How to align and overlap Badge in Material UI?

Badges play an important role in designing a web UI, whether you are building a social media site, a messaging app, or anything else that requires the use of badges. Material UI provides an easy way to accomplish this task with just one component called the Badge API.

So, in this article, we are going to learn how to align and overlap badges in Material UI.

But before we dive into the steps to align and overlap the badges in MUI, let’s first understand what exactly a badge is.

What is a Badge?

A badge is a small component mostly aligned at the top-right of a component known as a child component. The badge may contain a number, text, or simply a dot. In React MUI, these badges can be aligned at different positions like top, bottom, right, left, etc., and different badges can also overlap with some other elements.

Badge API

The BadgeAPI is utilized to add a badge to different components of the React MUI. It comes with props −

• anchorOrigin − This prop defines the anchor of the badge component.

• badgeContent − To render the content of the badge, the badgeContent prop is used.

• children − We can use the "children" prop to add any desired content within the badge.

• classes − The classes prop is used to override the styles of the component.

• color − The color prop allows to customize the badge colors.

• component − This renders the component for the root in the badge.

• components − This renders the other badge components inside the badge or root component.

• componentsProps − These are the props of badge components.

• Invisible − To make the badge invisible, use this prop.

• max − It shows the maximum number of counts in a badge. The max value is 99.

• overlap − It allows the badge to overlap.

• showZero − When the count is 0, this prop is used for value control.

• slotProps − The other props of the slot are rendered using this prop.

• slots − These are the components used for each slot inside the badge.

• sx − To add custom styles to this component, utilize the "sx" prop.

• variant − To add different variants of the badges, the variant prop is used.

Steps required to align and overlap badges

Below are the steps for aligning and overlapping the badges in Material UI −

Step 1: Create a react application

The very first step to overlap and align the badges in MUI is to create a react application. To create a new React app, run the below commands in your terminal −

npx create react app badgedesignproject

Once the project is created, navigate to its directory by running −

cd badgedesignproject

Step 2: Add MUI to React

Once you have created the react app, it's time to install the Material UI into the react application. To install MUI, run the following command −

npm install @mui/material @emotion/react @emotion/styled

Step 3: Creating a Badge

To add or create a badge, we use the <Badge> API component. Below is the syntax for the same −

<Badge>
   <IconName />
</Badge>

Step 4: Align and overlap the badges

Aligning the badge in MUI is very easy, and the same is true for the overlapping. To align the badge, we do it in 4 positions: top right, top left, bottom right, and bottom left. The usage of both is shown below −

<Badge anchorOrigin={{ vertical: 'bottom', horizontal: 'left' }} >
   <IconName />
</Badge>

Let’s now see some examples of the align and overlap with different approaches.

Example

In this example, we have overlapped the different badges in four different positions: top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right, respectively. The overlap prop is used to do this, and we can define either a circular or rectangular value in it. The circular creates a circular overlap on the element, whereas the rectangular creates a rectangle shape of overlap.

import React from "react";
import { Badge } from "@mui/material";
import { Downloading } from "@mui/icons-material";

const App = () => {
   return (
      <div
         style={{
            padding: 40,
            gap: 40,
            display: "flex",
            flexDirection: "row"
         }}>
         <Badge
            overlap="circular"
            badgeContent={4}
            color="success"
            anchorOrigin={{
               vertical: "top",
               horizontal: "left"
            }}>
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 50 }} color="success" />
         </Badge>
         <Badge
            overlap="circular"
            badgeContent={5}
            color="info"
            anchorOrigin={{
               vertical: "top",
               horizontal: "right"
            }}>
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 50 }} color="info" />
         </Badge>
         <Badge
            overlap="circular"
            badgeContent={6}
            color="warning"
            anchorOrigin={{
               vertical: "bottom",
               horizontal: "left"
            }}>
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 50 }} color="warning" />
         </Badge>
         <Badge
            overlap="circular"
            badgeContent={3}
            color="error"
            anchorOrigin={{
               vertical: "bottom",
               horizontal: "right"
            }}>
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 50 }} color="error" />
         </Badge>
      </div>
   );
};
export default App;

Output

Example

Another example with a different approach is given below along with its code −

In this example, we have created a custom badge that overlaps with the other elements. Here, the badges are customized using the &.MuiBadge-badge property, in which we define the custom styles.

import React from "react";
import { Badge } from "@mui/material";
import { styled } from "@mui/material/styles";
import { Downloading } from "@mui/icons-material";

const MuiBadgeCust = styled(Badge)(() => ({
   "& .MuiBadge-badge": {
      right: 10,
      top: 10,
      padding: "0 4px",
      border: "2px dotted black"
   }
}));

const App = () => {
   return (
      <div
         style={{
            padding: 40,
            gap: 40,
            display: "flex",
            flexDirection: "row"
         }}>
         <MuiBadgeCust badgeContent={4} color="success">
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 40 }} color="success" />
         </MuiBadgeCust>
         <MuiBadgeCust badgeContent={5} color="info">
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 50 }} color="info" />
         </MuiBadgeCust>
         <MuiBadgeCust badgeContent={6} color="warning">
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 60 }} color="warning" />
         </MuiBadgeCust>
         <MuiBadgeCust badgeContent={3} color="error">
            <Downloading sx={{ fontSize: 70 }} color="error" />
         </MuiBadgeCust>
      </div>
   );
};
export default App;

Output

Conclusion

In this article, we have learned how to align and overlap the badges with other elements in the React MUI. The complete steps are explained to perform this task, and along with this, different examples have been shown to get a better understanding.