Angular 2 with ASP.NET Core using JavaScriptServices

This was going to be the fist in a series of posts covering getting started using the RTM versions of ASP.NET Core and Angular 2 together which was going to follow a similar path as the series on Aurelia and ASP.NET Core the first entry of which can be found here.

In the process of writing this post I was reminded of JavaScripServices (they recently added Aurelia support!) and will be using it to get this project up and running instead of doing the work manually.

The code found here can be used as a starting point. The repo contains a solutions with an ASP.NET Core API (Contacts) project and a MCV 6 (Aurelia) project. This post will be add a new MVC 6 project for Angular 2.

JavaScriptServices introduction

JavaScriptServices is an open source project by Microsoft for ASP.NET Core developers to quickly get up and running with one of many JavaScript front ends. The following is their own description.

JavaScriptServices is a set of technologies for ASP.NET Core developers. It provides infrastructure that you’ll find useful if you use Angular 2 / React / Knockout / etc. on the client, or if you build your client-side resources using Webpack, or otherwise want to execute JavaScript on the server at runtime.

The great thing about using the generator that JavaScriptServcies provides is they handle the integration between all the different tools which can be challenging to get right on your own without a lot of time and research.

Project creation

First step is to install the Yeomen generator via npm using the following command from a command prompt.

npm install -g yo generator-aspnetcore-spa

When installation is complete create a new directory call Angular for the project. In the context of the repo linked above this new directory would be in Contact/src at the same level as the Aurelia and Contacts folders.

Open a command prompt and navigate to the newly created directory and run the following command to kick off the generation process.

yo aspnetcore-spa

This will present you will a list of frameworks to choose from. We are going with Angular 2, but Aurelia, Knockout, React and React with Redux are also available.

Hit enter and it will ask for a project name which gets defaulted to the directory name so just hit enter again unless you want to use a different name. This kicks off the project creation which will take a couple of minutes to complete.

Add new project to existing solution

To include the new Angular project in an existing solution right click on the src folder in the Solution Explorer and select Add > Existing Project.

This shows the open file dialog. Navigate to the directory for the new Angular project and select the Angular project file.

Wrapping up

Set the Angular project as the start up project and hit run and you will find yourself in a fully functional Angular 2 application. It is amazing how simple JavaScriptServices makes getting started with a new project.

The tool setup seems to be one of the biggest pain points with any SPA type JavaScript framework. Aurelia is a little friendlier to ASP.NET Core out of the box than Angular 2, but it still isn’t the simplest process ever. JavaScriptServices is one of those thing I wish I had tried out sooner.

In the near future I am going to redo the Aurelia project in this solution using JavaScriptServices. From there I will come back to the Angular project created in this post and integrate it with the Contact API used in the existing Aurelia application.

Completed code for this post can be found here.