Load external libraries from CDN with angular-cli

Question

I would like to use the angular-cli to build an app that bundles my app code but does not include the Angular2 framework or other large external JavaScript libraries in the bundled code. I would like to load these libraries from a CDN when the page loads. Is there a way to do this?

Also, is there a way to do this while preserving the benefits of a local build where only the parts of the Angular2 framework that I am using gets loaded?

I saw this question, but it was for SystemJS and I don't think it applies to Angular-cli: How to load angular2 using CDN and SystemJS

Answer 1

You simply need to add the appropriate <script src=""> tags pointing to the CDN to the index.html file. Remember to remove the .js files from angular-cli.json so they don't get bundled with the app.

Currently, you can't do that for the Angular 2 js files itself, they are automatically bundled with your app. Though the latest updates enable the web servers and browsers to cache the vendor files, so they don't get redownloaded on every visist to your app but only when the hash changes.