Skip to main contentCarbon Design System

2. Building pages

Now that we have a base Angular app, it’s time to build a few static pages. In this step, we’ll become comfortable with the Carbon UI Shell, grid and various Carbon components.

Preview

A preview of what you’ll build:

Note: If you get lint errors when you copy the code from the snippets, run 

ng lint --fix
to fix them.

Fork, clone and branch

This tutorial has an accompanying GitHub repository called carbon-tutorial-angular that we’ll use as a starting point for each step. If you haven’t forked and cloned that repository yet, and haven’t added the upstream remote, go ahead and do so by following the step 1 instructions.

Branch

With your repository all set up, let’s check out the branch for this tutorial step’s starting point.

git fetch upstream
git checkout -b angular-step-2 upstream/angular-step-2

Note: This builds on top of step 1, but be sure to check out the upstream step 2 branch because it includes the static assets required to get through this step.

Build and start app

Install the app’s dependencies (in case you’re starting fresh in your current directory and not continuing from the previous step):

npm install

Then, start the app:

npm start

You should see something similar to where the previous step left off.

Add grid

In our last step we added our styles, components and icon packages. Now we are going to build the pages with the grid component.

In 

styles.scss
, we need to configure our grid to use 16 columns instead of the default 12 columns. We do this by adding 
grid-columns-16: true
in our 
$feature-flags
. 
$feature-flags
must be set before importing from 
carbon-components
, otherwise they won’t take affect.

$feature-flags: (
  grid-columns-16: true
);

Next we’ll import our Carbon grid component into 

home.module.ts
and 
landing-page.component.spec.ts
.

import { GridModule } from 'carbon-components-angular';
...
@NgModule({
  ...
  imports: [GridModule]
})

Add landing page grid

Let’s add our grid elements to 

landing-page.component.html
.

In order to use the grid, we need to wrap everything in a 

<div ibmGrid>
. We can continue to make rows by adding a 
<div ibmRow>
inside the grid, as well as make columns within those rows by adding 
<div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'[breakpoint]': [size]}"
.

Our column sizes are specified by the number of columns they’ll be spanning. If we use 

[columnNumbers]="{'lg': 4}"
, it means it’ll span 4 of the 16 columns. If we use 
[columnNumbers]="{'lg': 8}"
it means it’ll span 8 of the 16 columns, and so on.

We’ve included the designs for this tutorial app in the 

design.sketch
file found as a top-level file in the 
carbon-tutorial-angular
repository. But, if you don’t have Sketch installed and available to inspect the design, we provide screenshots.

Landing page grid

Landing page grid

Pro tip: 

CTRL-L
toggles the layout in Sketch.

We’ll break this down into three rows. The first row with the gray background doesn’t appear to need any columns. The second row with the white background looks like it has two columns of different widths. The third row with the gray background looks like it has four columns of equal width.

We’ll make rows like so:

<div ibmGrid class="cds--grid--full-width landing-page">
  <div ibmRow class="landing-page__banner">
    <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'lg': 16}">1</div>
  </div>
  <div ibmRow class="landing-page__r2">
    <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 7}">7/16</div>
    <div ibmCol class="cds--offset-lg-1" [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 7}">
      8/16
    </div>

We added a class of 

cds--grid--full-width
to the grid container since our rows need to expand the whole page without any margins. We also added some custom classes like 
landing-page
, 
landing-page__banner
, 
landing-page__r2
, etc., which we will use later.

Also, take notice of the second row. The tab content only covers 7 columns at this large viewport to prevent overly-large line lengths, so we needed to add a 1 column offset 

cds--offset-lg-1
to the second column to fill the full 16 columns in the grid. Then, both of those columns have 
'md': 4
so they are of equal width at medium-sized viewports.

Build landing page

We’ll start adding HTML elements and components by row.

