---
title: Angular 2 Starter Project
---
This tutorial will build an extremely simple seed project with Angular2\. We will begin with the most basic application possible and then add on a bit more functionality.
## Overview
Angular 2 applications are built by creating HTML templates that contain angular specific markup. Classes are then created to manage the templates and everything is wrapped into a module, which you piece together to create your application. These modules are referred to as **components**.
Angular interprets these modules and uses them to present your application in the browser.
## Starter Application
Let's get started with a minimal application. We will begin with an application that contains a single module whose only job is to display some text.
We will begin by creating a new folder called "app".
$ mkdir app
As mentioned above, our application will begin with a single module, or **component**, that will display some text to the screen. We can use both pure JavaScript or TypeScript to make an angular 2 app. Using TypeScript, it is easier and more programmer friendly ![:wink:](//forum.freecodecamp.com/images/emoji/emoji_one/wink.png?v=2 ":wink:")
Let's learn how to create a component using TypeScript.
Create a file called _`app.component.ts`_ as shown:
// app.component.ts
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
@Component({
selector: 'my-app',
template: '
`,
styles: [`
.counter {
width: 100%;
margin: auto;
background: darkgreen;
border-radius: 5px;
color: white;
padding: 20px;
text-align: center;
}
.counter h1 {
margin: 0;
padding: 20px;
font-size: 36px;
}
.counter button {
background: #f1c40f;
border: 0;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 0px #927608;
padding: 20px;
width: 100%;
outline: none;
border-radius: 5px;
color: darkgreen;
font-weight: bold;
}
.counter button:hover {
background: #a9890a;
cursor: pointer;
}
`]
})
export class IncrementClicker {
curClicks = 0;
incrementClicks() {
this.curClicks++;
}
}
```
Our component structure is similar to our previous one, but we've added a bit of functionality here. You will notice our class is no longer empty. We've added a variable to track the clicks as well as a function to increment them when the user clicks the button.
You can display properties from your class in your template using double braces such as: `{{ variableName }}`
We bind the button click event to our class function using Angulars Event Bindings.
```html
```
Notice that we've also added some styling to our components. This way everything is self-contained in this module. You may also include a `templateUrl` and/or `styleUrls` properties instead to extract the template and style rules to an external file and link them here.
Now we just need to update our `AppComponent` to include our new component:
```js
// app/app.component.ts
import { Component } from '@angular/core';
/* Nested Component */
import { IncrementClicker } from 'app/increment-clicker.component';
@Component({
selector: 'my-app',
directives: [IncrementClicker],
template: `
Free Code Camp Rocks!
`,
styles: [`
h1 { color: darkgreen; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}
`]
})
export class AppComponent { }
```
To pull in our new `IncrementClicker` component we need to import it by including the class name as well as the location of the typescript file as we did on this line:
```js
import { IncrementClicker } from 'app/increment-clicker.component';
```
We then add the `IncrementClicker` *component* as a directive to the `AppComponent` module using:
```js
directives: [IncrementClicker],
Finally, we just add the tag that our component connects to in the template. So the selector in our `IncrementClicker` component will match the tag where we want it to show up.
`js
template: `