Nextjs-Themes
We are launching version 3.0 with minor API changes and major performance improvement and fixes.
We have tried our best to ensure minimum changes to existing APIs.
For most users we recommend using nthul package.
We recommend using react18-themes for Remix. This package is maintained with specific focus on Next.js and Vite. Most of the functionality of this package along with extended support for other build tools is available in react18-themes
🤟 👉 Unleash the Power of React Server Components
This project was originally inspired by next-themes. Next-themes is an awesome package, however, it requires wrapping everything in a provider. The provider has to be a client component as it uses hooks. And thus, it takes away all the benefits of Server Components.
nextjs-themes
removes this limitation and enables you to unleash the full power of React 18 Server Components. In addition, it adds more features and control over how you theme your app. Stay tuned!
- ✅ Perfect dark mode in 2 lines of code
- ✅ Fully Treeshakable (
import from nextjs-themes/client/component
) - ✅ Designed for excellence
- ✅ Full TypeScript Support
- ✅ Unleash the full power of React18 Server components
- ✅ Perfect dark mode in 2 lines of code
- ✅ System setting with prefers-color-scheme
- ✅ Themed browser UI with color-scheme
- ✅ Support for Next.js 13 & Next.js 14
appDir
- ✅ No flash on load (for all - SSG, SSR, ISG, Server Components)
- ✅ Sync theme across tabs and windows
- ✅ Disable flashing when changing themes
- ✅ Force pages to specific themes
- ✅ Class and data attribute selector
- ✅ Manipulate theme via
useTheme
hook - ✅ Documented with Typedoc (Docs)
- ✅ Use combinations of [data-th=""] and [data-color-scheme=""] for dark/light varients of themes
- ✅ Use [data-csp=""] to style based on colorSchemePreference.
- ✅ Want to avoid cookies (Not recommended), set storage prop to
localStorage
or sessionStorage
(to avoid persistance)
Check out the live example.
Install
$ pnpm add nextjs-themes
OR
$ npm install nextjs-themes
OR
$ yarn add nextjs-themes
Want Lite Version?
$ pnpm add nextjs-themes-lite
or
$ npm install nextjs-themes-lite
or
$ yarn add nextjs-themes-lite
You need r18gs as a peer-dependency
To do
Usage
SPA (e.g., Vite, CRA) and Next.js pages directory (No server components)
The best way is to add a Custom App
to use by modifying _app
as follows:
Adding dark mode support takes 2 lines of code:
import { ThemeSwitcher } from "nextjs-themes";
function MyApp({ Component, pageProps }) {
return (
<>
<ThemeSwitcher forcedTheme={Component.theme} />
<Component {...pageProps} />
</>
);
}
export default MyApp;
⚡🎉Boom! Just a couple of lines and your dark mode is ready!
Check out examples for advanced usage.
With Next.js app
router (Server Components)
Prefer static generation over SSR - No wrapper component
If your app is mostly serving static content, you do not want the overhead of SSR. Use NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher
in this case.
When using this approach, you need to use CSS general sibling Combinator (~) to make sure your themed CSS is properly applied. See (HTML & CSS)[#html--css].
Update your app/layout.jsx
to add ThemeSwitcher
from nextjs-themes
, and NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher
from nextjs-themes/server
. NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher
is required to avoid flash of un-themed content on reload.
import { ThemeSwitcher } from "nextjs-themes";
import { NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher } from "nextjs-themes/server/nextjs";
export default function Layout({ children }) {
return (
<html lang="en">
<head />
<body>
/** use NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher as first element inside body */
<NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher />
<ThemeSwitcher />
{children}
</body>
</html>
);
}
Woohoo! You just added multiple theme modes and you can also use Server Component! Isn't that awesome!
Prefer SSR over SSG - Use wrapper component
If your app is serving dynamic content and you want to utilize SSR, continue using ServerSideWrapper
component to replace html
tag in layout.tsx
file.
Update your app/layout.jsx
to add ThemeSwitcher
and ServerSideWrapper
from nextjs-themes
. ServerSideWrapper
is required to avoid flash of un-themed content on reload.
import { ThemeSwitcher } from "nextjs-themes";
import { ServerSideWrapper } from "nextjs-themes/server/nextjs";
export default function Layout({ children }) {
return (
<ServerSideWrapper tag="html" lang="en">
<head />
<body>
<ThemeSwitcher />
{children}
</body>
</ServerSideWrapper>
);
}
Woohoo! You just added dark mode and you can also use Server Component! Isn't that awesome!
