Angular

Angular is a popular framework for building cross-platform applications. WebStorm 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

Make sure you have Node.js on your computer.
Make sure the Angular and AngularJS plugin is enabled on the Settings/Preferences | Plugins page, tab Installed, see Managing plugins for details.

Create a new Angular application

The recommended way to start building a new Angular application is Angular CLI, which WebStorm downloads and runs for you using npx. As a result, your application is bootstrapped with a ready to use TypeScript and Webpack configuration.

Of course, you can download Angular CLI yourself or create an empty WebStorm project and install Angular in it.

Click Create New Project on the Welcome screen or select File | New | Project from the main menu. The Create New Project Dialog opens.
In the left-hand pane, choose Angular CLI.
In the right-hand pane:
1. Specify the path to the folder where the project-related files will be stored.
2. 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.
3. From the Angular CLI list, select npx --package @angular/cli ng.
  Alternatively, for npm version 5.1 and earlier, install the @angular/cli package yourself by running npm install -g @angular/cli in the Terminal Alt+F12. When creating an application, select the folder where the @angular/cli package is stored.
4. 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, WebStorm shows you the available options and their description.
When you click Create, WebStorm generates an Angular-specific project with all the required configuration files and downloads all the necessary dependencies.

Create an empty WebStorm project

Click Create New Project on the Welcome screen or select File | New | Project from the main menu. The Create New Project Dialog opens.
In the left-hand pane, choose Empty Project.
Specify the path to the folder where the project-related files will be stored.
When you click Create, WebStorm creates and opens an empty project.

Install Angular in an empty project

Open the empty project where you will use Angular.
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.

Start with an existing Angular application

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

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.

Check out the application sources from your version control

Click Get from VCS on the Welcome screen or select VCS | Get from Version Control from the main menu.
In the invoked dialog, select your version control system from the list and specify the repository to check out the application sources from.

Download the dependencies

Click Run 'npm install' or Run 'yarn install' in the popup:

You can use npm, Yarn 1, or Yarn 2, see npm and Yarn for details.

Write and edit your code

Create Angular components

With WebStorm, you can create Angular components in several ways:

Use a predefined or custom live template.
Create a component folder with a bunch of related .ts, .html, and .css files.
Extract a component from a template using a dedicated refactoring.

Create a component using a predefined template

WebStorm provides predefined live templates for creating Angular components, such as a-component, a-component-inline, and a-component-root. See Live templates for details.

To view a full list of predefined templates, open the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to Editor | Live Templates, and expand the Angular node.

In the editor, press Ctrl+J, select the appropriate template (for example, a-component) from the list, and then press Enter.
WebStorm generates a component stub, places the caret at a field with canvas, and waits for you to specify the component name there. As you type the component name, the name of the selector and the template URL are filled in automatically in accordance with the Angular Style Guide.

Create an Angular component using a predefined code snippet

Learn how to customize a template with variables from Using and Creating Code Snippets in WebStorm Blog.

Create a component folder

In WebStorm, you can create a bunch of files for an Angular component in one action and even place them all in a separate folder. To do that, you need to use a file template with several child templates. When you create a file from the parent template, the related files from the child templates are generated automatically. See Templates with multiple files for details.

Suppose you want to create an example folder with a bunch of component files, for example, example.component.ts for logic, example.component.html for the template, and example.component.css for styles. You can create a file template with two parent templates so all the three files will be generated at once an placed in a separate folder.

In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, select Editor | File and Code Templates.
First create a template for a TypeScript component file.
- In the Files tab, click on the toolbar. A new, Unnamed, template is added to the list.
- In the right-hand pane, specify the template name, let it be Angular Component, and component.ts as the file extension.
- In the File name field, type $NAME/$NAME.
- Optionally, add a code template, for example:
  ** * Created by ${USER} on ${DATE} */ import { Component } from '@angular/core';
Create a child template for the related HTML file.
- Select the parent template Angular Component and click on the toolbar. A child template is added below the Angular Component template.
- In the right-hand pane, type $NAME/$NAME in the File name field and specify the component.html extension.
Create a child template for the related Style Sheet.
- Select the parent template Angular Component and click on the toolbar. A child template is added below the Angular Component template.
- In the right-hand pane, type $NAME/$NAME in the File name field and specify the component.css extension.
Click OK to save the templates.
Create the component files.
From the context menu of the folder where you want to store the component files, select New | Angular Component. In the dialog that opens, specify the name that will be used for the folder and for the component files in it (example in this example).

