React Card Overview

The Ignite UI for React Card displays text, images, icons, and buttons in a visually rich presentation that can serve as an entry point to more detailed information. Cards can be used to create a multimedia dashboard.

React Card Example

Usage

Cards allow you to easily display content composed of different types of objects or similar objects whose size and supported actions can vary.

Getting Started

First, you need to the install the corresponding Ignite UI for React npm package by running the following command:

npm install igniteui-react

You will then need to import the IgrCard, its necessary CSS, and register its module, like so:

import { IgrCardModule, IgrCard, IgrCardHeader, IgrCardContent, IgrCardMedia, IgrCardActions } from 'igniteui-react';
import 'igniteui-webcomponents/themes/light/bootstrap.css';

IgrCardModule.register();

For a complete introduction to the Ignite UI for React, read the Getting Started topic.

Then, to represent the demo card template, we can add the following code:

<IgrCard>
    <IgrCardMedia>
        <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518235506717-e1ed3306a89b?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=640&q=50"></img>
    </IgrCardMedia>
    <IgrCardHeader>
        <h3 slot="title">New York City</h3>
        <h5 slot="subtitle">City in New York</h5>
    </IgrCardHeader>
    <IgrCardContent>
        <p>New York City comprises 5 boroughs sitting where the
            Hudson River meets the Atlantic Ocean. At its core is Manhattan,
            a densely populated borough that’s among the world’s major commercial,
            financial and cultural centers.</p>
    </IgrCardContent>
    <IgrCardActions>
        <IgrButton>
            <span>Read more</span>
            <IgrRipple />
        </IgrButton>
        <div slot="end">
            <IgrIconButton name="twitter" collection="material">
                <IgrRipple />
            </IgrIconButton>
            <IgrIconButton name="facebook" collection="material">
                <IgrRipple />
            </IgrIconButton>
        </div>
    </IgrCardActions>
</IgrCard>

You will notice a few things above. First, when we want to tag an element as a header title, like the h3 heading, we place it between the IgrCardHeader tags and set its slot name to title. Conversely, if we wanted to make another heading element a subtitle we would name its slot subtitle.

Any image or video we want to show in the card, we wrap inside the IgrCardMedia tags. The IgrCardMedia allows us to size the content placed inside so that it maintains its aspect ratio while filling the element’s entire content box. If the object's aspect ratio does not match the aspect ratio of its box, then the object will be clipped to fit.

You can place anything inside the IgrCardContent tags. Usually text goes there.

Finally, the IgrCardActions is where you'd place any actionable items, like buttons.

Media, Thumbs, and Avatars

If you want to show an image or icon in the card header next to the title and subtitle, you can do it by assigning the element's slot property to thumbnail.

Taking the card above as an example, we can edit the contents of the IgrCardHeader and add an avatar with slot="thumbnail":

<IgrCardHeader>
    <div slot="thumbnail">
        <IgrAvatar src="path/to/image" initials="TS" />
    </div>
    <h3 slot="title">Title</h3>
    <h5 slot="subtitle">Subtitle</h5>
</IgrCardHeader>

The above example will show the avatar alongside the title and subtitle in the card header.

Outlined cards

The card has an outlined attribute which, if set, removes any shadows from the card, replacing them with a thin border to separate the card from the background.

Horizontal Layout

By default all sections of the card (header, content, media, actions) are layed out vertically. This is nice when we have a lot of vertical space. Say we wanted to lay out the sections in the card horizontally. We can achieve such a layout with some simple CSS.

Here's an example of an outlined horizontal card:

<IgrCard>
    <div className="card-horizontal">
        <div>
            <IgrCardHeader>
                <img src="https://static.infragistics.com/xplatform/images/music/rozes.jpg" slot="thumbnail"></img>
                <h5 slot="title">Rozes</h5>
                <h5 slot="subtitle">Under the Grave (2016)</h5>
            </IgrCardHeader>
            <IgrCardContent>
                <p>As I have always said: I write what’s real and what’s true,
                    even if it means throwing myself under the bus.</p>
            </IgrCardContent>
        </div>
        <div className="divider"></div>
        <IgrCardActions>
            <span className="material-icons">skip_previous</span>
            <span className="material-icons">play_arrow</span>
            <span className="material-icons">skip_next</span>
        </IgrCardActions>
    </div>
</IgrCard>

We are using an additional div element to bundle the IgrCardHeader and IgrCardContent together, keeping them aligned vertically, and applying the .card-horizontal class to the wrapping div element to align the two sections of the card horizontally.

The styles that .card-horizontal class applies are:

.card-horizontal {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: row;
    flex: 1 1 0%;
}

.card-horizontal img {
    width: 64px;
    height: 64px;
}

.card-horizontal igc-card-actions {
    justify-content: center;
}

If everything went well, our card should look like this:

Alternative layouts

You can get even more creative with the layout of the IgrCard.

Below is an example showing how you can create a semi-horizontal card, where we have every section of the card layed out vertically, while the IgrCardMedia appears alongside the vertical sections.

<IgrCard>
    <div className="semi-horizontal">
        <div>
            <IgrCardHeader>
                <IgrAvatar src="https://static.infragistics.com/xplatform/images/music/singer_with_mic.jpg" slot="thumbnail" />
                <h5 slot="title">HERE</h5>
                <h5 slot="subtitle">by Mellow D</h5>
            </IgrCardHeader>
            <IgrCardContent>
                <p>Far far away, behind the word mountains,
                    far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia,
                    there live the blind texts.</p>
            </IgrCardContent>
            <IgrCardActions>
                <IgrButton><span>Play Album</span></IgrButton>
            </IgrCardActions>
        </div>

        <IgrCardMedia className='card-media'>
            <img src="https://static.infragistics.com/xplatform/images/music/singer_female.jpg"></img>
        </IgrCardMedia>
    </div>
</IgrCard>

.semi-horizontal {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: row;
    flex-grow: 1;
}

.card-media {
    width: 96px;
    min-width: 96px;
}

Card Actions

The card actions area allows additional configuration to what we have already mentioned.

You can reverse the order of the text button and the icon buttons by switching their slot names.

<IgrCardActions>
    <IgrButton>
        <span>Read more</span>
        <IgrRipple />
    </IgrButton>
    <div slot="end">
        <IgrIconButton ref={this.iconRef} className="marginIcon" name="twitter" collection="material">
            <IgrRipple />
        </IgrIconButton>
        <IgrIconButton name="facebook" collection="material">
            <IgrRipple />
        </IgrIconButton>
    </div>
</IgrCardActions>

Now the icon buttons will appear before the text button.

You can also add more content in-between by simply omitting the slot property and let the elements go to the default slot.

Styling

Since the card is a container that wraps different elements, styling is done by styling its building blocks - the IgrCardHeader, IgrCardContent, IgrCardMedia and IgrCardActions sub-components.

igc-card {
  background-color: var(--ig-secondary-900);
}

igc-card-content,
igc-card-header::part(title) { 
  color: var(--ig-primary-500-contrast);
}

igc-card-header > *[slot="subtitle"] {
  color: var(--ig-warn-500);
  opacity: 0.9;
}

igc-icon-button::part(base) {
  background-color: var(--ig-primary-300);
}

Summary

In this article we covered a lot of ground with the card component. We created a simple card and added some images to make it a bit more appealing. We used some additional React inside our card, like avatars, buttons and icons, to enrich the experience and add some functionality. And finally, we changed the card's appearance by changing the major colors of the building blocks.