# Angular Ahead-of-Time Webpack Plugin

Webpack 4.0 plugin that AoT compiles your Angular components and modules.

## Usage

In your webpack config, add the following plugin and loader.

Angular version 5 and up, use `AngularCompilerPlugin`:

```typescript
import { AngularCompilerPlugin } from '@ngtools/webpack';

exports = { /* ... */
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /(?:\.ngfactory\.js|\.ngstyle\.js|\.ts)$/,
        loader: '@ngtools/webpack'
      }
    ]
  },

  plugins: [
    new AngularCompilerPlugin({
      tsConfigPath: 'path/to/tsconfig.json',
      entryModule: 'path/to/app.module#AppModule',
      sourceMap: true,
      i18nInFile: 'path/to/translations.en.xlf',
      i18nInFormat: 'xlf',
      i18nOutFile: 'path/to/translations.xlf',
      i18nOutFormat: 'xlf',
      locale: 'en',
      hostReplacementPaths: {
        'path/to/config.development.ts': 'path/to/config.production.ts'
      }
    })
  ]
};
```

The loader works with webpack plugin to compile your TypeScript. It's important to include both, and to not include any other TypeScript compiler loader.

## Options

* `tsConfigPath`. The path to the `tsconfig.json` file. This is required. In your `tsconfig.json`, you can pass options to the Angular Compiler with `angularCompilerOptions`.
* `basePath`. Optional. The root to use by the compiler to resolve file paths. By default, use the `tsConfigPath` root.
* `entryModule`. Optional if specified in `angularCompilerOptions`. The path and class name of the main application module. This follows the format `path/to/file#ClassName`.
* `mainPath`. Optional if `entryModule` is specified. The `main.ts` file containing the bootstrap code. The plugin will use AST to determine the `entryModule`.
* `skipCodeGeneration`. Optional, defaults to `false`. Disable code generation and do not refactor the code to bootstrap. This replaces `templateUrl: "string"` with `template: require("string")` (and similar for styles) to allow for webpack to properly link the resources.
* `sourceMap`. Optional. Include sourcemaps.
* `compilerOptions`. Optional. Override options in `tsconfig.json`.
* `contextElementDependencyConstructor`. Optional. Set to `require('webpack/lib/dependencies/ContextElementDependency')` if you are having `No module factory available for dependency type: ContextElementDependency` errors.
* `directTemplateLoading`. Optional. It causes the plugin to load component templates (HTML) directly from the filesystem.  This is more efficient if only using the `raw-loader` to load component templates.  Do not enable this option if additional loaders are configured for component templates.
* `forkTypeChecker`. Optional, defaults to `true`. Run the TypeScript type checker in a forked process.
* `hostReplacementPaths`. Optional. It allows replacing resources with other resources in the build.
* `platform`. Optional, defaults to `0`. Possible values are `0` and `1`. `0` stands for browser and `1` for server.
* `logger`. Optional. A custom logger that sends information to STDOUT and STDERR.
* `nameLazyFiles`. Optional. If `true` then uses the `[request]` placeholder to set dynamic chunk names.
* `missingTranslation`. Optional and only used for View Engine compilations. defaults to `warning`. Possible values are `warning`, `error` or `ignore`. Determines how to handle missing translations for i18n.
* `i18nInFile`. Optional and only used for View Engine compilations. Localization file to use for i18n.
* `i18nInFormat`. Optional and only used for View Engine compilations. The format of the localization file.
* `i18nOutFile`. Optional and only used for View Engine compilations. The name of the file to write extractions to.
* `i18nOutFormat`. Optional and only used for View Engine compilations. The format of the localization file where extractions will be written to.
* `locale`. Optional and only used for View Engine compilations. Locale to use for i18n.
* `suppressZoneJsIncompatibilityWarning`. Optional, defaults to `false`. A Zone.js incompatibility warning is shown when the compilation target is ES2017+. Zone.js does not support native async/await in ES2017+. These blocks are not intercepted by zone.js and will not triggering change detection. 
See https://github.com/angular/zone.js/pull/1140 for more information.

## Features
The benefits and ability of using [`@ngtools/webpack`](https://www.npmjs.com/~ngtools) standalone from the Angular CLI as presented in [Stephen Fluin's Angular CLI talk](https://youtu.be/uBRK6cTr4Vk?t=6m45s) at Angular Connect 2016:

* Compiles Sass/Less into CSS
* TypeScript transpilation
* Bundles JavaScript, CSS
* Asset optimization
* Virtual filesystem for assets
* For serving local assets and compile versions.
* Live-reload via websockets
* Code splitting
* Recognizing the use of `loadChildren` in the router, and bundling those modules separately so that any dependencies of those modules are not going to be loaded as part of your main bundle. These separate bundles will be pulled out of the critical path of your application, making your total application bundle much smaller and loading it much more performant.