# Developer Guide: Initializing Angular

Work in Progress This page is currently being revised. It might be incomplete or contain inaccuracies.

Initializing angular consists of loading the `angular.js` script in your page, and specifying how angular should process and manage the page. To initialize angular you do the following:

- Specify the angular namespace in the `<html>` page
- Choose which flavor of angular script to load (debug or production)
- Specify whether or not angular should process and manage the page automatically (`ng:autobind`)

The simplest way to initialize angular is to load the angular script and tell angular to compile and manage the whole page. You do this as follows:

    <!doctype html>
    <html xmlns:ng="http://angularjs.org">
      <head>
        ...
      </head>
      <body>
        ...
        <script src="angular.js" ng:autobind>
      </body>

### Specifying the Angular Namespace

        <html xmlns:ng="http://angularjs.org">

You need to declare the angular namespace declaration in the following cases:

- For all types of browser if you are using XHTML.
- For Internet Explorer older than version 9 (because older versions of IE do not render widgets properly for either HTML or XHTML).

### Creating Your Own Namespaces

When you are ready to define your own widgets, you must create your own namespace in addition to specifying the angular namespace. You use your own namespace to form the fully qualified name for widgets that you create.

For example, you could map the alias `my` to your domain, and create a widget called `my:widget`. To create your own namespace, simply add another `xmlns` tag to your page, create an alias, and set it to your unique domain:

        <html xmlns:ng="http://angularjs.org" xmlns:my="http://mydomain.com">

### Loading the Angular Bootstrap Script

The angular bootstrap script comes in two flavors; a debug script, and a production script:

- angular-[version].js - This is a human-readable file, suitable for development and debugging.
- angular-[version].min.js - This is a compressed and obfuscated file, suitable for use in production.

### Related Topics

- Automatic Initialization
- Manual Initialization