[Feature] Transition to Angular-CLI based template

[MarkPieszak]

Now that we have transitioned to 5.0, the next step is to move things to the Angular-CLI based template, which should be (almost) a drop-in replacement for most of the apps built with this template.

The best part will be webpack configuration and everything will be handled by the CLI, and we'll have MUCH better (smaller) bundles etc.

[mcgri]

Quick question, The ng-cli will output webpack config, will it not? It's nice to have for extra customisation

[MarkPieszak]

It won't unfortunately, but there are ways to hack/insert rules you can do - so that you don't have to leave the CLI itself :) @mcgri

For example here, I have a writeup on adding pug rules to a CLI that hasn't been ejected.
https://medium.com/@MarkPieszak/using-pug-or-jade-templates-with-the-angular-cli-9e37334db5bc

It might be quite hacky, but it gets the job done 😄

I'll try to add a few more upgrades to this setup before the transition, I'm sure I'll just leave this one in a different branch - incase someone does want complete control over Webpack.

[mcgri]

thank you :) I will definitely play with it

[stephenlautier]

Will the ng-cli template based, output from .cshtml as it is now? or .html as the node version?

Because one of the main reasons we are currently using this template is to do some conditions in the mark up for environments etc... which im not 100% sure how well/easy to handle with just SSR code (perhaps because i havent actually tried much yet)

[odahcam]

As an Angular template, it should be based on index.html.

[odahcam]

@MarkPieszak do we have any roadmap/milestone/project for this feature?

[MarkPieszak]

I'm waiting on the team to finish up the dependency bundling issue here: angular/angular-cli#8616

I spoke with them just last week that it's very important for the ASP.NET integration so hopefully it'll get in there soon!

It will help production bundle size and overall complexity (since most users won't need to touch the webpack configs) :)

[odahcam]

I've made a node build of my app and it was ridiculous smaller and faster than my asp.net Core one. :(

I hope that this came out soon, so we can finally have service workers on our applications trought @angular/service-worker, this feature refuses to work properly when outside of a @angular/cli build. That's sad.

I wish I could help over there, but there's onyl waiting for now (and seeking for things where I can help). 😞

[MarkPieszak]

Yeah at the moment it's definitely more performant to just have the standalone Node server doing Angular Universal the normal way (outside of ASP.NET, and just use .NET for your Rest API endpoints/etc).

I'll post as soon as I have some updates!

SO so sorry for the wait guys 😢