Getting Started

Quick Start (CDN)

To try Material Components for the web with minimal setup, load the precompiled all-in-one CSS and JS bundles from unpkg:

<head>
  <link href="https://unpkg.com/material-components-web@latest/dist/material-components-web.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
  <script src="https://unpkg.com/material-components-web@latest/dist/material-components-web.min.js"></script>
</head>

We also recommend using Material Icons from Google Fonts. (Some of our examples implicitly use Material Icons.)

<head>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/icon?family=Material+Icons">
</head>

Then include MDC markup...

<button class="foo-button mdc-button">Button</button>

...and instantiate JavaScript:

mdc.ripple.MDCRipple.attachTo(document.querySelector('.foo-button'));

Installing Locally

Material Components for the web can be installed locally using npm. It is available as a single all-in-one package:

npm i material-components-web

...or as individual components:

npm i @material/button @material/ripple

Each package provides precompiled CSS and JS under its dist folder. The precompiled JS is converted to UMD format and is consumable directly by browsers or within any workflow that expects to consume ES5. Referencing @material/foo within a Node.js context will automatically reference the precompiled JS under dist.

However, for optimal results, we recommend consuming MDC Web's ES2015 modules and Sass directly. This is outlined in the steps below.

Using MDC Web with Sass and ES2015

This section walks through how to install MDC Web Node modules, and bundle the Sass and JavaScript from those Node modules in your webpack configuration.

You can also see the final code and result in the Material Starter Kit.

Note: This guide assumes you have Node.js and npm installed locally.

Step 1: Webpack with Sass

We’re going to use webpack-dev-server to demonstrate how webpack bundles our Sass and JavaScript. First, run npm init to create a package.json file. When complete, add the start property to the scripts section.

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "webpack-dev-server"
  }
}

You’ll need all of these Node dependencies:

webpack: Bundles Sass and JavaScript
webpack-dev-server: Development server
sass-loader: Loads a Sass file and compiles it to CSS
node-sass: Provides binding for Node.js to Sass, peer dependency to sass-loader
css-loader: Resolves CSS @import and url() paths
extract-loader: Extracts the CSS into a .css file
file-loader: Serves the .css file as a public URL

You can install all of them by running this command:

npm install --save-dev webpack@3 webpack-dev-server@2 css-loader sass-loader node-sass extract-loader file-loader

Note: We recommend using webpack 3, because we're still investigating using webpack 4. We also recommend you use webpack-dev-server 2, because this works with webpack 3.

In order to demonstrate how webpack bundles our Sass, you’ll need an index.html. This HTML file needs to include CSS. The CSS is generated by sass-loader, which compiles Sass files into CSS. The CSS is extracted into a .css file by extract-loader. Create this simple “hello world” index.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="bundle.css">
  </head>
  <body>Hello World</body>
</html>

And create a simple Sass file called app.scss:

body {
  color: blue;
}

Then configure webpack to convert app.scss into bundle.css. For that you need a new webpack.config.js file:

module.exports = [{
  entry: './app.scss',
  output: {
    // This is necessary for webpack to compile
    // But we never use style-bundle.js
    filename: 'style-bundle.js',
  },
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.scss$/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'file-loader',
            options: {
              name: 'bundle.css',
            },
          },
          { loader: 'extract-loader' },
          { loader: 'css-loader' },
          { loader: 'sass-loader' },
        ]
      }
    ]
  },
}];

To test your webpack configuration, run:

npm start

And open http://localhost:8080 in a browser. You should see a blue “Hello World”.

Step 2: Include CSS for a component

Now that you have webpack configured to compile Sass into CSS, let's include the Sass files for the Material Design button. First install the Node dependency:

npm install --save-dev @material/button

We need to tell our app.scss to import the Sass files for @material/button. We can also use Sass mixins to customize the button. Replace your “hello world” version of app.scss with this code:

@import "@material/button/mdc-button";

.foo-button {
  @include mdc-button-ink-color(teal);
  @include mdc-states(teal);
}

We also need to configure sass-loader to understand the @material imports used by MDC Web. Update your webpack.config.js by changing { loader: 'sass-loader' } to:

{
  loader: 'sass-loader',
  options: {
    includePaths: ['./node_modules']
  }
}

Note: Configuring includePaths should suffice for most cases where all MDC Web packages are kept up-to-date together. If you encounter problems compiling Sass due to nested node_modules directories, see the Appendix below on how to configure a custom importer instead.

In order to add vendor-specific styles to the Sass files, we need to configure autoprefixer through PostCSS.

You'll need all of these Node dependencies:

autoprefixer: Parses CSS and adds vendor prefixes to CSS rules
postcss-loader: Loader for Webpack used in conjunction with autoprefixer

You can install all of them by running this command:

npm install --save-dev autoprefixer postcss-loader

Add autoprefixer at the top of your webpack.config.js:

const autoprefixer = require('autoprefixer');

Then add postcss-loader, using autoprefixer as a plugin:

{ loader: 'extract-loader' },
{ loader: 'css-loader' },
{
  loader: 'postcss-loader',
  options: {
     plugins: () => [autoprefixer()]
  }
},
{
  loader: 'sass-loader',
  options: {
    includePaths: ['./node_modules']
  }
},

@material/button has documentation about the required HTML for a button. Update your index.html to include the MDC Button markup, and add the foo-button class to the element:

<body>
  <button class="foo-button mdc-button">
    Button
  </button>
</body>

Now run npm start again and open http://localhost:8080. You should see a Material Design button!