First row

In our first row we’ll need a 

Breadcrumb
component. First, let’s import the components we need in 
home.module.ts
and 
landing-page.component.spec.ts
.

import { BreadcrumbModule, GridModule } from 'carbon-components-angular';
imports: [BreadcrumbModule, GridModule];

We can now add our component to the first row, along with a header, like so:

<div ibmRow class="landing-page__banner">
  <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'lg': 16}">
    <ibm-breadcrumb noTrailingSlash="true">
      <ibm-breadcrumb-item href="/"> Getting started </ibm-breadcrumb-item>
    </ibm-breadcrumb>
    <h1 class="landing-page__heading">Design &amp; build with Carbon</h1>
  </div>
</div>

You may notice that the styles look off. Don’t worry, we’ll fix these later.

Second row

In our second row we’ll need 

Tabs
and 
Button
components also in 
home.module.ts
and 
landing-page.component.spec.ts
. We’ll update the 
carbon-components-angular
import to:

import {
  BreadcrumbModule,
  ButtonModule,
  GridModule,
  TabsModule,
} from 'carbon-components-angular';
imports: [BreadcrumbModule, ButtonModule, GridModule, TabsModule];

Now we need to modify the second row to use the 

Tab
component.

<div ibmRow class="landing-page__r2">
  <div ibmCol class="cds--no-gutter">
    <ibm-tabs>
      <ibm-tab heading="About">
        <div ibmGrid class="cds--grid--no-gutter cds--grid--full-width">
          <div ibmRow class="landing-page__tab-content">
            <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 7}">7/16</div>
            <div
              ibmCol

Note: We’re using the grid for the page layout, but we also need to apply the grid within the tab content. When doing so, make sure the nested grid has the expected 

grid
> 
row
> 
col
DOM structure.

Hold up! If you were to run DAP to check for accessibility violations, you’d see 

Multiple navigation landmarks must have unique labels specified with aria-label or aria-labelledby
because both the 
Breadcrumb
and 
Tabs
components use 
<nav>
elements. To fix, add 
ariaLabel
to the 
Breadcrumb
opening tag:

<ibm-breadcrumb noTrailingSlash="true" ariaLabel="Page navigation">

Same goes for the 

Tabs
opening tag:

<ibm-tabs ariaLabel="Tab navigation">

Next, we’ll need to add a styling override to move the tabs to the right on large viewports, and tidy up the alignment of the grid. Create a file 

carbon-overrides.scss
in 
src/assets/scss
with this declaration block.

// makes the grid fit the entire width of the page
.cds--grid--full-width {
  padding-left: 1rem;
  padding-right: 1rem;
}


// removes excess padding for nested full width grids
.cds--grid--full-width .cds--grid--full-width {
  padding-left: 0;

Then in 

styles.scss
add this import after the Carbon 
styles.scss
import.

@import './assets/scss/carbon-overrides.scss';

Note: We don’t have to include this in a separate file, but it’s nice to keep overrides separate from your application’s styling so when migrating to future Carbon versions and if there are breaking changes via different class names, you have a consolidated list of styling declaration blocks to review.

We can now add our images and text for each column in the first 

Tab
in 
landing-page.component.html
.

<ibm-tab heading="About">
  <div ibmGrid class="cds--grid--no-gutter cds--grid--full-width">
    <div ibmRow class="landing-page__tab-content">
      <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 7}">
        <h2 class="landing-page__subheading">
          What is Carbon?
        </h2>
        <p class="landing-page__p">
          Carbon is IBM’s open-source design system for digital

Now let’s download the image in 

src/assests
and set the image size in 
landing-page.component.scss
:

curl -o tab-illo.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carbon-design-system/carbon-tutorial-vue/vue-step-3/src/assets/tab-illo.png
.landing-page__illo {
  max-width: 100%;
}

Assuming that the second and third tab would have a similar design, we would set them up in the same way. However, since our design specs don’t show those tabs, we’ll leave the code as is.

Third row

The third row will be created in a later tutorial, so we’ll just add the headers for now.

