Use Fluent UI Web Components with ASP.NET

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Fluent UI Web Components work naturally with ASP.NET server-side development, by simply adding a script tag and using the custom HTML elements. Let's take a look at how to set things up.

Setting up the ASP.NET project

First, you'll need to make sure that you have the .NET SDK installed. You can learn more and download that on the official site.

With the SDK installed, you have access to the dotnet command-line interface. This can be used to create a new ASP.NET project. For example, to create a new ASP.NET Core MVC Web App named "fluent-aspnet", you would use the following command:

dotnet new mvc -o fluent-aspnet

Create a project using the command above if you don't already have one. When the CLI completes, you should have a basic runnable ASP.NET Core MVC application.

Configuring scripts

Now that we've got our basic project setup, we need to add our web components script and update ASP.NET accordingly. You can either add the script from our CDN directly, or you can install it with NPM and then add that.

To add a CDN script for fluent-components use the following markup:

<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/@fluentui/web-components"></script>

The best place to put this is typically in your _Layout.cshtml file in the script section at the bottom of the <body>.

If you wish to leverage NPM instead, run the following command:

npm install --save @fluentui/web-components

You can locate the single file script build in the following location:

node_modules/@fluentui/web-components/dist/fluent-components.min.js

Copy this to your wwwroot/js folder and reference it with a script tag as described above.

Should you wish to go one step further and leverage a client-side bundler, such as Webpack, there is some additional setup to integrate with ASP.NET that is beyond the scope of this tutorial. Basic Webpack instructions for Fluent UI Web Components can be found here. The most important detail with respect to Fluent UI Web Components is that you'll want to install a few more packages. Use the following command if this is your preferred setup:

npm install --save @fluentui/web-components @microsoft/fast-element lodash-es

In this case, because Webpack can tree-shake unused components, you'll also want to be sure to register the components you want to use somewhere in your own JavaScript code. See our Webpack guide for an example.

Using the components

With your script tag added (or your client bundle in place), you can use any component in any of your views. For example, you could put something like this in your Index.cshtml file:

@{ ViewData["Title"] = "Home Page"; }

<fluent-card>
  <h2>@ViewData["Title"]</h2>
  <fluent-button id="button" appearance="accent">Click Me</fluent-button>
</fluent-card>

For a splash of style, add the following to your wwwroot/css/site.css file:

:not(:defined) {
  visibility: hidden;
}

fluent-card {
  padding: 16px;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
}

h2 {
  font-size: var(--type-ramp-plus-5-font-size);
  line-height: var(--type-ramp-plus-5-line-height);
}

#button {
  align-self: flex-end;
}

Congratulations! You're now set up to use Fluent UI Web Components with ASP.NET. You can use more components, build your own components, and when you are ready, build and deploy your website or app to production.

Next steps