HTML & CSS
That's it, your Next.js app fully supports dark mode, including System preference with prefers-color-scheme
. The theme is also immediately synced between tabs. By default, nextjs-themes modifies the data-theme
attribute on the html
element, which you can easily use to style your app:
:root {
--background: white;
--foreground: black;
}
[data-theme="dark"] {
--background: black;
--foreground: white;
}
// v2 onwards when using NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher, we need to use CSS Combinators
[data-theme="dark"] ~ * {
--background: black;
--foreground: white;
}
Images
You can also show different images based on the current theme.
import Image from "next/image";
import { useTheme } from "nextjs-themes";
function ThemedImage() {
const { resolvedTheme } = useTheme();
let src;
switch (resolvedTheme) {
case "light":
src = "/light.png";
break;
case "dark":
src = "/dark.png";
break;
default:
src = "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7";
break;
}
return <Image src={src} width={400} height={400} />;
}
export default ThemedImage;
useTheme
In case your components need to know the current theme and be able to change it. The useTheme
hook provides theme information:
import { useTheme } from "nextjs-themes";
const ThemeChanger = () => {
const { theme, setTheme } = useTheme();
return (
<div>
The current theme is: {theme}
<button onClick={() => setTheme("light")}>Light Mode</button>
<button onClick={() => setTheme("dark")}>Dark Mode</button>
</div>
);
};
Force per page theme and color-scheme
Next.js app router
import { ForceTheme } from "nextjs-themes";
function MyPage() {
return (
<>
<ForceTheme theme={"my-theme"} />
...
</>
);
}
export default MyPage;
Next.js pages router
For pages router, you have 2 options. One is the same as the app router and the other option which is compatible with next-themes
is to add theme
to your page component as follows.
function MyPage() {
return <>...</>;
}
MyPage.theme = "my-theme";
export default MyPage;
In a similar way, you can also force color scheme.
Forcing color scheme will apply your defaultDark or defaultLight theme, configurable via hooks.
With Styled Components and any CSS-in-JS
Next Themes is completely CSS independent, it will work with any library. For example, with Styled Components you just need to createGlobalStyle
in your custom App:
import { createGlobalStyle } from "styled-components";
import { ThemeSwitcher } from "nextjs-themes";
const GlobalStyle = createGlobalStyle`
:root {
--fg: #000;
--bg: #fff;
}
[data-theme="dark"] {
--fg: #fff;
--bg: #000;
}
`;
function MyApp({ Component, pageProps }) {
return (
<>
<GlobalStyle />
<ThemeSwitcher forcedTheme={Component.theme} />
<Component {...pageProps} />
</>
);
}
With Tailwind
In your tailwind.config.js
, set the dark mode property to class:
module.exports = {
darkMode: "class",
};
⚡🎉Boom! You are ready to use darkTheme in tailwind.
Caution! Your class must be set to "dark"
, which is the default value we have used for this library. Tailwind, as of now, requires that class name must be "dark"
for dark-theme.
That's it! Now you can use dark-mode specific classes:
<h1 className="text-black dark:text-white">
Migrating from v1 to v2
2.0.0
Major Changes
Minor Changes
-
Support custom themeTransition
- Provide
themeTransition
prop to ThemeSwitcher
component to apply smooth transition while changing theme. - Use
setThemeSet
to set lightTheme
and darkTheme
together.
Motivation:
For server side syncing, we need to use cookies and headers. This means that this component and its children can not be static. They will be rendered server side for each request. Thus, we are avoiding the wrapper. Now, only the NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher
will be rendered server side for each request and rest of your app can be server statically.
Take care of the following while migrating to v2
.
- No changes required for projects not using
Next.js
app router or server components other than updating cookies policy if needed. - The persistent storage is realized with
cookies
in place of localStorage
. (You might want to update cookies policy accordingly.) - We have provided
NextJsSSGThemeSwitcher
in addition to ServerSideWrapper
for Next.js
. You no longer need to use a wrapper component which broke static generation and forced SSR. - Visit With Next.js
app
router (Server Components)
Migrating from v0 to v1
defaultDarkTheme
is renamed to darkTheme
setDefaultDarkTheme
is renamed to setDarkTheme
defaultLightTheme
is renamed to lightTheme
setDefaultLightTheme
is renamed to setLightTheme
Docs
Typedoc
🤩 Don't forger to start this repo!
Want handson course for getting started with Turborepo? Check out React and Next.js with TypeScript
FAQ
Do I need to use CSS variables with this library?
Nope. It's just a convenient way. You can hard code values for every class as follows.
.my-class {
color: #555;
}
[data-theme="dark"] .my-class {
color: white;
}
Why is resolvedTheme
and resolvedColorScheme
necessary?
When supporting the System theme preference, and forced theme/colorScheme pages, you want to make sure that's reflected in your UI. This means your buttons, selects, dropdowns, or whatever you use to indicate the current colorScheme should say "system" when the System colorScheme preference is active. And also the appropreate theme is available in resolvedTheme.
resolvedTheme
is then useful for modifying behavior or styles at runtime:
const { resolvedTheme, resolvedColorScheme } = useTheme();
const background = getBackground(resolvedTheme);
<div style={{ color: resolvedColorScheme === 'dark' ? white : black, background }}>
If we didn't have resolvedTheme
and only used theme
, you'd lose information about the state of your UI (you would only know the theme is "system", and not what it resolved to).
License
Licensed as MIT open source.
Note: This package uses cookies to sync theme with server components
with 💖 by Mayank Kumar Chaudhari