<div ibmRow class="landing-page__r3">
  <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 4}">
    <h3 class="landing-page__label">The Principles</h3>
  </div>
  <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 4}">Carbon is Open</div>
  <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 4}">Carbon is Modular</div>
  <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'md': 4, 'lg': 4}">Carbon is Consistent</div>
</div>

Style landing page

We’ve added basic layout styles in 

landing-page.component.scss
and 
styles.scss
, so now let’s add type, color and spacing styles to match the design. We’ll be using our spacing tokens. In 
landing-page.component.scss
, add these imports at the top of the file so we can use Carbon breakpoints, tokens, and typography Sass mixins and functions:

@import '~carbon-components/scss/globals/scss/vendor/@carbon/type/scss/font-family';
@import '~carbon-components/scss/globals/scss/typography';
Banner vertical spacing

Banner vertical spacing

Pro tip: 

CTRL-G
toggles the grid in Sketch.

Now, we need to add a space above the breadcrumb and below the heading. For that, add:

.landing-page__banner {
  padding-top: $spacing-05;
  padding-bottom: $spacing-07 * 4;
}

Referencing the spacing token table, 

16px
can be set with the 
$spacing-05
token. The design calls for 
128px
of space below the heading and that’s not in the spacing scale, we can achieve that in Sass by multiplying 32px (
$spacing-07
) by 4. We could use 
128px
or 
8rem
directly in our styling, but using our tokens preserves consistency should the token values get updated in the future.

Looking at the design, we need a wall-to-wall light gray background behind the banner and also behind the third row. This is a great opportunity to use a Sass mixin. We will put this at the top of 

landing-page.component.scss
.

Per the design we need to use Gray 10 for our banner background color, which can be set with the 

$ui-01
color token. Also, we want the background to extend into the grid’s outermost gutters to go the full width of the viewport, so given the DOM structure, we can achieve that by setting the background in an absolutely positioned pseudo element.

@mixin landing-page-background() {
  background-color: $ui-01;
  position: relative;


  &::before {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    left: -$spacing-05;
    top: 0;

Now to use the new mixin, update the 

.landing-page__banner
declaration block to:

.landing-page__banner {
  padding-top: $spacing-05;
  padding-bottom: $spacing-07 * 4;
  @include landing-page-background;
}

Next, we can see that the 

h1
is using the 
heading-05
type token.

Banner heading type

Banner heading type

The Sketch symbol naming is consistent with the development Sass tokens to help translate design to development. So, looking up the type token, we know to use 

productive-heading-05
:

.landing-page__heading {
  @include type-style('productive-heading-05');
}

Row two

For our second row, we need to fix the tabs vertical positioning to match the design. By inspecting the tabs component, you can see that the tab height computes to 

40px
. We can use that to create our negative top margin in rem units.

.landing-page__r2 {
  margin-top: rem(-40px);
}

We also need to adjust our vertical spacing and type treatment. Like before, it’s a matter of using spacing and type tokens like so:

Row 2 vertical spacing

Row 2 vertical spacing

Note: You may be wondering why there are vertical gaps between the type and spacers. Each type token has a line height that’s suited for its font size. The vertical spacers adjacently touch the line height boundaries and not the baseline, for consistency as well as development ease so 

margins
and 
paddings
don’t need to offset line heights.

.landing-page__tab-content {
  padding-top: $layout-05;
  padding-bottom: $layout-05;
}


.landing-page__subheading {
  @include type-style('productive-heading-03');
  @include carbon--font-weight('semibold');
}

Row three

Row 3 vertical spacing

Row 3 vertical spacing

Let’s also add some styles for the last row, even though that will get used later in the tutorial. You’ll notice that we get to re-use the 

landing-page-background
mixin that we just created.

.landing-page__r3 {
  padding-top: $spacing-09;
  padding-bottom: $spacing-09;
  @include landing-page-background;
}


.landing-page__label {
  @include type-style('heading-01');
}

Ta-da! You should see a finished landing page! Now we can move on to the repo page.

