How to Use the react-mui-sidebar Package to Build Responsive, Customizable Sidebars

In modern web development, a well-designed sidebar can greatly improve the user experience by providing easy navigation and access to important features.

The react-mui-sidebar, powered by Material-UI, is a helpful React NPM package designed to make it easier to build responsive and highly customizable sidebars.

In this article, we will explore the key aspects of react-mui-sidebar and how you can use it to elevate the sidebar experience in your React applications.

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites

• What is MUI (Material-UI)?

• Why Choose react-mui-sidebar?

• How to Get Started with react-mui-sidebar

• Wrapping Up

Prerequisites

Before diving into the tutorial, make sure you have the following:

• Basics of React like components, props, state, and JSX

• Familiarity with React Router or Next.js App Router so you know how linking/navigation works

• Understanding of Material-UI / MUI: theming, components, styling

• NPM / Yarn package usage: installing, importing, and managing dependencies

• Basic CSS / layout skills: Flexbox, widths, responsive design, and so on

Here’s what we’ll be building:

Here’s a live demo you can check out, too.

What is MUI (Material-UI)?

Material-UI is a widely adopted React UI framework that brings Google's Material Design principles to React applications. React MUI Sidebar leverages the strengths of Material-UI, providing a seamless integration for creating visually appealing and responsive sidebars.

Features of React MUI Sidebar

1. Responsive design: React MUI Sidebar ensures a consistent and adaptive layout across various screen sizes, catering to the increasing demand for mobile-friendly interfaces.

2. Customization options: You can easily change the appearance of the sidebar to match the overall design of you application, allowing for a cohesive and branded look.

3. Integration with React and Next.js: React MUI Sidebar seamlessly integrates with both React and Next.js, offering a familiar and efficient development experience.

4. User-friendly: React MUI Sidebar is designed with simplicity in mind, making it easy to incorporate into your projects. With intuitive documentation, you can quickly grasp and implement the sidebar functionality.

5. Icons support: The sidebar comes with built-in support for icons, helping you enhance the visual appeal and usability of your applications. You can use any icon library and provide the icon component.

6. Menu and submenu support: It provides a hierarchical structure with support for both main menus and nested submenus. This feature enables you to organize and present complex navigation structures in a clear and intuitive manner.

7. Smooth transitions: The sidebar incorporates smooth transition effects, enhancing the overall user experience by providing a visually pleasing navigation flow. Animations are thoughtfully implemented to avoid any jarring effects during sidebar interactions.

Why Choose react-mui-sidebar?

There are various reasons to use this helpful tool. Here are a few big ones:

Optimized Performance

react-mui-sidebar is designed and configured for high performance, ensuring smooth and responsive user interactions. Internally, it minimizes re-renders via memoization so that only parts of the menu that actually change are updated. It uses lightweight DOM structure and conditional rendering of nested items to avoid unnecessary mounting.

Since it's built on MUI, it also leverages efficient styling via the sx prop or styled components rather than heavy theme recalculations.

These features are crucial for applications, especially those with complex or intricate user interfaces, where performance issues can negatively impact the user experience.

Community Strength

React MUI Sidebar benefits from a large and active user base thanks in part to the large and active Material UI community. This is helpful for users because it means there's a wealth of resources, tutorials, and assistance available.

A strong community can contribute to the growth of the framework, provide solutions to common issues, and foster collaboration among developers.

Reliable Maintenance

react-mui-sidebar is actively supported by consistent updates and proactive maintenance from its community. Regular updates often include bug fixes, security patches, and new features, which help make sure that the framework remains current and adaptable to users’ evolving needs. This is especially important for long-term projects, and shows a commitment to the ongoing improvement and support of the framework.

How to Get Started with react-mui-sidebar

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through installing and setting up react-mui-sidebar in a React and Next.js application. You’ll learn how to integrate the sidebar, add a logo, create menus, and use links.

Step 1: Install react-mui-sidebar

To begin, you’ll need to install the react-mui-sidebar package into your React and Next.js project. You can do this using either npm or yarn.

Using npm:

npm install react-mui-sidebar

Using yarn:

yarn add react-mui-sidebar

This will add react-mui-sidebar and its dependencies to your project.

