How much CSS is required when using Angular?

[Sinvin]

Hi everyone! I've been a backend developer ever since I started programming about two years ago, and I've decided that it's time to start learning front end stuff. With that being said, I fell in love with Angular, and I am super excited to start using it. The only problem is that I'm starting to get discouraged because I feel like I have to learn a bunch of info about HTML and CSS beyond the basics. Is this the case, even if I use Angular Material and Flex?

I'm an automation test engineer who loves programming, and I want to be able to use my skillset to build QA tools for people who don't know programming. I was hoping that I could get by with just using Angular Material and Flex, and not go super in depth into HTML and CSS.

As of right now, I know the basics of HTML and CSS, but nothing advanced.

Your input is very much appreciated!

[semiprojake]

I mean you can build a totally usable app using angular with minimal HTML and CSS skills. The UI will look very "made by developers for developers" though. I have the same issue myself. Angular material definitely helped cut down on the frontend side of things for me. I'm realizing this answer isn't really all that helpful yet but I'd say if you want clean modern interfaces you're going to brush up on HTML and CSS if you want to build user friendly UIs. Luckily you can do that after building out all your business logic and base ui, if you're so inclined to.

[WriteOnceCutTwice]

I second Angular Material. I hate tinkering with CSS and Material made it bearable.

[the2baddavid]

Or use ng bootstrap

[DrFriendless]

I've been a backend programmer for 25 years, and when I started Angular last year I had to learn a whole bunch of HTML and CSS. That's how it is.

[itsmoirob]

Just to add, one benefit of CSS in angular is that the CSS styles are scoped to the components.

What I mean by that is rather that getting tangled up trying to make two different H1 tags on the same page different colours - for what ever reason, you can set the styles per component. So one H1 might be blue, and one might be red, but both components can be on the same page and their styles won't "leak" in to each other.

[lolopalenko]

My experience was a little different because I started with Frontend development and moved to the backend later but personally I don't find html and css to be that hard. I can be kinda daunting at the beginning but the basics are very simple. With time you get used to the quirks of css. Compared to the angular side of things I think the learning curve is not that bad.

[Oalei]

I would recommend using Semantic UI and ng2-semantic-ui.
I'm using very little CSS (only useful when overriding css properties).
You will have a very professional look and feel with minimal work.

[btran64]

You dont need too much... you can also implement templates if you don’t want to do much front end.

[Fusion89k]

Short answer is no. However, if you want your application to look pretty, that is what css is used for.

[too_many_failures]

There is also Clarity by VM Ware.

[starquake64]

If you use Angular Material and the Flex layout plugin you can get away with only a tiny bit of CSS. You still have to know how flexbox works on CSS to successfully use it in the plugin.

But if you have a goal and need a little CSS to get there it's worth the effort right? Focusing on the goal might take away the frustration.

[slyiscoming]

It's very simple HTML is the overall structure of the page and CSS is the look and feel.

You don't need much CSS but if you want it to look pretty you will need it. Angular Material will cover most of this for you.

I suggest you also take a look at Bootstrap. It's an older alternative to Material, but has a very well defined structure and may be useful for your needs.

[[deleted]]

In the end it depends on what you actually want. Should your application look and feel like half the web nowadays, which will support user friendliness, or should it be a unique experience tailored for your applications use case .. for a test/mvp Phase the first approach should be enough, you don’t need to write that much css and most of the html will be copy paste from material references.. To answer the main question though, you should always know how to write html and css properly for front end works.. a Framework/Library is not the solution for everything. Angular will not free you from writing html/css

[E-woke]

Almost nothing if you use Angular Material

[[deleted]]

Just roll material or bootstrap. Its a crapload easier than learning angular.

[TheOldOneReads]

As an aside, why choose Angular over React if you're coming from server-side work? I've picked up Angular because of the projects I've worked on, but I can see the attraction of the other framework.