Feature request: css hot replacement

[jurgen-reconcept]

Bug Report or Feature Request (mark with an x)

- [ ] bug report -> please search issues before submitting
- [x] feature request

Desired functionality.

Is there any chance hot replacement of updated CSS is going to be implemented in the cli? I'm using Ionic 2 for a different project, which has this feature. I think it's really useful to not have the whole application rebuilt and especially reloaded.

Say for example I am trying to style a particular element in a modal window that takes a few clicks to navigate to and open, it's really annoying to have to do this every time I make a small Sass adjustment.

[shyamal890]

Frankly, I believe this is a Must Have feature and not Nice to have. Imagine your component requires 2-4 secs to load and with a minor change in css the browser tab is refreshed! This is why Ionic guys had to come up with a way to update css without reloading the app.

[cmaart]

This "nice-to-have"-ticket is a deal breaker for lot of designers out there to work directly within an angular project which as a result creates huge overhead for working with them

[ewohlken]

My angular project has grown to a point where front end development is severely impaired by the rebuild times after updating css. From a front-end perspective this is definitely a must have for any large project

[herkulano]

@StephenFluin in ng-conf you asked for feedback from designers.

This is the number one problem with angular from a designer's perspective.

Although there's some HMR support, it's half-baked into the CLI and not fully supported out-of-the-box like vue-cli for example.

The current story for HRM is broken because it's relying on a mostly dead project and the implementation is cumbersome, especially with support for state management libraries like ngrx or ngxs.

The HMR implementation should be as simple as setting a flag or config in the CLI and hooking it up to the store.

Related issues:
https://github.com/angular/angular/issues/11942
#10268
PatrickJS/angular-hmr#74

[BenRacicot]

This is my #1 request for the Angular team. HMR and hot CSS is something I've come to depend on and miss it when working on Angular projects. Is there anything I can do to help get this more attention?

[Rush]

Let me add my support too. Who should we send the beer to? I actually care more about `ngtools/webpack' but I'm sure having it in CLI will help

[BenRacicot]

@Rush Same! I'd throw down my share for this to become a feature. I reached out to the guys who build Prepros. He said he'd take a look.

[mbritton]

I would PayPal one hundred bucks to the developer who checked this functionality in, with unit tests.

[stephengardner]

I would PayPal another hundred bucks. So make that $200 from @mbritton and I. I'll give it 30 days.

[pauldraper]

Not as slick as a CSS-only option, but https://github.com/wags1999/angular-hmr-lazy-components seems to work.