiled into a few JS and CSS files. When the user requests the app, the files are downloaded to the client-side, and the Vue.js engine takes over rendering and displaying the app. Static Site Generation (SSG) Nuxt.js can pre-render your app at build time. This means the entire app will be converted to simple static HTML files that can be hosted and served over a Content Delivery Network (CDN). The SSG option makes an app a legal JAMStack app. You can read the full documentation for the Static Site Generation here: Static Site Generation. File System Routing Nuxt.js automatically generates all the Vue.js Routes in your app based on the folder structure inside the *pages* folder. For example, consider having this folder structure: ` Nuxt.js automatically generates the following route configuration: ` You can read about *File System Routing* here: File System Routing. Data Fetching Inside a Nuxt.js app, you can still use the old techniques you kmow when developing Vue.js apps. However, we have a new player here! Server-side rendering. Nuxt.js provides a new set of data-hooks that you can implement so that Nuxt.js can prefetch data when generating the app at the server-side. Here are two data-hooks offered by Nuxt.js: fetch() hook This hook was introduced with Nuxt.js 2.12+ release. It can be used inside Vue.js components stored in the *pages* folder and *components* folder. asyncData() hook This hook has been around for a while now, and can be used only inside the Vue.js components stored in the *pages* folder. You can read more about *Data Fetching* hooks here: Data Fetching. Meta Tags and SEO Nuxt.js makes it so intuitive to add SEO support to your SSR app. You can add Metadata to your app at two different levels: - Globally using the *nuxt.config.js* file - Locally inside a Nuxt.js Page You can read about *Meta Tags and SEO* hooks here: Meta Tags and SEO. Create our first Nuxt.js app Let’s use the create-nuxt-app CLI, and create our first Nuxt.js app! Before you start, you want to make sure you have all the perquisites required before you can install and run the CLI. For this article, I am going to use npx. However, you can also use npm, or feel free to use yarn. Step 0 Start by running the following command: ` This command uses the create-nuxt-app tool, and specifies the name of the project- in this case *my-first-nuxt-app*. The CLI will ask you a few questions that are important to scaffold the new Nuxt.js app based on your own preferences and decisions. Here’s what to expect. Step 1 First, let’s confirm the project name as shown in the Figure 1. Give the app a name and hit Enter. _Figure 1: Specify project name_ Step 2 You’ve got to choose whether you want to develop your app with TypeScript or JavaScript. I will select *JavaScript* as shown in Figure 2. _Figure 2: Programming language_ Step 3 Next, you need to choose between Npm or Yarn. I will select *Npm* as shown in Figure 3. _Figure 3: Package manager_ Step 4 In this step, you’ve got to select the UI framework you are going to use in the app. I will select *Tailwind CSS* as shown in Figure 4. Even if you skip this step, you can add any UI framework you want later. _Figure 4: UI framework_ Step 5 Nuxt.js offers a set of modules that you can use right away in your apps. For this app, I will pick the *Axios* module. Figure 5 shows the selection. _Figure 5: Nuxt.js modules_ Step 6 The CLI makes it super intuitive to integrate linters in your app. I will pick up both *ESLint* and *Prettier*. Figure 6 shows the selection. _Figure 6: Linting tools_ Step 7 Now it’s time to select a testing framework. For the sake of this article, I will select *None*. Feel free to add any. Figure 7 shows the selection. _Figure 7: Testing framework_ Step 8 By default, Nuxt.js supports two rendering modes. SSR/SSG and SPA. I will pick *SSR/SSG* to take advantage of the Server-side rendering. Figure 8 shows the selection. _Figure 8: Rendering mode_ Step 9 The deployment target depends on our selection in Step 8. In this case, we have two options to select from. Server (using a Node.js server hosting) or Static (CDN/JAMStack hosting). I will select the *Server* deployment target as shown in Figure 9. _Figure 9: Deployment target_ Step 10 For the development tools, I will keep it simple and select the *jsconfig.json* option as shown in Figure 10. _Figure 10: Development tools_ Step 11 I won’t be using any continuous integration for this app. I will simply select *None* as shown in Figure 11. _Figure 11: Continuous integration_ Step 12 Finally, the CLI asks whether you want to use any version control system. A version control system is always recommended when doing any kind of development. I will select *Git* as shown in Figure 12. _Figure 12: Version control system_ These twelve questions are enough for the CLI to start scaffolding and generating your app based on your preferences. It takes a few seconds to have everything ready for you. If all goes well, you should see the following as in Figure 13. _Figure 13: create-nuxt-app new app instructions_ The CLI gives you instructions on how to run and build the app. Step 13 Let’s run the app by following the steps highlighted in Figure 13. Run the following commands: ` The CLI compiles both the client and server parts of the app and starts the Node.js server on port 3000 as shown in Figure 14. _Figure 14: App is running_ Step 14 Open a browser instance and navigate to the URL *http://localhost:3000/* and you should see the default Nuxt.js app rendering. Figure 15 shows the app running in a browser. _Figure 15: App rendering in a browser_ That’s all you need to get started on your first Nuxt.js app. Enjoy! Nuxt.js Directory Structure Let’s quickly go through the different folders the CLI generated for us. I will start by opening the new app inside Visual Studio Code. Figure 16 shows the app open inside the editor. _Figure 16: App folders and files_ Let’s go through each folder, and explain their roles briefly. .nuxt The *.nuxt* folder is (re-)generated by the CLI every time you run or build the app. It has all the automatically generated files that Nuxt.js uses to run your app. You can read more about the *.nuxt* folder here: .nuxt. assets The *assets* folder contains all of your uncompiled files such as Sass files, images, or font files. Nuxt.js makes use of Webpack to load all the files inside this folder. You can read more about the *assets* folder here: assets. components This folder holds all of your Vue.js components. Nuxt.js components are not different from any other Vue.js component. Read more about the *components* folder here: components. layouts This folder contains all of your layout components. These are Vue.js components with placeholders for content. At run time, the component and the layout it uses get merged together into a single component. Layouts in Nuxt.js allows you to define fixed UI sections in your app instead of having to repeat things over and over. You can read more about the *layouts* folder here: layouts. pages This folder also holds Vue.js components. It is unique because Nuxt.js converts this folder structure (components with sub-folders) into actual Vue.js Routes. You can read about the *pages* folder here: pages. plugins This folder contains global JavaScript functions that you want to run before Nuxt.js instantiates the root Vue.js app. These functions are called *Plugins*. They can take multiple forms. For instance, you create a Nuxt.js Plugin to load a Vue.js Plugin to your app. You can also install, and make use of a third-party Nuxt.js Plugin. You can read more about the *plugins* folder here: plugins. static The name of this folder says it all! This folder is directly mapped to the server root. You can place any file in this folder that you do not want Webpack to process. For example, you can place a favicon file, any CSS files, and many other such files. You can read more about the *static* folder here: static. store The *store* folder holds all the Vuex store files. Nuxt.js comes with the Vuex module installed, but keeps it disabled. In order to enable the Vue store in your Nuxt.js app, create an *index.js* file inside this folder, and Nuxt.js will automatically enable it for you. You can read more about *store* folder here: store. nuxt.config.js As I mentioned, Nuxt.js prefers convention over configuration. However, at some times you may need to tweak the configuration a little. Nuxt.js provides the *nuxt.config.js* file to allow for custom configuration settings on the app level. Read more about *nuxt.config* file here: nuxt.config. That’s just a quick overview of what folders are generated by the Nuxt.js CLI. There are more you can read up on. You can find all the information you need on Nuxt.js Documentation website. Conclusion In this article, you were introduced to Nuxt.js and took a few baby steps towards creating your first Nuxt.js app. In the coming articles, we will immerse ourselves in the Nuxt.js world, and explore this fresh and promising web development framework together. You can follow me on Twitter to see more of my work....

