Understanding the Difference Between @mui/material/styles and @mui/styles in MUI!

Difference between @mui/material/styles and @mui/styles primarily revolves around their purpose, usage, and the styling approaches they support within the Material-UI (now MUI) library.

@mui/styles

• Legacy Styles API: This package is the legacy styling solution in MUI, primarily based on the makeStyles and withStyles APIs.
• CSS-in-JS: It uses the JSS library for styling, allowing for dynamic styles based on props.
• No Built-in Theme: It doesn’t automatically integrate with the MUI theme provider. You can use it with a theme, but it requires manual setup.
• Limited to CSS-in-JS: It’s designed for a more traditional CSS-in-JS approach, which may not be as efficient as the newer system.

#react
// Import required modules
import React from 'react';
import { makeStyles } from '@mui/styles';
import Button from '@mui/material/Button';

// Define styles
const useStyles = makeStyles((theme) => ({
  root: {
    backgroundColor: theme.palette.primary.main,
    color: 'white',
    padding: theme.spacing(2),
  },
}));

// Component using styles
const MyComponent = () => {
  const classes = useStyles();

  return (
    <Button className={classes.root}>
      Legacy Button
    </Button>
  );
};

export default MyComponent;

@mui/material/styles

• New Styles API: This package is part of the new styling solution introduced with MUI v5.
• Emotion: It utilizes Emotion as the default styling engine, which offers better performance and features like style composition, theming, and automatic critical CSS extraction.
• Theme Integration: It is designed to work seamlessly with the MUI theme provider, allowing easier access to theme variables and styles.
• New Syntax: It provides hooks like useTheme, styled, and sx, enabling a more modern and flexible way to style components.

#react
// Import required modules
import React from 'react';
import { styled } from '@mui/material/styles';
import Button from '@mui/material/Button';

// Define styled component
const MyStyledButton = styled(Button)(({ theme }) => ({
  backgroundColor: theme.palette.primary.main,
  color: 'white',
  padding: theme.spacing(2),
}));

// Component using styled button
const MyComponent = () => {
  return (
    <MyStyledButton>
      New Button
    </MyStyledButton>
  );
};

export default MyComponent;

Key Differences are:

1. Styling Method:
   • Legacy: Uses makeStyles to create a hook for styles and applies them via class names.
   • New: Uses styled to create a styled component directly.
2. Integration with Theme:
   • Both examples access the MUI theme, but the newer method (styled) integrates more cleanly and intuitively.
3. Performance:
   • The new styled approach generally offers better performance and features such as style composition.

Note:

• If you’re starting a new project or refactoring, go with @mui/material/styles for its modern approach and better integration with the MUI ecosystem.
• If you have existing code using @mui/styles, you can continue using it, but consider migrating to the newer API for long-term benefits.

Best Practices for Implementing Coding Filters!

To get the most out of coding filters, it’s essential to follow best practices when implementing them. This includes writing reusable filter functions, keeping logic modular, and ensuring that filters are applied consistently throughout your codebase. These practices improve code quality and make it easier to scale and maintain.