Integrate Mui with Strapi

These integration guides are not official documentation and the Strapi Support Team will not provide assistance with them.

Introduction to MUI and Strapi

MUI, formerly Material-UI, is a React UI library that implements Google's Material Design. Recognized as one of the best UI libraries, it offers a rich set of pre-built components like buttons, cards, and forms, which are easy to customize and integrate. MUI helps developers build sleek, responsive user interfaces quickly, ensuring consistency across applications.

Integrating Strapi with MUI allows you to build efficient, powerful web applications. Strapi manages backend content and API creation, providing valuable headless CMS benefits, while MUI provides ready-to-use frontend components. Combining Strapi and MUI streamlines development and enhances the user experience, allowing you to focus on creating engaging features.

Why Use Strapi with MUI

Combining Strapi's backend capabilities with MUI's UI components in a React application enhances development efficiency and user experience. Strapi's API simplifies data management in your React app, while MUI ensures consistent styling and responsive design with its comprehensive component library. For an example of how powerful this combination can be, see this step-by-step guide on building a job board website with React and Strapi.

Using Strapi with MUI allows you to:

• Accelerate development with ready-to-use backend and frontend components.
• Simplify content management through Strapi's intuitive interface.
• Enhance user interfaces using MUI's extensive component library.
• Maintain design consistency across your app.

Key Features of MUI

When integrating MUI with Strapi, you can take advantage of MUI's robust features to build a dynamic frontend. MUI is recognized as one of the best UI libraries for React:

Rich Set of Pre-built Components

MUI offers a library of React components like Card, Typography, and Grid to efficiently construct your application's UI. For example, display data fetched from Strapi using MUI's Card and Typography components:

1import { Card, CardContent, Typography } from '@mui/material';
2
3<Card key={[item.id](http://item.id)}>
4
5  <CardContent>
6
7    <Typography variant="h5">{item.attributes.title}</Typography>
8
9    <Typography variant="body2">{item.attributes.description}</Typography>
10
11  </CardContent>
12
13</Card>

Customizable Theming and Styling

MUI's theming capabilities allow you to customize your application's look and feel, ensuring consistent styling across components:

1import { ThemeProvider, createTheme } from '@mui/material/styles';
2
3const theme = createTheme({
4
5  // Define your theme settings here
6
7});
8
9function App() {
10
11  return (
12
13    <ThemeProvider theme={theme}>
14
15      {/\* Your app components \*/}
16
17    </ThemeProvider>
18
19  );
20
21}

Responsive Design

With MUI's responsive components and Grid system, create layouts that adapt to different screen sizes. The Grid component helps arrange content effectively:

1import { Grid } from '@mui/material';
2
3<Grid container spacing={2}>
4
5  {[items.map](http://items.map)(item => (
6
7    <Grid item xs={12} sm={6} md={4} key={[item.id](http://item.id)}>
8
9      {/\* Your content \*/}
10
11    </Grid>
12
13  ))}
14
15</Grid>

Seamless Integration with Strapi

Strapi's versatility allows you to integrate Strapi with Next.js and other modern technologies. MUI integrates well with data from Strapi's API.

1import axios from 'axios';
2
3axios.get('<http://localhost:1337/api/your-content-type>')
4
5  .then(response => {
6
7    setData([response.data](http://response.data));
8
9  })
10
11  .catch(error => console.error('Error fetching data:', error));

Performance Optimization

MUI supports performance enhancements like pagination and infinite scrolling, useful for handling large datasets from Strapi. Integrate libraries like React Query for efficient data fetching and caching.

Best Practices for Integrating MUI With Strapi

When integrating MUI with Strapi, follow these best practices:

Use MUI Components for Consistent Styling

Utilize MUI components to maintain a consistent, responsive UI. Present content fetched from Strapi using MUI's Card, Typography, and Grid components.

Properly Fetch Data from Strapi

Retrieve data using HTTP clients like axios or the fetch API, including error handling for potential issues.

Handle Authentication Securely

For Strapi APIs requiring authentication, implement login forms with MUI components and securely store tokens, like JWTs, in your API requests. To implement GitHub login with Strapi and design login forms, you can refer to the official documentation of Strapi for authentication strategies and Material-UI for form components.

Utilize MUI's Theming Capabilities

Customize your application's appearance with MUI's theming features, maintaining consistent style across components.

Optimize Performance

Apply techniques like lazy loading components and images, and consider using state management solutions like Redux or Context API for larger applications.

Getting Started With MUI

To integrate MUI with Strapi in your React application, set up both the Strapi backend and the React frontend:

Set Up Your Strapi Backend

1. Install Strapi: Create a new Strapi project with the command:

1npx create-strapi-app my-project --quickstart

2. Create Content Types: In the Strapi admin panel, create content types, such as "Post" with fields like title and content.
3. Start Strapi: Navigate to your project directory and start the Strapi server:

1cd my-project
2
3npm run develop

Set Up Your React Frontend with MUI

1. Create a React App: In a new terminal window, create a React application:

1npx create-react-app my-frontend
2
3cd my-frontend

2. Install MUI: Add Material UI to your project:

1npm install @mui/material @emotion/react @emotion/styled

3. Fetch Data from Strapi: Use Axios for HTTP requests. First, install Axios:

1npm install axios

4. Then, create a file (e.g., api.js) to fetch data:

1import axios from 'axios';
2
3const API_URL = '<http://localhost:1337/posts>';
4
5export const fetchPosts = async () => {
6
7  const response = await axios.get(API_URL);
8
9  return [response.data](http://response.data);
10
11};

Create Components Using MUI

1. Build a PostList Component: Create a component using MUI to display data:

1import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
2
3import { fetchPosts } from './api';
4
5import { Card, CardContent, Typography } from '@mui/material';
6
7const PostList = () => {
8
9  const \[posts, setPosts\] = useState(\[\]);
10
11  useEffect(() => {
12
13    const getPosts = async () => {
14
15      const data = await fetchPosts();
16
17      setPosts(data);
18
19    };
20
21    getPosts();
22
23  }, \[\]);
24
25  return (
26
27    <div>
28
29      {[posts.map](http://posts.map)((post) => (
30
31        <Card key={[post.id](http://post.id)} sx={{ marginBottom: 2 }}>
32
33          <CardContent>
34
35            <Typography variant="h5">{post.title}</Typography>
36
37            <Typography variant="body2">{post.content}</Typography>
38
39          </CardContent>
40
41        </Card>
42
43      ))}
44
45    </div>
46
47  );
48
49};
50
51export default PostList;

2. Update Your App Component: Use the PostList component in your main application:

1import React from 'react';
2
3import PostList from './PostList';
4
5import { Container, Typography } from '@mui/material';
6
7const App = () => {
8
9  return (
10
11    <Container>
12
13      <Typography variant="h2" gutterBottom>
14
15        My Blog
16
17      </Typography>
18
19      <PostList />
20
21    </Container>
22
23  );
24
25};
26
27export default App;

3. Run Your React App: Start your React application:

1npm start

4. Your app should now display data from your Strapi backend using MUI components.