IntelliJ IDEA 2019.1 Help

Angular

Angular is a popular framework for building cross-platform applications. IntelliJ IDEA provides support for Angular and helps you on every step of the development process – from creating a new Angular app and working on the components to debugging and testing it.

Before you start

  1. Download and install Node.js.

Creating a new Angular application

You can use Angular CLI or create an empty IntelliJ IDEA project and install Angular in it.

Angular CLI is the recommended way to start building a new Angular application.

To install Angular CLI globally

  • In the embedded Terminal (Alt+F12), type:

    npm install -g @angular/cli

To create an application

  1. Select File | New | Project from the main menu or click the New Project button on the Welcome screen.

  2. In the Project Category and Options dialog, which is the first page of the New Project wizard, select Static Web in the left-hand pane.

  3. In the right-hand pane, choose AngularCLI and click Next.

  4. On the second page of the wizard, specify the project name and the folder to create it in. In the Node Interpreter field, specify the Node.js interpreter to use. Select a configured interpreter from the list or choose Add to configure a new one In the Angular CLI field, specify the path to the @angular/cli package.

    Optionally, in the Additional parameters field, specify the extra ng new options to pass to Angular CLI. Code completion is available in this field: as you start typing the name of an option or press Ctrl+Space, IntelliJ IDEA shows you the available options and their description.

  5. When you click Finish, IntelliJ IDEA generates an Angular-specific project with all the required configuration files and downloads all the newcessary dependencies.

To create an empty IntelliJ IDEA project

  1. Select File | New | Project from the main menu or click the New Project button on the Welcome screen.

  2. In the Project Category and Options dialog, which is the first page of the New Project wizard, select Static Web in the left-hand pane.

  3. In the right-hand pane, choose Static Web and click Next.

  4. On the second page of the wizard, specify the project name and the folder to create it in.

  5. When you click Finish, IntelliJ IDEA creates and opens an empty project.

To install Angular in an empty project

  1. Open the empty project where you will use Angular.

  2. In the embedded Terminal (Alt+F12), type:

    npm install @angular/core

    That will install the core Angular package with the critical runtime parts of the framework.

    You may also need to install other packages that are parts of Angular, see the list of packages.

Starting with an existing Angular application

To continue developing an existing Angular application, open it in IntelliJ IDEA and download the required dependencies.

To open the application sources that are already on your machine

  • Click Open on the Welcome screen or select File | Open from the main menu. In the dialog that opens, select the folder where your sources are stored.

To check out the application sources from your version control

  1. Click Check out from Version Control on the Welcome screen or select VCS | Check out from Version Control from the main menu.

  2. Select your version control system from the list.

  3. In the VCS-specific dialog that opens, type your credentials and the repository to check out the application sources from.

To download the dependencies

  • Click Run 'npm install' in the popup:

    Opening an Angular application and downloading the dependencies from package.json

Running and debugging an Angular application

Also, for applications created with Angular CLI IntelliJ IDEA generates two run/debug configurations with default settings:

  • An npm configuration with the default name Angular CLI Server. This configuration runs the ng serve command that launches the development server and starts your application in the development mode.

  • A JavaScript Debug configuration with the default name Angular Application. This configuration launches a debugging session.

To run an Angular application

  1. For Angular CLI applications, select the Angular CLI Server run configuration from the list on the toolbar and click Run next to the list.

    Alternatively, run npm start in the Terminal (Alt+F12) or double-click the start task in the npm tool window (View | Tool Windows | npm).

  2. Wait till the application is compiled and the Webpack development server is ready. Open your browser at http://localhost:4200/ to view the application.

    Running Angular CLI app: the Webpack Debelopment server is ready

When the development server is running, your application is automatically reloaded as soon as you change any of the source files and save the updates.

To debug an Angular application

  1. Set the breakpoints in your code.

  2. Start the application in the development mode as described above and wait till the application is compiled and the Webpack development server is ready.

  3. To view the application, open your browser at the URL that is shown in the Run tool window, by default it is http://localhost:4200/.

    Run tool window shows the actual application URL

    If you are using another port or your application was not created with Angular CLI, copy the URL address at which your application is actually running, you will later specify this URL in a debug configuration.

  4. If you created your application with Angular CLI and it is running on the default port 4200, IntelliJ IDEA generates a default Angular Application configuration.

    Otherwise, create a new JavaScript debug configuration: go to Run | Edit Configurations, click the Add icon, and select JavaScript Debug from the list. In the Run/Debug Configuration: JavaScript Debug dialog, paste the saved URL in the URL field and save the configuration.

