Create Personalized UIs with Material You in Jetpack Compose

Create Personalized UIs with Material You in Jetpack Compose

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. What is Material You?
3. What is Jetpack Compose?
4. The Evolution of Material Design
5. Introducing Material Design 3
6. Getting Started with Material Design 3 in Jetpack Compose
7. Implementing Material Theming
8. Custom Color Schemes in Material Design 3
9. Dynamic Colors with Material You
10. Typography in Material Design 3
11. Updates to Elevation in Material Design 3
12. Updates to Components in Compose Material 3
13. Incorporating Material You's Visual Style and System UI
14. Interoperability with Android Views
15. Resources and Tools for Material Design 3 in Compose
16. Conclusion

Introduction

In this article, we will explore how to implement Material You in Jetpack Compose. We will begin by understanding the concept of Material You and its significance in the evolution of Material Design. Then, we will dive into Jetpack Compose, Android's new native UI toolkit, and how it can help us build better apps faster.

What is Material You?

Material You is the next evolution of Material Design. It is a radical new design vision that focuses on delivering personalized, accessible, and adaptive experiences for every user. With Material You, we can Create UIs that are tailored to each user's individual style and preferences, making the app experience more engaging and user-friendly.

What is Jetpack Compose?

Jetpack Compose is a modern, native UI toolkit for Android that simplifies UI development and makes it more efficient. It allows developers to build UIs declaratively using Kotlin, which results in cleaner and more concise code. With Compose, we can create beautiful, responsive, and interactive UIs with less effort and in less time.

The Evolution of Material Design

Material Design has come a long way since its introduction. It has evolved over the years to address changing user needs and design trends. Material Design 2 introduced the concept of Material Theming, Material Components, and dark theme. Now, with Material Design 3, we have a more refined and comprehensive Design System that includes updated Theming and Components, as well as new personalization features like dynamic color.

Introducing Material Design 3

Material Design 3 is built upon the principles of Material Design 2 but introduces significant updates and enhancements. It focuses on providing a more Cohesive and adaptable design system that aligns with the new visual style and system UI of Android 12. Material Design 3 brings a fresh color palette, new typography, updated Theming values, and improved component specifications, making it easier for developers to create visually appealing and consistent UIs.

Getting Started with Material Design 3 in Jetpack Compose

To start implementing Material Design 3 in Jetpack Compose, we need to add the new androidx.compose.material3 dependency to our build.gradle files. Once we have the dependency set up, we can begin exploring the various features and updates that Material Design 3 offers. In this article, we will use Jetchat, a sample chat app built with Jetpack Compose, to illustrate the implementation of Material Design 3.

Implementing Material Theming

Material Theming is a key concept in Material Design that allows us to customize the look and feel of our app using a consistent set of design tokens such as colors, typography, and shapes. In Material Design 3, we have a new version of MaterialTheme that supports the updated Theming values. We can customize the color scheme and typography of our app by adjusting the colorScheme and typography systems.

Custom Color Schemes in Material Design 3

Material Design 3 introduces a new approach to color schemes. Colors are now separated into named color slots, such as Primary, Background, and Error, which are used by Material Design 3 components. These color slots form a color scheme, and each color slot has default baseline colors for both light and dark themes. We can create custom color schemes by creating instances of the ColorScheme class and passing them to the MaterialTheme composable.

Dynamic Colors with Material You

One of the most exciting features of Material You is dynamic color. Dynamic color allows our app to adapt its color scheme Based on the user's wallpaper, providing a personalized and cohesive experience. With dynamic color, we can derive custom colors from the user's wallpaper and Apply them to our app and system UI. Material Design 3 provides utility functions and composable functions to make it easy to implement dynamic colors in our app.

Typography in Material Design 3

Typography plays a crucial role in app design, and Material Design 3 offers a new Type Scale that includes text styles adapted from Material Design 2. The new type scale has Simplified naming and grouping, making it easier to choose the appropriate style for each text element in our app. We can customize the typography of our app by creating an instance of the Typography class and overriding the default TextStyles with our preferred fonts, sizes, and weights.

Updates to Elevation in Material Design 3

Elevation is a fundamental aspect of Material Design that helps establish a visual hierarchy and depth in our app's UI. In Material Design 3, the concept of elevation has been updated. Instead of using shadows, Material Design 3 utilizes tonal color overlays to distinguish containers and surfaces. Compose Material 3 provides an updated Surface composable that supports tonal elevation in both light and dark themes.

Updates to Components in Compose Material 3

In Compose Material 3, we see a variety of updates to existing Material Design components. Components like buttons, app bars, dialogs, FABs, and navigation components have been optimized to work seamlessly with the new Material Design 3 Theming values. These updates include fresh new designs and improved component specifications, making it easier to create consistent and visually appealing UIs in our app.

Incorporating Material You's Visual Style and System UI

Material You's visual style and system UI are key aspects of the overall design language. Android 12 introduces a new visual style and system UI that aligns with the principles of Material You. This encompasses changes to the ripple effect and overscroll behavior, which add subtle animations and visual enhancements to our app. Compose Foundation 1.1 and above include these changes by default, requiring no additional work for us to implement them.

Interoperability with Android Views

Interoperability with Android views is essential when developing apps with Compose. Compose Material 3 has made updates to support this interoperability with Material Components and XML themes. The MDC-Android Compose Theme Adapter library enables us to reuse Material Components from Android XML themes for theming in Jetpack Compose. This ensures that our existing views and themes can seamlessly integrate with Compose Material 3.

Resources and Tools for Material Design 3 in Compose

To assist developers in implementing Material Design 3 in Compose, Google provides a range of resources and tools. The API reference documentation for Compose Material 3 offers detailed information about each component and its usage. The Material Theme Builder tool helps generate custom color schemes based on brand colors or wallpapers. The Compose Material Catalog app showcases all the components and their implementations. Additionally, the MDC-Android Compose Theme Adapter library enables easy interoperability with existing Android XML themes.

Conclusion

In this article, we've explored how to implement Material Design 3 in Jetpack Compose. We've learned about the concept of Material You and its focus on personalization and adaptability. Jetpack Compose has emerged as a powerful native UI toolkit that simplifies UI development. We've covered various aspects of Material Design 3, including Theming, color schemes, dynamic colors, typography, elevation, component updates, and interoperability with Android views. With the resources and tools provided by Google, developers can confidently build visually appealing and user-friendly apps using Material Design 3 in Jetpack Compose.