Step 2: Import the React MUI Sidebar Component

Once the package is installed, you can import the necessary components from react-mui-sidebar into your project. These components will allow you to customize the sidebar with menus, submenus, and even a logo.

import { Sidebar, Menu, MenuItem, Submenu, Logo } from "react-mui-sidebar";

Step 3: Set Up Routing for React App or Next.js App

To enable navigation inside react-mui-sidebar components like MenuItem or Logo, you need to pass a link component from either react-router or next/link using the component prop inside the corresponding component like what’s shown in the below example:

If you're using React Router:

import { Link } from "react-router-dom";

const App = () => {
  return (
    <Sidebar width={"270px"}>
      <Logo
        component={Link}  // Passing link to component for routing
        href="/"
        img="https://adminmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/logo-admin-mart-news.png"
      >
        AdminMart
      </Logo>
      <Menu subHeading="HOME">
        <MenuItem
          icon={<CottageOutlinedIcon />}
          component={Link} // Passing link to component for routing
          link="/tes"
          badge={true}
          isSelected={true}
        >
          {" "}
          {/* text for your link */}
          Link Text
        </MenuItem>
      </Menu>
    </Sidebar>
  );
};

export default App;

If you're using Next.js App Router:

import Link from "next/link";

const App = () => {
  return (
    <Sidebar width={"270px"}>
      <Logo
        component={Link}  // Passing link to component for routing
        href="/"
        img="https://adminmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/logo-admin-mart-news.png"
      >
        AdminMart
      </Logo>
      <Menu subHeading="HOME">
        <MenuItem
          icon={<CottageOutlinedIcon />}
          component={Link} // Passing link to component for routing
          link="/tes"
          badge={true}
          isSelected={true}
        >
          {" "}
          {/* text for your link */}
          Link Text
        </MenuItem>
      </Menu>
    </Sidebar>
  );
};

export default App;

Step 4: Initialize the Sidebar

Now we’ll set up the Sidebar component in your application. You can set the width of the sidebar using the width prop. Here’s a simple example:

<Sidebar width={"270px"}> // pass the width you want your sidebar to have
  {/* Sidebar Content Goes Here */}
</Sidebar>

This initializes the sidebar with a width of 270px. You can adjust this width based on your design requirements.

Step 5: Add a Logo to the Sidebar

You can add a logo inside the sidebar by using the Logo component. To do so, you can provide an src URL or use the img prop to link to a CDN logo image. You can also make the logo clickable by passing a navigation link using the component and href props. Here’s how to do this:

<Sidebar width={"270px"}>
  <Logo 
    component={Link} 
    href=”/”
    img="https://adminmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/logo-admin-mart-news.png" // path for image you want to use as your logo
  >
    AdminMart
  </Logo>
</Sidebar>

In this example, we’ve added a logo from a CDN using the img prop, used the component prop to pass the Link, and set the navigation path to (/) (the homepage) using the href prop. We’ve also set the text “AdminMart” as the name of the application.

Step 6: Create a Menu Inside the Sidebar

Now let’s create a menu inside the sidebar using the Menu component. You can specify a submenu heading using the subHeading prop. Inside the Menu, you can add MenuItem components for each item.

You can also provide a link prop along with the component prop to the MenuItem to turn the item into a clickable link.

Here’s how you can structure the menu:

<Sidebar width={"270px"}>
  <Menu subHeading="HOME">
    <MenuItem component={Link}  link="/"  badge=”true”  isSelected={true} >
      Modern
    </MenuItem>
    <MenuItem>eCommerce</MenuItem>
    <MenuItem>Analytical</MenuItem>
  </Menu>
</Sidebar>

In this example:

• We’ve added a Menu with the heading “HOME”.

• The first MenuItem has a link prop, so clicking it will navigate to the homepage (/).

• The second and third MenuItem components are simple text items without links.

The badge="true" prop can be used to indicate a badge or notification on the MenuItem, and the isSelected={true} prop marks this menu item as currently selected or active. You can customize this feature according to your needs.

Step 7: Add Submenus (Optional)

To add submenus inside the main menu, you can use the Submenu component. The Submenu can be nested inside the Menu component and contains its own set of MenuItems. Use the title prop to set the submenu heading

Here’s an example of adding a submenu:

<Sidebar width={"270px"}>
  <Menu subHeading="SERVICES">
    <MenuItem  component={Link}   link="/web-development">Web Development</MenuItem>
    <MenuItem   component={Link}  link="/seo-services">SEO Services</MenuItem>
    <Submenu title="Marketing">
      <MenuItem  component={Link}  link="/digital-marketing">Digital Marketing</MenuItem>
      <MenuItem  component={Link}  link="/content-marketing">Content Marketing</MenuItem>
    </Submenu>
  </Menu>
</Sidebar>

In this example:

• A submenu under the "Marketing" heading is added inside the "SERVICES" menu.

• The submenu contains two MenuItems with links to different service pages.

Wrapping Up

You have now successfully integrated a fully functional sidebar in your React and Next.js application using react-mui-sidebar. You can further customize the sidebar by:

• Modifying the width and design.

• Adding more submenus, menu items, or icons.

• Using links to navigate between pages.

This setup provides a flexible, responsive, and easy-to-use sidebar, which is perfect for most web applications.

Try It Out:

You can view the working demo of the react-mui-sidebar here: View Demo.

Note: in this tutorial, we utilized Material UI Icons to construct this sidebar. Feel free to choose an alternative library or use different icons based on your specific requirements.