Creating a Responsive Navbar Using Material UI in a Next.js Project
Tags: frontend, nextjs, materialui, typescript
Published: 2024-05-13 12:22:31

This is a step-by-step guide on creating a responsive navbar using **Material UI** in your Next.js project. Whether you're building a personal portfolio, a business website, or an e-commerce platform, a responsive navbar is essential for providing an intuitive navigation experience across various devices.

Let's dive into the process:

**1. Setting Up Your Next.js Project**
To kick things off, let's create a new Next.js application. Open your terminal and run the following command:

```
npx create-next-app@latest
```
Then set all necessary steps for creating a basic next js app.

**2. Installing Material UI**
Next, we'll install Material UI. Run the following command in your project directory:

```
npm install @mui/material @emotion/react @emotion/styled @mui/icons-material
```

**3. Cleaning Up Your Page Component**
Once your project is set up, navigate to the default page component and clean it up.
We'll be integrating our navbar component into this page later on

**4. Creating the Navbar Component**
Now, let's create our navbar component. Inside the `src` folder create a folder named components. Then in your components folder, create a new file named `navbar.tsx`.

I've provided the complete code for the navbar component on GitHub. You can find it [here](https://github.com/Mostakimw/material-ui-responsive-navbar). 

Feel free to explore the code and customize it according to your project's needs. I have already added the necessary comments so that you can understand them easily.

**5. Integrating the Navbar Component**
With our navbar component created, it's time to integrate it into our main layout. 
In our `page` file in the `app` directory integrate the navbar component here.

![navbar integrate in page file](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ufzqjva4kal9zcs1dlsb.png)

**6. Starting Your Project**
To see our navbar in action, run the following command in your terminal to start the Next.js development server:

```
npm run dev
```

Visit http://localhost:3000 in your web browser to view your Next.js project with the newly implemented navbar.
Yo! You have done this.

If you want more explanation you can continue with me!

**7. Exploring the Code**
Now, let's dive deeper into the code and explore some key aspects of our navbar component:

- Menu Items: Customize the menu items according to your project requirements. The `menuItems` variable contains the links and labels for each menu item.

- Hamburger Menu: Our navbar includes a hamburger menu icon for smaller devices. This ensures a seamless navigation experience on mobile and tablet devices.

- Responsive Design: The navbar is designed to be responsive, adapting to different screen sizes and orientations. You can adjust the padding, colors, and other styles to suit your project's design.

**This is the final look of large and small devices**
_**Large device**_
![large device navbar](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/xxy1lzkm82aslij1gr5n.png)

_**Small device**_
![small device navbar](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/txs9ra2g3cu18iqdi7oj.png)

[Full-Code-Here](https://github.com/Mostakimw/material-ui-responsive-navbar)

Feel free to ask anything.