Add a shorter alias for ng-container

Which @angular/* package(s) are relevant/releated to the feature request?

core

Description

ng-container tends to be used a lot. Especially if you don’t want erroneous elements appearing in your html that are there only because of some conditional checks. This becomes verbose. Perhaps we can have a short alias for ng-container?

We already have short forms for the template with things with ngFor / ngForOf etc.

E.g. This is a an OTT example to highlight some common use cases

<ng-container *ngIf="...">
  <ng-container *ngFor="...">
    <ng-container [ngSwitch]="...">
      <ng-container *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </ng-container>
      <ng-container *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </ng-container>
      <ng-container *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </ng-container>
    </ng-container>
  </ng-container>
</ng-container>

Proposed solution

I would love to see a short alias for the container like

<ng *ngIf="...">
  <ng *ngFor="...">
    <ng [ngSwitch]="...">
      <ng *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </ng>
      <ng *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </ng>
      <ng *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </ng>
    </ng>
  </ng>
</ng>

Alternatives considered

Containers could be marked implicitly using an unnamed asterisk attribute

<ng-for *="value of values">
  <ng-if *="value">
    Show something
  </ng-if>
</ng-for>

OR

<ngFor *="value of values">
  <ngIf *="value">
    Show something
  </ngIf>
</ngFor>

Or perhaps a different shorter element name other than <ng …?

EDIT 1: add some clarification EDIT 2: removed bad alternative, add some more context EDIT 3: update alternative with suggestion from @stupidawesome below EDIT 4: added another alternative that doesn’t dash-case the selector

[Airblader]

I know that the voting process doesn’t actually include “thumb downs”, but I’ll just explain my vote:

• I don’t think the two shown snippets differ fundamentally in complexity or readability. If that is a concern, component separation would be the way to go.
• Typing a couple extra characters is really not an issue in good IDEs anymore. Making everything shorter always comes at the cost of potentially making it less understandable for people not familiar with it.
• Obviously just changing it wouldn’t be possible due to being a breaking change, and adding configuration for such a (IMO) non-issue feels too much like bloating. We might as well make it configurable to write @C instead of @Component etc.
• Making such fundamental things configurable breaks familiarity for people coming into a project.
• With the team’s process of trying to focus on the most important issues and closing others, I feel this just wouldn’t make for well-invested time (again, IMO).

[kbrilla]

I would go further than shorthand and propose an empty tag mayby? Why? - Because it’s even shorter and <ng-container> is an element does not end up in DOM anyway

< *ngIf="...">
  < *ngFor="...">
    < [ngSwitch]="...">
      < *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </>
      < *ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </>
      <*ngSwitchCase="'...'">
        ...
      </>
    </>
  </>
</>