Mar 22, 2021

12 mins

NuxtJSVue

“Music and code have a lot in common,” freeCodeCamp’s Jessica Wilkins on what the tech community is doing right to onboard new software engineers

Before she was a software developer at freeCodeCamp, Jessica Wilkins was a classically trained clarinetist performing across the country. Her days were filled with rehearsals, concerts, and teaching, and she hadn’t considered a tech career until the world changed in 2020. > “When the pandemic hit, most of my gigs were canceled,” she says. “I suddenly had time on my hands and an idea for a site I wanted to build.” That site, a tribute to Black musicians in classical and jazz music, turned into much more than a personal project. It opened the door to a whole new career where her creative instincts and curiosity could thrive just as much as they had in music. Now at freeCodeCamp, Jessica maintains and develops the very JavaScript curriculum that has helped her and millions of developers around the world. We spoke with Jessica about her advice for JavaScript learners, why musicians make great developers, and how inclusive communities are helping more women thrive in tech. Jessica’s Top 3 JavaScript Skill Picks for 2025 If you ask Jessica what it takes to succeed as a JavaScript developer in 2025, she won’t point you straight to the newest library or trend. Instead, she lists three skills that sound simple, but take real time to build: > “Learning how to ask questions and research when you get stuck. Learning how to read error messages. And having a strong foundation in the fundamentals” She says those skills don’t come from shortcuts or shiny tools. They come from building. > “Start with small projects and keep building,” she says. “Books like You Don’t Know JS help you understand the theory, but experience comes from writing and shipping code. You learn a lot by doing.” And don’t forget the people around you. > “Meetups and conferences are amazing,” she adds. “You’ll pick up things faster, get feedback, and make friends who are learning alongside you.” Why So Many Musicians End Up in Tech A musical past like Jessica’s isn’t unheard of in the JavaScript industry. In fact, she’s noticed a surprising number of musicians making the leap into software. > “I think it’s because music and code have a lot in common,” she says. “They both require creativity, pattern recognition, problem-solving… and you can really get into flow when you’re deep in either one.” That crossover between artistry and logic feels like home to people who’ve lived in both worlds. What the Tech Community Is Getting Right Jessica has seen both the challenges and the wins when it comes to supporting women in tech. > “There’s still a lot of toxicity in some corners,” she says. “But the communities that are doing it right—like Women Who Code, Women in Tech, and Virtual Coffee—create safe, supportive spaces to grow and share experiences.” She believes those spaces aren’t just helpful, but they’re essential. > “Having a network makes a huge difference, especially early in your career.” What’s Next for Jessica Wilkins? With a catalog of published articles, open-source projects under her belt, and a growing audience of devs following her journey, Jessica is just getting started. She’s still writing. Still mentoring. Still building. And still proving that creativity doesn’t stop at the orchestra pit—it just finds a new stage. Follow Jessica Wilkins on X and Linkedin to keep up with her work in tech, her musical roots, and whatever she’s building next. Sticker illustration by Jacob Ashley....

Apr 25, 2025

3 mins

JavaScriptSoftware Engineering

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