Using React With Blueprint

Using React with Blueprint: A Guide to Building User Interfaces

React, a JavaScript library for building user interfaces, has gained massive popularity for its ability to create interactive, component-based applications. One of the key strengths of React is its flexibility in integrating with third-party libraries that can help improve productivity and enhance user experience. Blueprint is one such library, providing a set of components and styles for building complex, data-dense user interfaces, particularly for desktop applications.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to use React with Blueprint to build modern, functional user interfaces. We’ll discuss how to set up the environment, integrate Blueprint with React, and walk through key Blueprint components to help you get started quickly.

What is Blueprint?

Blueprint is a React-based UI toolkit developed by Palantir, designed for building complex, data-driven user interfaces. It provides a set of pre-designed components for use in enterprise-level applications. These components include inputs, buttons, tables, forms, dialogs, and more, that are optimized for creating rich desktop-like applications that require high interactivity and great UX.

Some of the key features of Blueprint include:

Comprehensive set of components: Blueprint includes a wide variety of UI components that you can use to quickly build data-heavy applications.
Customization options: Blueprint allows customization to fit your app’s specific design needs.
Responsive design: While it’s aimed at desktop apps, Blueprint’s components are designed to work well on a variety of screen sizes.
Support for accessibility: Blueprint ensures that the components are accessible, with built-in features like keyboard navigation and screen reader support.

Key Blueprint Components

Blueprint includes a variety of components for building sophisticated UIs, such as:

Buttons: Blueprint offers buttons with various states, sizes, and styles for different use cases.
Forms and Inputs: You can create forms with various input types, such as text fields, checkboxes, and date pickers.
Data Tables: The Table component allows you to display large datasets with features like sorting, filtering, and pagination.
Modals and Dialogs: Blueprint provides dialogs for displaying overlays, prompts, or complex interactions.
Breadcrumbs, Menus, and Navigation: There are navigation components for building sidebars, dropdowns, and breadcrumbs to improve the app’s navigation experience.
Toasts, Alerts, and Notifications: You can implement notifications for informing users about important updates.

Prerequisites

Before integrating React with Blueprint, ensure that you have the following installed on your local machine:

Node.js: You need Node.js installed to manage the development environment, run a local server, and install packages.
npm (Node Package Manager): npm is used to install React, Blueprint, and other dependencies.
Create React App (optional but recommended): This is a React boilerplate tool for setting up a new React project quickly.

Setting Up the Environment

First, you’ll want to create a new React project using create-react-app:

				
					npx create-react-app blueprint-react-app
cd blueprint-react-app

Next, install Blueprint’s core library and its icon library (as Blueprint heavily relies on icons):

				
					npm install @blueprintjs/core @blueprintjs/icons

Blueprint’s core package contains the UI components, and the icons package provides the various icons Blueprint components require.

Basic Integration Example

Now that you’ve set up your environment, let’s walk through integrating some basic Blueprint components into your React application.

Import Blueprint CSS: Blueprint uses its own stylesheet, so you’ll need to import it in your index.js or App.js file. You can import it directly from the package.

				
					import '@blueprintjs/core/lib/css/blueprint.css';

Import and Use Components: Once the styles are loaded, you can start using Blueprint components in your React components. For example, let’s start by creating a simple page with a Button and a Popover.

In App.js, you can import and use Blueprint components as follows:

				
					import React, { useState } from "react";
import { Button, Popover, PopoverInteractionKind, Tooltip } from "@blueprintjs/core";
function App() {
  const [isOpen, setIsOpen] = useState(false);
  return (
    <div className="App">
      <h1>Welcome to Blueprint with React</h1>
      <Popover
        interactionKind={PopoverInteractionKind.CLICK}
        isOpen={isOpen}
        onInteraction={(state) => setIsOpen(state)}
        content={<div>Here’s a popover!</div>}
      >
        <Button icon="share" text="Click Me" />
      </Popover>
      <Tooltip content="This is a Tooltip" position="top">
        <Button icon="help" text="Hover Me" />
      </Tooltip>
    </div>
  );
}
export default App;

In this example:

A Popover wraps a Button. When clicked, the popover displays additional content.
A Tooltip is used to display a simple hover-over effect on the “Hover Me” button.
We also use React’s useState hook to manage the popover’s open/close state.

Styling: Blueprint uses a default design theme. If you want to customize the look of your application further, you can modify the CSS or use Sass to customize Blueprint’s styles. You can adjust the components’ appearance via the Blueprint API.

Handling Forms with Blueprint

Blueprint also provides an easy way to handle complex forms. Below is an example of a simple form with a TextInput and a Checkbox component.

				
					import React, { useState } from "react";
import { Button, Checkbox, FormGroup, InputGroup } from "@blueprintjs/core";
function FormExample() {
  const [name, setName] = useState("");
  const [isSubscribed, setIsSubscribed] = useState(false);
  const handleSubmit = () => {
    console.log("Form Submitted", { name, isSubscribed });
  };
  return (
    <div>
      <h3>Subscribe to Newsletter</h3>
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
        <FormGroup label="Name" labelFor="name">
          <InputGroup
            id="name"
            placeholder="Enter your name"
            value={name}
            onChange={(e) => setName(e.target.value)}
          />
        </FormGroup>
        <FormGroup>
          <Checkbox
            checked={isSubscribed}
            onChange={() => setIsSubscribed(!isSubscribed)}
          >
            Subscribe to newsletter
          </Checkbox>
        </FormGroup>
        <Button type="submit" text="Submit" />
      </form>
    </div>
  );
}
export default FormExample;

In this example:

InputGroup handles text input fields.
Checkbox is used to handle a boolean state, in this case, subscription to a newsletter.
FormGroup is a Blueprint component that wraps form controls to give consistent labels and layout.

Advanced Use Case: Data Table

Blueprint’s Table component is ideal for displaying data in a tabular format. Let’s quickly look at how to implement a basic data table:

				
					import React from "react";
import { Table, Column, Cell } from "@blueprintjs/table";
function DataTable() {
  const data = [
    { name: "John", age: 28, job: "Developer" },
    { name: "Alice", age: 34, job: "Designer" },
    { name: "Bob", age: 23, job: "Product Manager" }
  ];
  return (
    <Table numRows={data.length}>
      <Column name="Name" cellRenderer={(rowIndex) => <Cell>{data[rowIndex].name}</Cell>} />
      <Column name="Age" cellRenderer={(rowIndex) => <Cell>{data[rowIndex].age}</Cell>} />
      <Column name="Job" cellRenderer={(rowIndex) => <Cell>{data[rowIndex].job}</Cell>} />
    </Table>
  );
}
export default DataTable;

Here, we:

Use Table and Column to define the structure of the table.
Use the Cell component to render data dynamically for each row and column.
This is ideal for presenting tabular data, where you need to allow sorting, pagination, or filtering.

Conclusion

Using React with Blueprint is an excellent combination for building interactive, data-heavy web applications. Blueprint provides a set of robust, pre-built UI components that allow React developers to quickly create complex UIs with minimal effort. Whether you’re building forms, tables, buttons, or popovers, Blueprint integrates seamlessly with React, enabling you to create modern, user-friendly interfaces for desktop-like experiences in the browser.

As you start building, remember to experiment with Blueprint’s various components to tailor the user interface to meet your application’s needs. Additionally, you can customize the styling and behavior of the components to match your unique design vision, ensuring that the app provides a smooth and consistent user experience.

Care Tech Team