(9/27/21: This post is outdated after Material-UI (MUI) released Version 5)

Which CSS framework is the best for React and why is it Material-UI? Material-UI is a framework of React components with it's design based on Google's Material Design. If you're familiar with React, you know how easy it is to work with components. When you need to style a container, button, text, etc. you just import the Material-UI component for that element and customize it with props. Let's go over setting it up for your project and some of the available components.

Installation

First install the source files via npm

npm install @material-ui/core

Load the default Roboto font into your index.html

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:300,400,500,700&display=swap" />

Components

Go to the Material-UI site and search for the component you are using. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on API and you will see all the props and customization points.

First import the component into your project, Typography for example

import Typography from '@material-ui/core/Typography'

Depending if you have content that needs to be wrapped in your component or not, you will wrap it with an open and closing component or you can call the component and have it self closing

<Typography>
  Wrapped content
</Typography>

<TextField />

Customize the component using the variant prop

<Typography variant='h1'>
  This is H1
</Typography>
<Typography variant='h2'>
  This is H2
</Typography>

Grid

Material-UI gives us a 12 column grid system based on flexbox.

Import the Grid component

import Grid from '@material-ui/core/Grid'

Create a Grid container that will wrap around the the Grid items

<Grid container>
  <Grid item>
    Item 1
  </Grid>
  <Grid item>
    Item 2
  </Grid>
  <Grid item>
    Item 3
  </Grid>
  <Grid item>
    Item 4
  </Grid>
</Grid>

This will just lay these items next to each other, but we can pass in breakpoints and it will create spacing and make the grid responsive

<Grid container>
  <Grid item xs={3}>
    Item 1
  </Grid>
  <Grid item xs={3}>
    Item 2
  </Grid>
  <Grid item xs={3}>
    Item 3
  </Grid>
  <Grid item xs={3}>
    Item 4
  </Grid>
</Grid>

Drawer

Navigation drawers can hold your links and other app functions. There are different drawer types:

• Temporary - can toggle open or closed and sits on top of content
• Persistent - can toggle open or closed and is on the same level as your content, this will re-adjust the size of your content
• Permanent - are always visible and pinned to the left edge, they can't be closed

Import your Drawer component

import Drawer from '@material-ui/core/Drawer'

Wrap your content in the opening and closing Drawer component then set the type with variant, we'll go with a Temporary drawer here. Then the side you want the Drawer to appear from we assign with anchor

<Drawer variant='temporary' anchor='left'>
  Our Links
</Drawer>

We can toggle the Drawer open or close with open which takes in a boolean. I like to use useState and toggle with a button

const [open, setOpen] = useState(false)
const toggleDrawer = () => { setOpen(open => !open) }

<Button onClick={toggleDrawer}>Toggle Drawer</Button>
<Drawer variant='temporary' anchor='left' open={open}>
  Our Links
</Drawer>

Drawers also have an onClose prop that takes in a callback function. This will be triggered when a user clicks on another part of the app while the Drawer is open. We can assign our toggleDrawer function to toggle our state and close the Drawer

<Drawer variant='temporary' anchor='left' open={open} onClose={toggleDrawer}>
  Our Links
</Drawer>

makeStyles Hook

Allows you to create CSS classes and add custom CSS

This has to be imported using destructuring

import { makeStyles } from '@material-ui/core'

Assign a constant to makeStyles that takes in an object where we create a CSS class and add our custom CSS

const useStyles = makeStyles({
   text: {
     fontSize: 50,
     backgroundColor: 'red'
   }
})

Assign another constant inside our component function to useStyles and invoke it then assign it to the component we want to style with className

function App() {
  const classes = useStyles()

  return (
    <Typography className={classes.text}>
      Wrapped Content
    </Typography>
  );
}

export default App;

There are many more customization options, again check the API for what's available.

Custom Themes

Material-UI has a default theme that has colors set and uses the Roboto font. You can find the settings on the default theme by searching default theme on the Material-UI site. We can change these settings with custom themes.

First import the needed functions into the root component of your app so the entire app has access to the custom theme

import { createMuiTheme, ThemeProvider } from '@material-ui/core'

Assign a constant to createMuiTheme that takes in an object where we create our custom theme. Here we access the main color

const theme = createMuiTheme({
  palette: {
    primary: {
      main: '#FEFEFE'
    }
  }
})

Wrap your entire app in the ThemeProvider then assign the custom theme we created using theme

function App() {

  return (
    <ThemeProvider theme={theme}>
      <Typography color='primary'>
        Wrapped Content
      </Typography>
    </ThemeProvider>
  );
}

export default App;

We can change the font of the Typography component

const theme = createMuiTheme({
  palette: {
    primary: {
      main: '#FEFEFE'
    }
  },
  typography: {
    fontFamily: 'Quicksand'
  }
})

Look in the default theme and find other settings you would like to customize

Conclusion

As you can see Material-UI is very easy to use and customizable. The Grid component makes it very easy to create responsive apps. To dive deeper I recommend reading through the documentation on the Material-UI site. I will also link a great youtube tutorial I used to learn about Material-UI. Happy coding!

Resources

Material-UI
Material-UI Tutorial by The Net Ninja