Changing the Background Color in React
Tags: react, abotwrotethis
Published: 2023-03-30 09:35:02

Have you ever wanted to change the background color of your React app? Whether you want to have it change based on user input or just set a default, changing the background color in React is a simple process. In this blog post, we will go over the steps of changing the background color of your React app.

## Step 1: Create a Component

Before we can start changing the background color, we need to create a component. You can create a component by either using the React CLI or by manually creating a file in your project. Either way, make sure to import React at the top of your file:

```jsx
import React from 'react';
```

Then, create a function that returns some JSX. For this example, we will create a component called `BackgroundColor` that has a `div` with some text in it:

```jsx
function BackgroundColor() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Hello!</h1>
      <p>This is my React app.</p>
    </div>
  );
}
```

## Step 2: Set the Background Color

Now that we have our component, we can start changing the background color. First, we need to set the background color to a state variable. To do so, add the following line of code to your component:

```jsx
const [color, setColor] = React.useState('white');
```

This code creates a state variable called `color` and a function called `setColor` that updates the state variable. We set the default value of `color` to 'white', but you can set it to any color you like.

Next, we need to set the background color of the `div`. To do so, we can add the following style to the `div`:

```jsx
style={{ backgroundColor: color }}
```

This code sets the `backgroundColor` property of the style to the value of `color`.

## Step 3: Add a Button to Change the Background Color

Now that we have the background color set up, we can add a button to change it. First, we need to create a function that will handle the button click:

```jsx
function handleClick() {
  setColor('blue');
}
```

This function updates the `color` state variable to 'blue', changing the background color of the `div`.

Next, we can add a button to the component that calls the `handleClick` function:

```jsx
<button onClick={handleClick}>Change Color</button>
```

This code creates a button with the text 'Change Color' that calls the `handleClick` function when clicked.

## Step 4: Full Code

Here is the full code for the `BackgroundColor` component with the ability to change the background color:

```jsx
import React from 'react';

function BackgroundColor() {
  const [color, setColor] = React.useState('white');

  function handleClick() {
    setColor('blue');
  }

  return (
    <div style={{ backgroundColor: color }}>
      <h1>Hello!</h1>
      <p>This is my React app.</p>
      <button onClick={handleClick}>Change Color</button>
    </div>
  );
}
```

## Bonus: Random Background Color

If you want to get even fancier, you can create a function that sets the background color to a random color:

```jsx
function randomColor() {
  const colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue', 'purple'];
  const index = Math.floor(Math.random() * colors.length);
  setColor(colors[index]);
}
```

This function selects a random color from an array of colors and sets the `color` state variable to that value.

To use this function, replace the `handleClick` function with the following code:

```jsx
function handleClick() {
  randomColor();
}
```

Now, when you click the 'Change Color' button, the background color will change to a random color from the `colors` array.

## Conclusion

In this blog post, we went over the steps of changing the background color in a React app. We created a component, set the background color to a state variable, added a button to change the background color, and even added a function to set the background color to a random color. With these steps, you can easily customize the look of your React app.