Using Carbon

Theming

To provide all the necessary resources (such as colors and typography) for creating a UI with Carbon, use the CarbonDesignSystem root composable at the top of your Compose tree:

setContent {
    CarbonDesignSystem {
        // Your UI content
    }
}

fun CarbonDesignSystem()

This will apply the IBM Plex type family to components and set the White and Grey 100 themes as the default light and dark themes, respectively, depending on the theme setting of the current platform.

Applying themes

The Carbon design system provides a set of four themes to use in your app, White, Grey 10, Grey 90 and Grey 100.

You can apply these themes using the theme and uiShellInlineTheme arguments of CarbonDesignSystem:

CarbonDesignSystem(
    theme = WhiteTheme,
    uiShellInlineTheme = Gray100Theme
) {
    // Content
}

• The theme argument specifies the main Carbon theme to use in regular screens. By default, the composable sets either the White or Grey 100 theme depending on the system's dark mode setting.
• The uiShellInlineTheme argument defines the inline theming used by Carbon UI shell components.

Warning

UI shell elements are still a work in progress. However, a UI shell header is available with limited implementation and documentation.

Layering

CarbonDesignSystem also offers a layer argument to globally set the layering token, which maps the layering model onto components in your content.

CarbonDesignSystem(
    layer = Layer01
) {
    // Content
}

By setting this, all Carbon components will adjust their colors to follow the specified layer level.

Local layer

Some parts of your UI may require a higher layer level. You can use the CarbonLayer composable to apply the next upper layer locally within your compose tree:

CarbonDesignSystem {
    // Content on Layer 00
    CarbonLayer {
        // Other content what will be on Layer 01
    }
}

fun CarbonLayer()

Layer Container Color

When working with layers, the background should be adjusted to reflect the corresponding layer.

Carbon Compose provides a containerBackground modifier that you can apply to any composable to automatically set the appropriate background:

Box(
    modifier = Modifier
        .fillMaxSize()
        .containerBackground()
) {
    Button()
}

fun Modifier.containerBackground()

Typography

Carbon was designed to work seamlessly with the IBM Plex font family. Carbon Compose includes and provides access to the TextStyles that map to all the type sets in Carbon.

You can use the Carbon.typography accessor to apply those styles to your texts:

BasicText(
    text = "Lorem ipsum",
    style = Carbon.typography.bodyCompact01
)

class CarbonTypography

Spacing scale

Carbon Compose also provides a spacing scale, as detailed by the spacing tokens. This scale is accessible through the SpacingScale singleton:

Box(
    modifier = Modifier.padding(top = SpacingScale.spacing03)
)

object SpacingScale

Motion

Carbon provides motion guidelines for its components:

Carbon components have motion built in for microinteractions. However, the motion design of the overarching UI — that is, how the components interact with each other and enter and exit the page itself — is up to each product team to implement. (...)

Just like the spacing scale, Carbon Compose provides ready-to-use constants and Bezier curves to implement motion into your UI:

val specFloat = tween<Float>(
    durationMillis = Motion.Duration.moderate01,
    easing = Motion.Standard.productiveEasing
)

val rotation by transition.animateFloat(
    transitionSpec = { specFloat },
    label = "Rotation"
) {
    if (it) 180f else 0f
}

object Motion