Unlock the Power of Chakra UI: A Beginner’s Guide to Building Accessible Vue Applications

What Makes Chakra UI Stand Out?

Chakra UI is built with accessibility in mind, following strict WAI-ARIA standards to ensure that all components ship with proper attributes and keyboard interactions out of the box. Additionally, it’s fast, theme-able, and composable, making it easy to reference values and integrate with Vue.js without a steep learning curve.

Getting Started with Chakra UI

To begin, make sure you have:

• Node.js 10.x or above installed
• Node Package Manager (NPM) 6.7 or above
• A code editor of your choice (Visual Studio Code is highly recommended)
• Vue’s latest version installed globally on your machine
• Vue CLI 3.0 installed

Building a Modern Pricing UI Component

In this tutorial, we’ll walk through building a modern pricing UI component for a SaaS product with different tiers, features, and a creative highlight. First, create a new Vue project using Vue CLI, and then install Chakra UI using NPM.

npm install @chakra-ui/vue

Once installed, navigate to your root folder and replace the content of your main.js file with the following code:

import Vue from 'vue';
import App from './App.vue';
import { ChakraProvider } from '@chakra-ui/vue';

Vue.config.productionTip = false;

new Vue({
  render: h => h(App),
}).$mount('#app');

Setting Up the App

Next, set up your app.vue file to use the HelloWorld component, which comes out of the box for every Vue CLI scaffold. This will serve as our pricing component for the tutorial.

<template>
  <HelloWorld/>
</template>

<script>
export default {
  components: { HelloWorld }
}
</script>

Building the UI Component

Using Chakra UI’s box element (a card element), we’ll create three cards with equal spacing and styling to achieve our desired outcome. We’ll also utilize various elements like badges, ratings, and buttons to add functionality to our component.

<template>
  <div>
    <c-box
      v-for="(tier, index) in tiers"
      :key="index"
      p="4"
      mb="4"
      shadow="md"
      borderWidth="1px"
      borderRadius="lg"
      overflow="hidden"
    >
      <c-box>
        <c-text>{{ tier.name }}</c-text>
      </c-box>
    </c-box>
  </div>
</template>

Presentation and Logic

In the template section of your helloworld.vue file, copy the following code to create a container using the card element. Then, use Vue property binding practices like text interpolation to bind properties like star counts, number of reviews, and others.

<template>
  <c-box>
    <c-box>
      <c-text>{{ tier.starCount }}</c-text>
      <c-text>{{ tier.reviewCount }}</c-text>
    </c-box>
  </c-box>
</template>

Styling and Final Touches

Scope the styling to the helloworld component, allowing you to add other elements with different styling later on. Once you’ve put all the UI elements together, save and run the application again to see the final result.

.helloworld {
  /* Add your custom styles here */
}

The Future of Vue Development

With Chakra UI, you can build fast, accessible, and visually appealing Vue applications with ease. Experience the power of Chakra UI for yourself and take your Vue development skills to the next level. Happy hacking!