Radix UI is a low-level, unstyled, accessible component library for building high-quality, user-friendly web interfaces. You can use it together with React to create apps with full-featured components that you can easily style to fit your design.
What Is Radix UI?
Radix UI is a collection of primitive, unstyled, accessible UI components for React applications. It provides the building blocks you need to create your design system.
The main goal of Radix UI is to provide a set of low-level utility components that help you build reusable components. The components come unstyled by default, meaning you have complete control over their styling.
Setting Up Your React Application
You must set up a React application to use Radix UI. To do so, you need to have Node.js and npm, the Node package manager, installed on your computer.
With these installed, you can create a new React application with this terminal command:
npm init vite
This command will initialize Vite. Vite is a fast-build tool that lets you create modern web applications quickly. You can use Vite to create your React application.
After running the above command, you will answer a series of prompts to configure your React application. Create a React application, name it radix-ui-app, and ensure that it uses the TypeScript language.
Next, enter your new app’s root directory and install the necessary dependencies:
cd radix-ui-app
npm install
Your React application is now ready.
Installing Radix UI
Radix UI is a great component library that you can use to create accessible React applications. It lets you install each component individually as a separate package. You will specify the component’s name in your command to install it.
For example:
npm install @radix-ui/react-dropdown-menu
This will install the Radix UI dropdown menu component. Radix UI has many other components you can install depending on your needs.
Building Your Application Using Radix UI
Now that you have installed the dropdown menu component from Radix UI, you can build a simple dropdown menu using Radix UI. To do this, you will first import the necessary components from the Radix UI dropdown menu component.
Here’s an example showing how you can build a simple dropdown menu using Radix:
import React from "react";
import * as DropdownMenu from "@radix-ui/react-dropdown-menu";function App() {
return (
<div>
<DropdownMenu.Root>
<DropdownMenu.Trigger>
<button>Click Me</button>
</DropdownMenu.Trigger>
<DropdownMenu.Content>
<DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Item>
<p>New Tab</p>
</DropdownMenu.Item>
</DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Item>
<p>More tools</p>
</DropdownMenu.Item>
</DropdownMenu.Group>
</DropdownMenu.Content>
</DropdownMenu.Root>
</div>
);
}
export default App;
This code imports all the components from the @radix-ui/react-dropdown-menu package as DropdownMenu. It then uses these components to create a dropdown menu inside the div element.
The DropdownMenu.Root is the root component of the dropdown menu. You should nest all other dropdown menu components within this one. You can define a trigger for the dropdown menu using the DropdownMenu.Trigger component. In this case, the trigger is a button element with the "Click Me" text. When you click on the button, the dropdown menu will appear.
With the DropdownMenu.Content component, you define the content of the dropdown menu and the DropdownMenu.Group component represents a group of related menu items. You are using the DropdownMenu.Item component to define individual items of the dropdown menu.
In this example, there are two DropdownMenu.Group components, each of which contains a single DropdownMenu.Item component. These components are all wrapped in a DropdownMenu.Content component.
Rendering the code block above will modify your interface to look like this:
As you can see, the results lack any styling, so you’ll need to add your own CSS next.
Styling Your Radix UI Components
One of the advantages of Radix UI is that it doesn't impose any styling on your components. This means you have complete control over your component’s styling. You can style your components using CSS-in-JS libraries like styled-components and emotion, or you can use traditional CSS.
Here is an example of how to style your Radix UI components using traditional CSS:
import React from "react";
import * as DropdownMenu from "@radix-ui/react-dropdown-menu";function App() {
return (
<div>
<DropdownMenu.Root>
<DropdownMenu.Trigger className="trigger">
<button className="button">Click Me</button>
</DropdownMenu.Trigger>
<DropdownMenu.Content className="content">
<DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Item className="item">
<p>New Tab</p>
</DropdownMenu.Item>
</DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Item className="item">
<p>More tools</p>
</DropdownMenu.Item>
</DropdownMenu.Group>
</DropdownMenu.Content>
</DropdownMenu.Root>
</div>
);
}
export default App;
This example adds the className prop to the button element, the DropdownMenu.Trigger, the DropdownMenu.Content, and the DropdownMenu.Item components.
After applying the classes, you can then style the components using CSS:
.button {
padding: 0.7rem 0.8rem;
border: none;
border-radius: 12px;
background-color: #333333;
color: #f2f2f2;
}.trigger {
border: none;
}
.content {
margin: 1rem;
padding: 0.7rem;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
color: #333333;
border-radius: 7px;
}
.item {
padding: 1rem;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 7px;
font-weight: bold;
}
.item:hover {
background-color: #333333;
color: lightgray;
}
The code block above will apply the defined styles to the components for a more attractive look:
Radix UI also offers React Icons, so you can add icons to your application to beautify it some more. Start by installing the Radix UI icons package:
npm install @radix-ui/react-icons
After installing the package, you can use some of its icons in your application.
For example:
import React from "react";
import * as DropdownMenu from "@radix-ui/react-dropdown-menu";
import { HamburgerMenuIcon, PlusIcon } from "@radix-ui/react-icons";function App() {
return (
<div>
<DropdownMenu.Root>
<DropdownMenu.Trigger className="trigger">
<button className="button">
<HamburgerMenuIcon />
</button>
</DropdownMenu.Trigger>
<DropdownMenu.Content className="content">
<DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Item className="item">
<p>New Tab</p>
<PlusIcon />
</DropdownMenu.Item>
</DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Group>
<DropdownMenu.Item className="item">
<p>More tools</p>
</DropdownMenu.Item>
</DropdownMenu.Group>
</DropdownMenu.Content>
</DropdownMenu.Root>
</div>
);
}
export default App;
This example adds the HamburgerMenuIcon and PlusIcon to the application. The former is inside a button component, and the latter augments the first Dropdown.Item component.
Next, update the .item class in your CSS file:
.item {
padding: 1rem;
cursor: pointer;
border-radius: 7px;
font-weight: bold;
display: flex;
gap: 1rem;
}
Now your application should look like this.
Build Quality React Application Using Radix UI
Radix UI is a powerful tool for building React applications. It provides a set of low-level, unstyled, accessible components that you can use as the building blocks for your application.
By using Radix UI, you can focus on the functionality of your application without worrying about underlying UI complexities. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a beginner, Radix UI can help you build high-quality, user-friendly web interfaces.
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