Which UI Frameworks are good to use in AngularJS for Web Development?
AngularJS is one of those tools that contribute immensely towards making JavaScript the most widely used client-side programming language. The structural web application framework makes it easier for developers to create dynamic web pages by using HTML as a template language. The users can take advantage of the features of AngularJS to express various components of the web application clearly by extending HTML with new attributes.
As the open source web application framework supports model-view-controller (MVC) design pattern, the developers can keep the user interface (UI) and business logic of the web application separate. Also, they can use a number of UI frameworks in AngularJS to build the user interface of the application without putting extra time and effort. The ready-to-use UI components provided by these AngularJS based frameworks helps developers to build custom web applications rapidly without writing custom CSS style for individual components.
Overview of Commonly Used UI Frameworks for AngularJS
Suave: The framework is designed specifically to facilitate web application development with AngularJS. The users can take advantage of the CSS definitions, directives and services provided by Suave to build a variety of web-based user interfaces rapidly. The UI components provided by Suave are already included in bundle-files. So the users are not required to include the components separately. They can simply use a command to include Suave UI in their project through Bower.
QuantumUI: The CSS based UI components provided by QuantumUI are developed over AngularJS. Each of these components is further server and rest service friendly. The users also have option to customize the UI components provided by QuantumUI according to their specific needs. However, some of these components provided by Quantum UI are open source, while others are commercial. The developers can easily download the open source UI components for QuantumUI from GitHub.
PrimeNG: PrimeNG is designed as a collection of UI components for AngularJS 2. In addition to being simple and lightweight, PrimeNG also allows programmers to avail a wide variety of open source, accessible, and easy-to-use widgets. At the same time, it also allows programmers to take advantage of several open source and premium themes, along with using the theme creator tool. The developers can further use PrimeNG to create responsive and cross-browser user interface for websites.
UI Bootstrap: As its name indicates, UI Bootstrap is collection of Bootstrap components written in AngularJS. The web developers can use the repository of components with dependencies like AngularJS, Bootstrap CSS, Angular-animate and Angular-touch. As the directives included in the repository have external markup, the developers have option to use the markup as templates. They can further make changes to the external markup to create custom templates according to their specific requirements. Also, they are required to use the code of required directives, as each directive has its own AngularJS module.
Angular UI Tree: The AngularJS UI component enables web developers to sort and move items through a nested list or tree seamlessly. As Angular UI Tree supports drag-and-drop functionality, it becomes easier for users to manipulate the items in a nested list or tree. Also, they have option to prevent specific elements from accepting child nodes, along with using native AngularJS scope for data binding. However, Angular UI Tree lacks many features provided by other AngularJS based UI frameworks.
Angular UI Grid: The framework is available as part of AngularUI suite. It is designed as a data grid for AngularJS applications. The web developers can use Angular UI Grid to perform and manipulate large datasets. At the same time, they can take advantage of the plug-in architecture of the framework to use only the features required by their project. They also have option to use a variety of ccustomizable templates, and customize the templates simply by making changes to the CSS. At the same time, they can further avail features like sorting, filtering, grouping, column pinning, and virtualization.
Semantic UI: The development framework enables developers to create responsive and beautiful layout by writing readable code with HTML. Semantic UI allows programmers to treat classes and words as interchangeable concepts. Also, the users have option to trigger functionality using simple phrases called as behaviours. They can even take advantage of the performance logging feature of Semantic UI to identify and eliminate the bottlenecks in their code without assessing the stack traces thoroughly.
LumX: The frontend framework is designed based on Google Material Design. It comes with features to help developers build user interfaces according to Google’s guidelines. LumX relies on AngularJS to facilitate web application development based on MVC design pattern. At the same time, it also uses jQuery to boost the web application’s performance. However, the users are not required to use the jQuery plug-ins additionally while using components of LumX. The frontend framework further uses Bourbon and SaaS to make it easier for users to customize the application design according to their specific requirements.
On the whole, the developers have option to choose from several open source UI frameworks based on AngularJS. But they must remember that the features and UI components provided by individual frameworks differ. So it is important for web developers to pick the AngularJS-based web framework that meets all needs of the web development project.
