Minimal Starter with Angular on both Server and Browser Platforms

Angular Universal Starter

Server-Side Rendering for Angular

A minimal Angular starter for Universal JavaScript using TypeScript and Webpack

If you're looking for the Angular Universal repo go to angular/universal

Installation

• npm install

Serve

• npm start to build your client app and start a web server
• npm run build to prepare a distributable bundle

Development

• run npm start and npm run watch in two separate terminals to build your client app, start a web server, and allow file changes to update in realtime

Prod

• npm run build:prod to compile the ngfactory files and build prod
• npm run server to start up the server

Universal "Gotchas"

When building Universal components in Angular there are a few things to keep in mind.

• window, document, navigator, and other browser types - do not exist on the server - so using them, or any library that uses them (jQuery for example) will not work. You do have some options, if you truly need some of this functionality:
  • If you need to use them, consider limiting them to only your main.client and wrapping them situationally with the imported isBrowser / isNode features from Universal. import { isBrowser, isNode } from 'angular2-universal';
  • Another option is using DOM from "@angular/platform-browser"
• Don't manipulate the nativeElement directly. Use the Renderer. We do this to ensure that in any environment we're able to change our view.

constructor(element: ElementRef, renderer: Renderer) {
  renderer.setElementStyle(element.nativeElement, 'font-size', 'x-large');
}

License