Navigating the Future of Angular: Questions and Insights on the Compose SDK

[IsaacBlanco]

Hi Sisense team and fellow developers,

I want to take a moment to express my appreciation for the substantial improvements in performance, the variety of tools available, and the resolution of bugs in the recent updates to the Compose SDK for the Angular framework. As a developer using this SDK, I’m particularly pleased with the advancements in React, where we can see new features being rolled out.

However, I have some questions regarding the future of the Angular package, especially concerning ongoing issues that have persisted since the beginning and, in some cases, are critical.

Regarding the new DashboardByID component, which is currently in beta, I think its speed and visual output are excellent. However, I’d like to know more about plugin integration. Once the ability to register plugins in Angular is fully implemented, will it support all types of plugins? This includes purchased plugins like Paldi widgets and those requiring direct communication via PostMessages.

I also want to address issues I've encountered with Jest and the CSKD. Since the official release of the package, I've faced constant problems when including components or APIs exposed by the Jest testing framework. This has forced me to manually mock numerous package components (including modules, graphics, and filters), which adds friction to development time due to the maintenance of these mocks. I have experienced this issue in both new projects and existing ones, and I’d like to know if I am the only one facing this, or if there is a solution from the Sisense team.

On the topic of performance, while I have noticed slight improvements in recent updates, including reduced build times, I still perceive that the overall build time is quite high due to the heavy dependencies required by Angular. I would like to know what future plans are in place to address this.

I realize this post is quite lengthy, but I want to highlight the great work being done with the package. It offers a strong alternative to using iframes and significantly enhances the user experience.

[DRay]

Hello @IsaacBlanco,

Thank you for the feedback! I brought this to the CSDK team, and they are reviewing the points you brought up. 

[bogdan-karlenko]

Hi @IsaacBlanco,
Thank you for taking the time to share your appreciation for the improvements in the Compose SDK. We're glad to hear that you’re enjoying the performance gains and new features in React, as well as the overall enhancements.

Plugins are indeed a significant topic, and we definitely have this in our roadmap. The challenge lies in how most plugins are tightly integrated with Fusion infrastructure and lifecycle, which Compose SDK doesn’t directly access. We’re taking incremental steps to bridge this gap — starting with the ability to register plugins to handle layout gaps when fetching a dashboard. This functionality is already implemented in React, and our next step is to support this in Angular. Since Angular doesn’t provide a straightforward solution to pass a component to be rendered as a single object like React does, we’re developing a custom approach for it.

As for supporting all types of plugins, we are still in the discovery phase. We’re carefully assessing how best to approach this and we will be working closely with plugin vendors to ensure that if the need arises to transition existing plugins through Compose SDK, it will be smooth.

We’re sorry to hear about the challenges you’ve faced with Jest and Compose SKD for Angular. We work to resolve compatibility issues with external technologies based on developer needs and usage, and we’ll definitely look into this further as we now have your feedback. Your experience with manually mocking components sounds like a pain point we need to address. If you could share more details or examples from your projects, it would help us dive deeper into the root cause and come up with a solution.

We’re glad to hear you've noticed improvements in performance, particularly with reduced build times. Performance optimization is an ongoing priority for us. I’ll make sure to include your feedback in our initiative, with a specific focus on Angular to address the heavy dependencies you mentioned.

Thank you once again for your valuable feedback and for helping us shape our future efforts. We’re committed to delivering a seamless developer experience, and input like yours is instrumental in guiding our roadmap.

Looking forward to hearing more from you, and we appreciate your continued support of the Compose SDK!

[IsaacBlanco]

Hey @bogdan-karlenko ,

Great to hear from you! I totally get the challenges with plugins, especially when it comes to third-party ones. I really appreciate the work you’re putting into it. I think the translation plugin is crucial to be migrated, is super important for user experience. If it's tricky to implement, it might be cool to let us pass a dictionary in the Sisense configuration provider, so it can load translations.

I’m also glad you’re looking into performance—I'll definitely keep an eye on the updates!

As for the Jest issue, that’s been a bit of a headache. I’ve tried it with a bunch of different projects, both new and existing, and the CSDK dependencies just don’t seem to work with the test framework.

It’s a lot to unpack in one message, so I was wondering if I could chat with a developer (or you) about it. I talked to support before, but they couldn’t replicate the issue. I thought it might just be my project, but it’s happened with other new ones too.

Thanks for your help, and I look forward to hearing back!

[DRay]

Hi @IsaacBlanco,

If you are available at 1pm Central today you can join the Compose SDK Office hours in Discord and talk with Bogdan directly! 

Sisense Discord Invite link: https://discord.gg/bzqv8eCvJb

[IsaacBlanco]

Hi @DRay , sure, if I have a free space I will surely try to join. Thanks for the update 

[bogdan-karlenko · Accepted solution]

@IsaacBlanco, part of our vision for the Compose SDK is to integrate certain enhancements delivered through Fusion plugins directly into the product. Translations are one area where we see an opportunity to improve the overall user experience. If you could provide more details about your use case—such as which parts of the product you'd like to translate, whether you need dynamic or static translations, etc.—we can consider including this as a feature request in our planning for next year.

For more specific discussions, I’ll send you a private message so we can continue the conversation in detail.

[bogdan-karlenko]

@IsaacBlanco, I wanted to follow up on the issues mentioned in this thread.

Compose SDK has introduced a new way to provide custom translations, eliminating the need for a translation plugin. You can find more details  in the internationalization guide.

Additionally, there’s a Jest configuration guide available to help you leverage the CJS builds, which are now included in all packages.

Thank you for shaping Compose SDK with us!