Breakpoints

A breakpoint is the range of predetermined screen sizes that have specific layout requirements.

For optimal user experience, material design interfaces need to be able to adapt their layout at various breakpoints. Material-UI uses a simplified implementation of the original specification.

Each breakpoint matches with a fixed screen width:

• xs, extra-small: 0px or larger
• sm, small: 600px or larger
• md, medium: 960px or larger
• lg, large: 1280px or larger
• xl, xlarge: 1920px or larger

These values can always be customized. You will find them in the theme, in the breakpoints.values object.

The breakpoints are used internally in various components to make them responsive, but you can also take advantage of them for controlling the layout of your application through the Grid and Hidden components.

Media Queries

CSS media queries is the idiomatic approach to make your UI responsive. We provide some CSS-in-JS helpers to do so.

In the following demo, we change the background color (red, blue & green) based on the screen width.

withWidth()

Sometimes, using CSS isn't enough. You might want to change the React rendering tree based on the breakpoint value, in JavaScript. We provide a withWidth() higher-order component for this use case.

In the following demo, we change the rendered DOM element (em, u, del & span) based on the screen width.

⚠️ withWidth() server-side rendering support is limited.

API

withWidth([options]) => higher-order component

Inject a width property. It does not modify the component passed to it; instead, it returns a new component. This width breakpoint property match the current screen width. It can be one of the following breakpoints:

type Breakpoint = 'xs' | 'sm' | 'md' | 'lg' | 'xl';

Some implementation details that might be interesting to being aware of:

• It forwards non React static properties so this HOC is more "transparent". For instance, it can be used to defined a getInitialProps() static method (next.js).

Arguments

1. options (Object [optional]):
   • options.withTheme (Boolean [optional]): Defaults to false. Provide the theme object to the component as a property.
   • options.noSSR (Boolean [optional]): Defaults to false. In order to perform the server-side rendering reconciliation, we need to render twice. A first time with nothing and a second time with the children. This double pass rendering cycle comes with a drawback. The UI might blink. You can set this flag to true if you are not doing server-side rendering.
   • options.initialWidth (Breakpoint [optional]): As window.innerWidth is unavailable on the server, we default to rendering an empty component during the first mount. In some situation, you might want to use an heuristic to approximate the screen width of the client browser screen width. For instance, you could be using the user-agent or the client-hints. http://caniuse.com/#search=client%20hint, we also can set the initial width globally using custom properties on the theme. In order to set the initialWidth we need to pass a custom property with this shape:

const theme = createMuiTheme({
  props: {
    // withWidth component ⚛️
    MuiWithWidth: {
      // Initial width property
      initialWidth: 'lg', // Breakpoint being globally set 🌎!
    },
  },
});

• options.resizeInterval (Number [optional]): Defaults to 166, corresponds to 10 frames at 60 Hz. Number of milliseconds to wait before responding to a screen resize event.

Returns

higher-order component: Should be used to wrap a component.

Examples

import withWidth, { isWidthUp } from '@material-ui/core/withWidth';

class MyComponent extends React.Component {
  render () {
    if (isWidthUp('sm', this.props.width)) {
      return <span />
    }

    return <div />;
  }
}

export default withWidth()(MyComponent);

theme.breakpoints.up(key) => media query

Arguments

1. key (String | Number): A breakpoint key (xs, sm, etc.) or a screen width number in pixels.

Returns

media query: A media query string ready to be used with JSS.

Examples

const styles = theme => ({
  root: {
    backgroundColor: 'blue',
    // Match [md, ∞[
    //       [960px, ∞[
    [theme.breakpoints.up('md')]: {
      backgroundColor: 'red',
    },
  },
});

theme.breakpoints.down(key) => media query

Arguments

1. key (String | Number): A breakpoint key (xs, sm, etc.) or a screen width number in pixels.

Returns

media query: A media query string ready to be used with JSS.

Examples

const styles = theme => ({
  root: {
    backgroundColor: 'blue',
    // Match [0, md + 1[
    //       [0, lg[
    //       [0, 1280px[
    [theme.breakpoints.down('md')]: {
      backgroundColor: 'red',
    },
  },
});

theme.breakpoints.only(key) => media query

Arguments

1. key (String): A breakpoint key (xs, sm, etc.).

Returns

media query: A media query string ready to be used with JSS.

Examples

const styles = theme => ({
  root: {
    backgroundColor: 'blue',
    // Match [md, md + 1[
    //       [md, lg[
    //       [960px, 1280px[
    [theme.breakpoints.only('md')]: {
      backgroundColor: 'red',
    },
  },
});

theme.breakpoints.between(start, end) => media query

Arguments

1. start (String): A breakpoint key (xs, sm, etc.).
2. end (String): A breakpoint key (xs, sm, etc.).

Returns

media query: A media query string ready to be used with JSS.

Examples

const styles = theme => ({
  root: {
    backgroundColor: 'blue',
    // Match [sm, md + 1[
    //       [sm, lg[
    //       [600px, 1280px[
    [theme.breakpoints.between('sm', 'md')]: {
      backgroundColor: 'red',
    },
  },
});