Extract a component from a template

The Extract Angular component refactoring works by running ng generate component, taking schematic preferences inside your angular.json file into account.

In an HTML template file, select the code fragment that you want to extract into an Angular component.
From the context menu of the selection, choose Refactor | Extract Component.
Alternatively, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T and select Extract Component from the Refactor This popup.
In the dialog that opens, specify the name of the new component.

Extract an Angular component from a template

Navigate 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 WebStorm, you can do that using the Navigation bar, or the Project view, or the Go to File action Ctrl+Shift+N.

You can also download the Angular CLI QuickSwitch plugin and install it on your computer.

Yet another way is the Related Symbol popup.

In an Angular component file, press Ctrl+Alt+Home or select Navigate | Related Symbol from the main menu or Go To | Related Symbol from the context menu. WebStorm 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.
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

Add new features with ng add

In projects that use Angular CLI 6 or later, 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.

Select File | New from the main menu or press Alt+Insert in the Project tool window, and then select Angular Dependency.
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 list of packages that can be installed with ng add is available on GitHub.
The example below illustrates adding Angular Material to a project.

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

WebStorm 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.

Generate code with Angular Schematics

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

Select File | New from the main menu or press Alt+Insert in the Project tool window, and then select Angular Schematic.
From the list, select the relevant schematic.
In the dialog that opens, specify the name of the schematic to be generated and additional options, if necessary. WebStorm shows the description of the schematic and provides code completion and description for available options.

Inspect the code of an Angular application

WebStorm 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. WebStorm detects the error, warns you about it, and suggests a quick-fix.

Angular inspection: duplicate properties

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

Angular inspection: incorrect use of structural directive

View the list of Angular-specific inspections and configure them

In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to Editor | Inspections.
Expand the Angular node.
Configure inspection profiles and severity, disable and suppress predefined inspections, and create custom ones as described in Code inspections.

Use Angular Material Design components

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

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

Install Angular Material

In the embedded Terminal (Alt+F12), type:
- ng add @angular/material for Angular CLI version 6 and later
- npm install --save @angular/material for earlier versions of Angular CLI
Learn more from Getting Started on the Angular Material official website.

Configure syntax highlighting

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

In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to Editor | Color Scheme | Angular Template.
Select the color scheme, accept the highlighting settings inherited from defaults or customize them as described in Colors and fonts.

Run and debug an Angular application

For applications created with Angular CLI as described above, WebStorm 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.

Run an Angular application

Select the Angular CLI Server run configuration from the list on the toolbar and click 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).
Wait till the application is compiled and the Webpack development server is ready.
The Run tool window or the Terminal shows the URL at which your application is running, by default it is http://localhost:4200/. Click this link to view the application.

Debug an Angular application

You can start a debugging session in different ways depending on how your application was created and where it is running.

Debug applications created with Angular CLI

Set the breakpoints in your code.
Start the application in the development mode as described above and wait till the application is compiled and the development server is ready.
Select the autogenerated Angular Application configuration from the list and click next to the list.

Debug applications running on localhost

Set the breakpoints in your code.
Start the application in the development mode as described above and wait till the application is compiled and the development server is ready.
The Run tool window or the Terminal shows the URL at which your application is running, by default it is http://localhost:4200/. Hold Ctrl+Shift and click this URL link. WebStorm starts a debugging session with an automatically generated Angular Application configuration of the type JavaScript Debug.

Debug applications running on custom URLs

Set the breakpoints in your code.
Start the application in the development mode as described above and wait till the application is compiled and the Webpack development server is ready.
The Run tool window or the Terminal shows the URL at which your application is running. Copy this URL address, you will later specify it in a debug configuration. To view your application, just click the link.
Create a JavaScript Debug configuration. To do that, go to Run | Edit Configurations on the main menu, click , 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.
To launch your newly created configuration, select it from the list of configurations and click next to the list.

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.

Last modified: 02 August 2021