Version 1.2.0 of the open source technology uses new Meteor build processes to make Angular developers more comfortable and productive, said Uri Goldshtein, core developer of Angular-Meteor, in a blog post. "The main difference between older versions is that now, we use Angular to process regular HTML and JS files instead of .ng.html and .ng.js," he said. The build process also has been made faster through the use of Meteor 1.2 caching compilers.
The new Angular package in Angular-Meteor processes JavaScript files with the Babel compiler, offering ECMAScript 2015 support, Goldshtein said. Angular developers get out-of-the-box support for ECMAScript 2015 for any JavaScript code, they write.
Although Meteor views its own framework and Angular as complementary, the upgrade does feature migration capabilities. "We worked hard to make migrating an existing Angular app to Meteor easier," Goldshtein said. "You can migrate by simply moving your entire existing project into Meteor or by using your own tools and connecting to a Meteor server, like we demonstrated with Ionic."
But a Meteor representative said the platforms together provide a usable Web development system with a database API, user account system, asset management, and other capabilities. Goldshtein said migrating to Meteor is only part of the equation. "With Angular-Meteor, you can write a completely new project from scratch or take an existing Angular project and expand it into an Angular-Meteor project."
The planned 1.3 version of Angular-Meteor is set to feature API changes, including making the data API as similar as possible to the current and future native Meteor API, as well as removing the autobind feature to improve performance.