  5. From the list of configurations, select the autogenerated Angular Application configuration or your newly created custom one and start a debugging session by clicking Debug next to the list.

  6. When the first breakpoint is hit, switch to the Debug Tool Window and proceed as usual: step through the program, stop and resume program execution, examine it when suspended, explore the call stack and variables, set watches, evaluate variables, view actual HTML DOM, and so on.

    Debugging Angular: examine the suspended application in the Debug tool window

Navigating through an Angular application

When working on Angular projects you have to jump between different component files, such as TypeScript, template, and style files. With IntelliJ IDEA, you can do that using the Navigation bar, or the Project view, or the Go to File action (Ctrl+Shift+N).

Yet another way is the Related Symbol popup.

  1. In an Angular component file, press Ctrl+Alt+Home. IntelliJ IDEA shows a Related Symbol popup with a list of related files. In a TypeScript component file, the popup also lists all the symbols that were imported into this file.

    Navigating through an Angular app using the Related Symbol popup
  2. To open a file, select it and press Enter. Alternatively, use the numbers associated with each file type:

    1. The TypeScript file with the component class

    2. Template

    3. Tests

    4. Styles

Adding new features to an Angular application using ng add

In projects that use Angular CLI 6 or higher, you can use the Angular Dependency action to add new libraries. This action runs the ng add command which installs the dependency and updates the app with a special installation script. Note that not all libraries support installation with ng add.

  1. Select File | New on the main menu or press Alt+Insert in the Project tool window, and then select Angular Dependency.

  2. From the list, select the library to add. The list shows the libraries that can be definitely installed with ng add. To install a package that is not on the list, scroll to its end and double-click the Install package not listed above link, then specify the package name in the dialog that opens.

    The example below illustrates adding Angular Material to a project.

If you manage dependencies manually through your package.json, IntelliJ IDEA still recognizes packages that support ng add. When you add such package to package.json, IntelliJ IDEA suggests installing it with ng add.

IntelliJ IDEA suggests adding a dependency with ng add

If such dependency is already installed, you may still want to reinstall it with ng add. In the package.json file, select the name of the package, press Alt+Enter, and click Reinstall with ng add.

Reinstalling a package with ng add

Generating code with Angular Schematics

In Angular CLI 6 projects, IntelliJ IDEA can generate code using both schematics defined in libraries like @angular/material and those defined in Angular CLI itself. For earlier versions, IntelliJ IDEA generates only components, services, and other blueprints defined in Angular CLI.

  1. Select File | New on the main menu or press Alt+Insert in the Project tool window, and then select Angular Schematic.

  2. From the list, select the relevant schematic.

    Choosing Angular Schematic

  3. In the dialog that opens, specify the name of the schematic to be generated and additional options, if necessary. IntelliJ IDEA shows the description of the schematic and provides code completion and description for available options.

    Generating Angular CLI schematic: code completion and description is provided

Inspecting Angular application code

IntelliJ IDEA brings a number of Angular-specific inspections that help you find errors as you edit your code and suggest quick-fixes for them.

In the example below, both a template and a templateUrl properties are used. IntelliJ IDEA detects the error, warns you about it, and suggests a quick-fix.

Angular inspection: duplicate properties

Another example shows how IntelliJ IDEA warns you about incorrect use of the *ngIf and *ngFor structural directives.

Angular inspection: incorrect use of structural directive

To see the list of Angular-specific inspections and configure them

  1. In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), go to Editor | Inspections.

  2. Expand the Angular node.

  3. Configure inspection profiles and severity, disable and suppress predefined inspections, and create custom ones as described in Code inspections.

Using Angular Material Design components

IntelliJ IDEA recognizes Angular Material components and attributes and provides coding assistance for them:

  • Completion for components

    A list of suggested completion variants for an Angular component

  • Completion for attributes

    A list of suggested completion variants for an Angular attribute

  • Navigation between a component or an attribute and its declaration (press Ctrl+B or select Go To | Declaration from the context menu).

To install Angular Material

Configuring syntax highlighting

You can configure Angular-aware syntax highlighting according to your preferences and habits.

  1. In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), go to Editor | Color Scheme | Angular Template.

  2. Select the color scheme, accept the highlighting settings inherited from defaults or customize them as described in Configuring Colors and Fonts.

Last modified: 20 June 2019

See Also