Add repo page grid

First, we’ll add our grid and table by importing a few components in 

repositories.module.ts
and 
repo-page.component.spec.ts
:

import { GridModule, TableModule } from 'carbon-components-angular';
imports: [GridModule, TableModule];

Now in our 

repo-page.component.html
we will add our grid containers.

<div ibmGrid class="cds--grid--full-width cds--grid--no-gutter repo-page">
  <div ibmRow class="repo-page__r1">
    <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'lg': 16}">Data table will go here</div>
  </div>
</div>

Build repo page

We currently have the 

repo-page
that just contains a grid and placeholder content for the time being. In the next tutorial step we’re going to be querying an API to populate the 
Table
component in this page. As a best practice to separate data fetching from the presentation components, go ahead and create a 
repo-table
component as a sibling to 
repo-page
.

ng g component repositories/repo-table
Folder structure
src/app/repositories
├── repo-table.component.html
├── repo-table.component.scss
├── repo-table.component.spec.ts
└── repo-table.component.ts

Next we will add our newly generated repo-table to the declarations in 

repo-page.component.spec.ts

import { RepoTableComponent } from '../repo-table/repo-table.component';
declarations: [ RepoPageComponent, RepoTableComponent ],

Build data table

Then, let’s create the table in 

repo-table.component.html

<ibm-table-container>
	<ibm-table-header>
		<h4 ibmTableHeaderTitle>Carbon Repositories</h4>
		<p ibmTableHeaderDescription>A collection of public Carbon repositories.</p>
	</ibm-table-header>
	<ibm-table
		[model]="model"
		[showSelectionColumn]="false"
		[striped]="false">

Instead of the usual write-your-own-html approach you had with 

<table>
, Carbon table uses the model-view-controller approach.

Here, you create a view (with built-in controller) and provide it a model. Changes you make to the model are reflected in the view.

Render data table

Then include the following arrays to pass into the 

repo-table.component.ts
component. We’ll be setting the 
rows
array from an API in the next tutorial step, but for now, static example rows will suffice.

import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core';


import {
  TableModel,
  TableItem,
  TableHeaderItem,
} from 'carbon-components-angular';


@Component({

At this point, go to 

repo-page.component.html
because now we need to render a static 
repo-table
.

<div ibmGrid class="cds--grid--full-width cds--grid--no-gutter repo-page">
  <div ibmRow class="repo-page__r1">
    <div ibmCol [columnNumbers]="{'lg': 16}">
      <app-repo-table></app-repo-table>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Style repo page

Our styles for the repo page are mostly fine. We just need to update a few vertical spacing issues.

In 

repo-page.component.scss
, add the following styles:

@import '~carbon-components/scss/globals/scss/typography';


.repo-page .cds--row {
  padding-top: $spacing-05;
  padding-bottom: $spacing-05;
}

Congratulations! We’ve now created our static repo page!

Submit pull request

We’re going to submit a pull request to verify completion of this tutorial step.

Continuous integration (CI) check

Run the 

lint
and 
test
scripts to make sure we’re all set to submit a pull request.

ng lint --fix
npm run lint && npm test

Note: Having issues running this? Step 1 has troubleshooting notes that may help.

Git commit and push

Before we can create a pull request, stage and commit all of your changes:

git add --all && git commit -m "feat(tutorial): complete step 2"

Then, push to your repository:

git push origin angular-step-2

Note: Having issues pushing your changes? Step 1 has troubleshooting notes that may help.

Pull request (PR)

Finally, visit carbon-tutorial-angular to “Compare & pull request”. In doing so, make sure that you are comparing to 

angular-step-2
into 
base: angular-step-2
.

Note: Your tutorial step will be automatically reviewed based on the status of your tests. Ensure that your tests pass when you submit your PR. Expect your tutorial step PRs to be reviewed by the Carbon team but not merged. We’ll close your PR so we can keep the repository’s remote branches pristine and ready for the next person!

Edit this page on GitHub
Previous
Angular tutorial: Step 1
Next
Angular tutorial: Step 3