Dialogs
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Dialogs

Dialogs inform users about a task and can contain critical information, require decisions, or involve multiple tasks.

A Dialog is a type of modal window that appears in front of app content to provide critical information or ask for a decision. Dialogs disable all app functionality when they appear, and remain on screen until confirmed, dismissed, or a required action has been taken.

Dialogs are purposefully interruptive, so they should be used sparingly.

Simple Dialogs

Simple dialogs can provide additional details or actions about a list item. For example, they can display avatars, icons, clarifying subtext, or orthogonal actions (such as adding an account).

Touch mechanics:

  • Choosing an option immediately commits the option and closes the menu
  • Touching outside of the dialog, or pressing Back, cancels the action and closes the dialog
Selected: user02@gmail.com

Alerts

Alerts are urgent interruptions, requiring acknowledgement, that inform the user about a situation.

Most alerts don't need titles. They summarize a decision in a sentence or two by either:

  • Asking a question (e.g. "Delete this conversation?")
  • Making a statement related to the action buttons

Use title bar alerts only for high-risk situations, such as the potential loss of connectivity. Users should be able to understand the choices based on the title and button text alone.

If a title is required:

  • Use a clear question or statement with an explanation in the content area, such as "Erase USB storage?".
  • Avoid apologies, ambiguity, or questions, such as “Warning!” or “Are you sure?”

You can also swap out the transition, the next example uses Slide.

Form dialogs

Form dialogs allow users to fill out form fields within a dialog. For example, if your site prompts for potential subscribers to fill in their email address, they can fill out the email field and touch 'Submit'

Customized dialog

If you have been reading the overrides documentation page but you are not confident jumping in, here is one example of how you can customize the DialogTitle to support a close button.

⚠️ While the material design specification encourages theming, this example is off the beaten path.

Full-screen dialogs

Optional sizes

You can set a dialog maximum width by using the maxWidth enumerable in combination with the fullWidth boolean. When the fullWidth property is true, the dialog will adapt based on the maxWidth value.

Responsive full-screen

You may make a dialog responsively full screen the dialog using withMobileDialog. By default, withMobileDialog()(Dialog) responsively full screens at or below the sm screen size. You can choose your own breakpoint for example xs by passing the breakpoint argument: withMobileDialog({breakpoint: 'xs'})(Dialog).

Confirmation dialogs

Confirmation dialogs require users to explicitly confirm their choice before an option is committed. For example, users can listen to multiple ringtones but only make a final selection upon touching “OK.”

Touching “Cancel” in a confirmation dialog, or pressing Back, cancels the action, discards any changes, and closes the dialog.

    Interruptions
    Phone ringtone

    Dione

    Default notification ringtone

    Tethys

Accessibility

Be sure to add aria-labelledby="id...", referencing the modal title, to the Dialog. Additionally, you may give a description of your modal dialog with the aria-describedby="id..." property on the Dialog.

Scrolling long content

When dialogs become too long for the user’s viewport or device, they scroll.

  • scroll=paper the content of the dialog scrolls within the paper element.
  • scroll=body the content of the dialog scrolls within the body element.

Try the demo below to see what we mean:

Draggable dialog

You can create a draggable dialog by using react-draggable. To do so, you can pass the the imported Draggable component as the PaperComponent of the Dialog component. This will make the entire dialog draggable.

Performance

Follow the Modal performance section.

API