Is the new Material 3 Expressive theme just the colors or do the radzen components also support dynamic motion, responsive shapes, layouts in some way as well?
Hi @Esmike,
Material 3 Expressive is definitely more than a fresh coat of paint! Here's the honest breakdown of what you actually get.
Since a Radzen theme is really just CSS under the hood, it can influence a handful of areas and here's how each one turned out:
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Color - a complete new look: more vivid colors overall and retuned neutrals (with WCAG variants too).
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Typography - bolder weights and friendlier sentence-case button labels.
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Motion - this is the fun one. Components now animate their state changes with M3's emphasized easing, and the "hero" moments (dialogs, FAB menu, switch) get a lovely springy/bouncy feel instead of plain fades. Тhe easing/durations are exposed as tokens you can reuse on your own components (
--rz-easing-spring,--rz-duration-short/meduim/long, etc.). Small caveat: it's a CSS approximation of a spring, not a full physics engine, but it reads great. -
Shape - nicely rounded and fully themeable, but static. The M3 morphing shapes (corners that reshape when you press) aren't included.
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Layouts - no adaptive/responsive layout magic from the theme itself.
The motion is genuinely dynamic and a real step up from color alone, but morphing shapes and adaptive layouts aren't part of it. That's less a Radzen thing and more a CSS thing: those features need actual component changes (markup/JS), not just theming. So you're getting the full set of what a theme can deliver, with motion being the standout beyond the new colors.
Hope that helps!