What is Angular and How to Integrate it with Visual Studio?

Are you a developer familiar with ASP.NET and Visual Studio and want to know how to integrate Angular in your development routine? Angular is an open-source framework widely used in building dynamic single-page web apps. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on installing Angular in Visual Studio:

Prerequisites:

• Node.js
• npm (Node Package Manager)
• Visual Studio

Step 1: Create a New Project

Begin by creating a new ASP.NET Core Web Application project in Visual Studio through these steps:

• Click on Visual Studio’s File menu → New → Project.
• Select Web → ASP.NET Core Web Application.
• Set the target framework to the latest version (as of writing, it’s 3.1).
• Choose a project name and location and press the Create button.

Step 2: Install Angular CLI

To install Angular globally in our system, we will be using the Angular CLI. Open the Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (macOS/Linux) as an administrator and run the following command:

npm install -g @angular/cli

Step 3: Create a New Angular Project

Now that we have installed the Angular CLI, we need to create a new Angular project. Navigate to your project folder in the Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (macOS/Linux) and run:

ng new my-project

Where “my-project” is the name of your project. This command generates a default Angular project in a new folder named after your project. Navigate to your project folder and confirm that you see all the generated files and folders.

Step 4: Add an Angular App to the ASP.NET Project

To integrate Angular with Visual Studio’s ASP.NET framework, we need to add the Angular app to our ASP.NET project. Follow these steps:

• Right-click on your ASP.NET project in the Solution Explorer → Add → Existing Project.
• Navigate to your Angular project folder and choose the .csproj file.
• Right-click on the ASP.NET project in the Solution Explorer again → Add → Client-Side Library.
• Choose the Libman option.
• For the Provider field, select “unpkg”.
• In the Library field, enter “@angular/core@latest”.
• Leave the Destination field as its default value (“wwwroot/lib/@angular/core”).

Step 5: Serve Angular with the ASP.NET Project

Finally, serve the Angular project alongside the ASP.NET project by following these steps:

• Open the Angular project folder in the Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (macOS/Linux).
• Run the command ng serve.
• Open Visual Studio and run the ASP.NET project using IIS Express.
• Navigate to “https://localhost:{PORT}/ClientApp” in your web browser, replacing {PORT} with the port number in the Visual Studio Output window. The default port is 4200.
• You should see the default Angular app running alongside the ASP.NET project in your browser.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you’ve successfully integrated Angular with Visual Studio! Now you can start building dynamic single-page web apps with Angular and ASP.NET.