Material UI (MUI) is a popular component library that implements Google’s Material Design system. It provides a wide range of pre-built UI components that you can use to create functional and visually appealing interfaces.
Even though it’s designed for React, you can extend its capabilities to other frameworks within React’s ecosystem, like Next.js.
Getting Started With React Hook Form and Material UI
React Hook Formis a popular library that provides a simple and declarative way to create, manage, and validate forms.
By integratingMaterial UI’sUI components and styles, you can create good-looking forms that are easy to use, and apply a consistent design to your Next.js application.
To get started, scaffold a Next.js project locally. For the purpose of this guide, install thelatest version of Next.js which makes use of the App directory.
Next, install these packages in your project:
Here’s a preview of what you will build:
You can find this project’s code in thisGitHubrepository.
Creating and Styling Forms
React Hook Form provides a variety of utility functions, including theuseFormhook.
This hook streamlines the process of handling form state, input validation, and submission, simplifying the fundamental aspects of form management.
To create a form that makes use of this hook, add the following code to a new file,src/components/form.js.
First, add the required imports for the React Hook Form and MUI packages:
MUI provides a collection of ready-to-use UI components that you can further customize by passing styling props.
Nonetheless, if you want more flexibility and control over the UI design, you can opt to use the styled method to style your UI elements with CSS properties. In this case, you can style the main components of the form: the main container, the form itself, and the input text fields.
Right below the imports, add this code:
Maintaining a modular codebase is important in development. For this reason, rather than lumping all the code into a single file, you should define and style custom components in separate files.
This way, you’re able to easily import and use these components across different parts of your application, making your code more organized and maintainable.
Now, define the functional component:
Finally, import this component in yourapp/page.jsfile. Delete all the boilerplate Next.js code and update it with the following:
Start the development server, and you should see a basic form with two input fields and a submit button in your browser.
Handling Form Validation
The form looks great, but it doesn’t do anything yet. To make it functional, you need to add some validation code.useFormhook utility functions will come in handy when managing andvalidating the user inputs.
First, define the following state variable to manage the current form status, depending on whether a user has provided the correct credentials. Add this code inside the functional component:
Next, create a handler function to validate the credentials. This function will simulate an HTTP API request that typically occurs when client apps interact with a backend authentication API.
Add an onClick event handler function to the button component—passing it as a prop—to trigger the onSubmit function when a user clicks the submit button.
The value of theformStatusstate variable is important because it will determine how you provide feedback to the user. If the user enters the correct credentials, you might show a success message. If you had other pages in your Next.js application, you could redirect them to a different page.
You should also provide appropriate feedback if the credentials are wrong. Material UI offers a great feedback component that you can use alongsideReact’s conditional rendering techniqueto inform the user, based on the value of formStatus.
To do this, add the following code right below theStyledFormopening tag.
Now, to capture and validate user input, you can use theregisterfunction to register the form input fields, track its values, and specify the validation rules.
This function takes several arguments, including the name of the input field and a validation parameters object. This object specifies the validation rules for the input field such as the specific pattern, and minimum length.
Go ahead and include the following code as a prop in the usernameStyledTextFieldcomponent.
Now, add the following object as a prop in thepasswordStyledTextFieldcomponent.
Add the following code below the username input field to provide visual feedback on input requirements.
This code will trigger an alert with an error message to inform the user of the requirements, to ensure they correct any errors before submitting the form.
Finally, include similar code right below the password input text field:
Awesome! With these changes, you should have a visually appealing, functional form made with React Hook Form and Material UI.
Enhance Your Next.js Development With Client-Side Libraries
Material UI and React Hook Form are just two examples of the many great client-side libraries that you can use to speed up Next.js frontend development.
Client-side libraries provide a variety of production-ready features and pre-built components which can help you to build better front-end applications more quickly and efficiently.
