Getting Started with Chakra UI in React: A Complete Guide

Chakra UI is a popular open-source component library for React that provides a set of accessible, reusable, and customizable UI components. It focuses on simplicity, modularity, and accessibility, helping developers create beautiful and consistent user interfaces with ease. Chakra UI leverages the power of CSS-in-JS for styling and is designed to integrate smoothly with React applications.

Key Features of Chakra UI:

1. Accessible by Default: Chakra UI is built with accessibility in mind. It provides components that come with the necessary accessibility features out of the box, such as proper ARIA attributes, keyboard navigation, and focus management.

2. Comprehensive Component Library: Chakra UI offers a wide range of pre-built components like buttons, modals, form elements, sliders, and more. These components are styled using a consistent design system.

3. Responsive: Chakra UI components are fully responsive and adapt to different screen sizes with ease. It uses a mobile-first approach and provides responsive utilities to handle layout changes based on screen sizes.

4. Customizable and Themeable: Chakra UI comes with a built-in theme that you can customize. You can modify the default theme’s colors, fonts, and spacing, and create your own design system that suits your needs.

5. CSS-in-JS Styling: Chakra UI uses a CSS-in-JS approach with the help of the @emotion/react library. This allows you to define styles directly within your components, making it easier to style them dynamically and consistently.

6. Utility Functions: Chakra UI includes several utility functions and hooks that help you manage layout and design, such as useDisclosure, useBreakpointValue, and others, making it easier to handle things like modal opening/closing and responsive design.

7. Easy to Use and Integrate: Chakra UI’s API is simple and intuitive, with minimal setup required. It also integrates seamlessly with other libraries like React Router, React Hook Form, etc.

How to Get Started with Chakra UI

To start using Chakra UI in your React project, follow these steps:

1. Install Chakra UI:

First, install Chakra UI and its dependencies:

   npm install @chakra-ui/react @emotion/react @emotion/styled framer-motion

@emotion/react and @emotion/styled are used for styling, and framer-motion is used for animations in Chakra UI.

1. Set up Chakra UI Provider:

Chakra UI components need to be wrapped inside the ChakraProvider component, which provides the default theme to all the components in your app.

Example of setting up Chakra UI:

   import React from 'react';
   import { ChakraProvider, Button } from '@chakra-ui/react';

   function App() {
     return (
       <ChakraProvider>
         <div style={{ padding: '20px' }}>
           <Button colorScheme="teal">Hello Chakra UI</Button>
         </div>
       </ChakraProvider>
     );
   }

   export default App;

In this example, we import ChakraProvider to provide the default theme and use the Button component from Chakra UI.

1. Customizing the Theme:

Chakra UI’s default theme can be easily customized using the extendTheme function. You can change the colors, fonts, and other aspects of the theme globally.

Example of customizing the theme:

   import React from 'react';
   import { ChakraProvider, Button, extendTheme } from '@chakra-ui/react';

   // Customize the default theme
   const theme = extendTheme({
     colors: {
       brand: {
         100: '#e6fffa',
         200: '#b2f5ea',
         300: '#81e6d9',
         400: '#4fd1c5',
         500: '#38b2ac',
         600: '#319795',
         700: '#2c7a7b',
         800: '#285e61',
         900: '#234e52',
       },
     },
   });

   function App() {
     return (
       <ChakraProvider theme={theme}>
         <div style={{ padding: '20px' }}>
           <Button colorScheme="brand">Custom Themed Button</Button>
         </div>
       </ChakraProvider>
     );
   }

   export default App;

In this example, we extend the default theme with custom brand colors and use them in the Button component.

1. Responsive Design with Chakra UI:

Chakra UI provides a responsive design system that makes it easy to build mobile-friendly layouts. You can use Chakra’s responsive utilities like useBreakpointValue to display different content based on screen size.

Example of responsive design:

   import React from 'react';
   import { Box, useBreakpointValue } from '@chakra-ui/react';

   function App() {
     // Dynamically change the background color based on screen size
     const bgColor = useBreakpointValue({ base: 'teal.100', md: 'purple.100' });

     return (
       <Box bg={bgColor} height="100vh">
         <h1>Hello, Chakra UI</h1>
       </Box>
     );
   }

   export default App;

In this example, the Box component will have a teal.100 background on small screens and a purple.100 background on medium-sized screens and larger.

1. Using Chakra UI Components:

Chakra UI offers a large set of components that are simple to use and configure. Here’s an example of a Modal and a Button:

   import React from 'react';
   import { Button, Modal, ModalOverlay, ModalContent, ModalHeader, ModalCloseButton, ModalBody, ModalFooter, useDisclosure } from '@chakra-ui/react';

   function App() {
     const { isOpen, onOpen, onClose } = useDisclosure();

     return (
       <div>
         <Button onClick={onOpen}>Open Modal</Button>

         <Modal isOpen={isOpen} onClose={onClose}>
           <ModalOverlay />
           <ModalContent>
             <ModalHeader>Modal Title</ModalHeader>
             <ModalCloseButton />
             <ModalBody>
               <p>This is a modal body.</p>
             </ModalBody>
             <ModalFooter>
               <Button colorScheme="blue" onClick={onClose}>Close</Button>
             </ModalFooter>
           </ModalContent>
         </Modal>
       </div>
     );
   }

   export default App;

In this example, we use Chakra’s Modal component along with useDisclosure to manage the modal's open/close state.

Conclusion

Chakra UI is a powerful and flexible library for building modern and accessible UIs in React. Its simplicity, easy customization, and responsiveness make it an excellent choice for both small and large-scale applications. By using Chakra UI, you can focus on the functionality of your application rather than worrying about complex UI design, all while ensuring your app is accessible and consistent across different screen sizes and devices.