Introduction

The rapid development of web technologies has led to the emergence of new solutions to improve communication and interaction in applications. In this article, we will explore Signals, an innovative feature for event management in Angular. This new feature greatly simplifies event management and offers an interesting alternative to RxJS.

What is Signals?

Signals is a new Angular feature that aims to simplify event management in applications by using signal objects rather than observables. Signals are designed to be lightweight, fast, and easy to use, improving the development experience and the performance of Angular applications.

Why choose Signals in Angular?

A simplified event system

Signals offers a simplified event system compared to RxJS observables. This makes it possible to manage communication between components in a lighter and faster way.

TypeScript - Signals
// Example with Signals
const count = signal(0);

// Read
console.log(count()); // 0

// Update
count.set(1);
count.update(v => v + 1);
TypeScript - RxJS
// Example with RxJS
const count$ = new BehaviorSubject(0);

// Read
count$.subscribe(v => console.log(v));

// Update
count$.next(1);

Improved performance

Signals are designed to be lightweight and fast, offering better performance than RxJS observables. Thanks to their simplified design, signals reduce the resources required to manage events, improving application responsiveness.

Good to know

Signals uses a more granular change detection system, which reduces the number of unnecessary re-renders.

An intuitive and easy-to-use API

The Signals API is designed to be simple and intuitive, allowing developers to manage events easily without dealing with the complexity of RxJS observables.

Browser compatibility

Signals are designed to work in all modern browsers, including those that do not support certain advanced RxJS features. This ensures better compatibility and a more consistent user experience.

Simplified error handling

With Signals, error handling is simplified because errors are propagated directly to connected event handlers.

Filtering and transforming data

Signals makes it easy to filter and transform data when it is emitted, which can simplify event management logic.

TypeScript - Computed Signals
// Base signal
const count = signal(0);

// Computed signal
const doubleCount = computed(() => count() * 2);

// Effect for side effects
effect(() => {
  console.log(`Count is: ${count()}`);
});

Selective handler detachment

With Signals, you can easily detach specific event handlers without affecting other connected handlers.

Conclusion

In summary, Signals represents a major step forward for event management in Angular applications. Thanks to a simple and intuitive API, improved performance, and better browser compatibility, Signals offers an interesting alternative to RxJS observables for event management.

If you want to develop an Angular application with a performant and easy-to-use event system, be sure to explore the benefits of using Signals.

As the Angular community continues to grow and evolve, it is important to stay up to date with the latest advances and best practices. Signals is an example of how Angular strives to make event management easier and better for developers.

References

Angular Signals RxJS Frontend