Build Beautiful UIs with Jetpack Compose Material Toolkit

In this post, you'll explore how Jetpack Compose makes it incredibly easy to build stylish, functional UIs using Material Design principles, composable layouts, and powerful modifiers.

✨ Jetpack Compose UI Toolkit: A Quick Recap

So far, you've seen how to create composable functions and use basic components like Row, Text, and RadioButton. But Jetpack Compose offers so much more out of the box.

Jetpack Compose ships with a robust Material Design toolkit, allowing you to:

• Style your entire app consistently

• Create polished layouts with intuitive structures

• Customize every element with modifiers

Let’s dive deeper by building a survey screen UI from the jetsurvey sample app.

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🎨 Styling with Material Design

Jetpack Compose includes Material Design 2 and 3 support. Material 3, aka Material You, aligns with the design language of Android 12+, offering dynamic theming and modern components.

Define a Custom Theme

The jetsurvey app defines a custom JetsurveyTheme composable. This includes:

• Colors for dark and light themes

• Typography for fonts, sizes, weights

• Shapes for rounded corners and design consistency

@Composable
fun JetsurveyTheme(content: @Composable () -> Unit) {
    MaterialTheme(
        colorScheme = if (isSystemInDarkTheme()) DarkColors else LightColors,
        typography = AppTypography,
        shapes = AppShapes,
        content = content
    )
}

Use your theme as the outermost layer via setContent in your activity or fragment. This ensures all components follow the defined design system.

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🧱 Structure with Scaffold & Surface

Use Scaffold for Layouts

A Scaffold provides a structure for screens with:

• Top app bar

• Content area

• Bottom bar (e.g., buttons)

Example from SurveyQuestionsScreen:

Scaffold(
    topBar = { SurveyTopAppBar(progress) },
    bottomBar = { SurveyBottomBar(onNext, onPrevious) }
) { padding ->
    SurveyContent(currentQuestion, modifier = Modifier.padding(padding))
}

Use Surface to Add Depth

A Surface represents a container for your content, allowing you to define:

• Background color

• Border and shape

• Elevation (shadow and layering)

You can wrap UI components inside a Surface to apply a unified style or add visual hierarchy.

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📐 Compose Layouts: Row, Column, and Box

Jetpack Compose provides 3 powerful layout composables:

Example: Centering Items in a Row

Row(
    verticalAlignment = Alignment.CenterVertically,
    horizontalArrangement = Arrangement.SpaceBetween,
    modifier = Modifier.fillMaxWidth()
) {
    Text("Option 1")
    RadioButton(selected = true, onClick = {})
}

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🛠️ Modifiers: Your Customization Tool

Modifiers help you decorate and customize composables. They can:

• Set padding, size, or background

• Add interactivity (e.g., click)

• Align elements inside layouts

Modifier Example

Row(
    modifier = Modifier
        .fillMaxWidth()
        .padding(16.dp)
) {
    Text("Your Answer")
}

Wrap in a Surface for Styling

Surface(
    shape = MaterialTheme.shapes.small,
    border = BorderStroke(1.dp, Color.Gray),
    modifier = Modifier.fillMaxWidth()
) {
    Row(modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp)) {
        Text("Answer Text")
    }
}

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📚 Learn More

Jetpack Compose's material toolkit gives you full control to build adaptive, beautiful UIs. There’s so much more to explore:

• Material 3 Guidelines

• Jetpack Compose Material Docs

Next up, we’ll explore how tooling in Jetpack Compose speeds up your development and debugging.

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