Step 3: Webpack with ES2015

We need to configure webpack to bundle ES2015 JavaScript into standard JavaScript, through babel. You’ll need all of these dependencies:

babel-core
babel-loader: Compiles JavaScript files using babel
babel-preset-es2015: Preset for compiling es2015

You can install all of them by running this command:

npm install --save-dev babel-core@6 babel-loader@7 babel-preset-es2015

In order to demonstrate how webpack bundles our JavaScript, you’ll need to update index.html to include JavaScript. The JavaScript file is generated by babel-loader, which compiles ES2015 files into JavaScript. Add this script tag to index.html before the closing </body> tag:

<script src="bundle.js" async></script>

And create a simple ES2015 file called app.js:

console.log('hello world');

Then configure webpack to convert app.js into bundle.js by modifying the following properties in the webpack.config.js file:

Change entry to an array containing both app.scss and app.js:
```
entry: ['./app.scss', './app.js']
```
Change output.filename to be bundle.js:
```
output: {
  filename: 'bundle.js',
}
```

Add the babel-loader object to the rules array after the sass-loader object:

{
  test: /\.js$/,
  loader: 'babel-loader',
  query: {
    presets: ['es2015'],
  },
}

The final webpack.config.js file should look like this:

const autoprefixer = require('autoprefixer');

module.exports = {
  entry: ['./app.scss', './app.js'],
  output: {
    filename: 'bundle.js',
  },
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.scss$/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'file-loader',
            options: {
              name: 'bundle.css',
            },
          },
          {loader: 'extract-loader'},
          {loader: 'css-loader'},
          {loader: 'postcss-loader',
            options: {
              plugins: () => [autoprefixer()],
            },
          },
          {
            loader: 'sass-loader',
            options: {
              includePaths: ['./node_modules'],
            },
          }
        ],
      },
      {
        test: /\.js$/,
        loader: 'babel-loader',
        query: {
          presets: ['es2015'],
        },
      }
    ],
  },
};

Now run npm start again and open http://localhost:8080. You should see a “hello world” in the console.

Step 4: Include JavaScript for a component

Now that you have webpack configured to compile ES2015 into JavaScript, let's include the ES2015 files from the Material Design ripple. First install the Node dependency:

npm install --save-dev @material/ripple

We need to tell our app.js to import the ES2015 file for @material/ripple. We also need to initialize an MDCRipple with a DOM element. Replace your “hello world” version of app.js with this code:

import {MDCRipple} from '@material/ripple/index';
const ripple = new MDCRipple(document.querySelector('.foo-button'));

Note: We explicitly reference index within each MDC Web package in order to import the ES2015 source directly. This allows for tree-shaking and avoiding duplicate code for common dependencies (e.g. Ripple). However, it requires transpiling the MDC Web modules using the tools installed in Step 3.

Now run npm start again and open http://localhost:8080. You should see a Material Design ripple on the button!

Step 5: Build Assets for Production

Up to this point, we've used webpack-dev-server to preview our work with live updates. However, webpack-dev-server is not intended for production use. Instead, we should generate production-ready assets.

Add another script to package.json:

  "scripts": {
    "build": "webpack -p",
    "start": "webpack-dev-server"
  }

Now run the following command:

npm run build

This will produce bundle.js and bundle.css in the project directory. These contain the compiled CSS and transpiled JS, which you can then copy into a directory served by any web server.

Appendix: Configuring a Sass Importer for Nested node_modules

It is possible to end up with nested node_modules folders if you have dependencies on conflicting versions of individual MDC Web packages. This may lead to errors when attempting to compile Sass with the includePaths configuration shown above, since Sass is only scanning for @material packages under the top-level node_modules directory.

Alternatively, you can implement an importer as follows, which makes use of node's module resolution algorithm to find the dependency nearest to the file that imported it. Add the following code near the top of your webpack.config.js (before the exports):

const path = require('path');

function tryResolve_(url, sourceFilename) {
  // Put require.resolve in a try/catch to avoid node-sass failing with cryptic libsass errors
  // when the importer throws
  try {
    return require.resolve(url, {paths: [path.dirname(sourceFilename)]});
  } catch (e) {
    return '';
  }
}

function tryResolveScss(url, sourceFilename) {
  // Support omission of .scss and leading _
  const normalizedUrl = url.endsWith('.scss') ? url : `${url}.scss`;
  return tryResolve_(normalizedUrl, sourceFilename) ||
    tryResolve_(path.join(path.dirname(normalizedUrl), `_${path.basename(normalizedUrl)}`),
      sourceFilename);
}

function materialImporter(url, prev) {
  if (url.startsWith('@material')) {
    const resolved = tryResolveScss(url, prev);
    return {file: resolved || url};
  }
  return {file: url};
}

Then update your sass-loader config to the following:

{
  loader: 'sass-loader',
  options: {
    importer: materialImporter
  },
}