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feat: modernize Button to MD3 Expressive - #5097

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feat: modernize Button to MD3 Expressive#5097
oleksandrzavarzin-callstack wants to merge 40 commits into
callstack:mainfrom
oleksandrzavarzin-callstack:feat/button-material-3-expressive

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@oleksandrzavarzin-callstack oleksandrzavarzin-callstack commented Sep 2, 2026

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Motivation

Button was left out of the earlier modernization wave, so it still had one size,
no shape scale, no toggle, MD2-era mode names, and RN Animated animations. This
brings it to Material Design 3 Expressive against the gaps listed for Button in the
MD3 Component Review.

Closes #4928.

This is a takeover of #4943. That branch is rebased onto main here, and the
childrenlabel rename is reverted - the label still goes in children.

What's new

  • size - the XS/S/M/L/XL scale. Defaults to small, which is the only size
    5.x had, so existing buttons keep their metrics.
  • shape - round (full pill) or square (a smaller per-size corner).
    Defaults to round.
  • selected - the Expressive toggle. Deliberately nullable: leaving it
    undefined is a plain button, because MD3 colors a toggle that is
    unselected differently from a button that is not a toggle at all.
  • Corner morph - the container springs to the pressed corner while held, and
    animates between shapes as selected changes. The pressed corner tightens with
    the size per the spec's corner table: 8dp for XS/S, 12dp for M, 16dp for L/XL.
    animateShape={false} opts out, and the press morph is skipped under
    reduce-motion.
  • iconPosition - leading / trailing, replacing the undocumented
    contentStyle={{ flexDirection: 'row-reverse' }} trick. Flips with useLocale()
    under RTL.
  • rippleColor - the ripple / state layer, defaulting to the label colour at
    the pressed-state opacity per spec.
  • Component tokens - every per-size metric now lives in
    src/components/Button/tokens.ts, modelled on Compose's Button{Size}Tokens
    and resolved through the shared resolveCornerRadius.
  • Accessible touch target - XS and S are shorter than 48dp, so the press area
    is expanded with hitSlop without changing the visual size.
  • Reanimated - the corner morph is a Reanimated spring reading
    theme.motion.spring.fast.spatial. Elevation and container colour ride
    Surface's CSS transitions, which read theme.motion.*.

Breaking changes

Mode names and default

- <Button mode="contained">Save</Button>
+ <Button mode="filled">Save</Button>

- <Button mode="contained-tonal">Save</Button>
+ <Button mode="tonal">Save</Button>

The default mode is now filled, not text

- <Button>Cancel</Button>
+ <Button mode="text">Cancel</Button>

Removed props

- <Button uppercase compact contentStyle={{ flexDirection: 'row-reverse' }} icon="chevron-right">
-   Next
- </Button>
+ <Button
+   size="extra-small"
+   iconPosition="trailing"
+   icon="chevron-right"
+   labelStyle={{ textTransform: 'uppercase' }}
+ >
+   Next
+ </Button>
  • uppercasetextTransform.
  • compact → superseded by the size scale.
  • contentStyle={{ flexDirection: 'row-reverse' }}iconPosition.

style is a SurfaceStyle, so corner radius moves out of it

Button renders on Surface, so style is StyleProp<SurfaceStyle> and follows
the same rule the Surface rework introduced in #5078: border radius is not set
through style. Use shape, or override the corner token that the size maps to.

- <Button style={{ borderRadius: 8 }}>Press me</Button>
+ <Button shape="square" theme={{ shapes: { corner: { medium: 8 } } }}>
+   Press me
+ </Button>

The square corner reads medium at XS/S, large at M, and extraLarge at L/XL.
Being animated, style also takes Reanimated styles:

- <Button style={{ transform: [{ scale: rnAnimatedValue }] }}>Press me</Button>
+ <Button style={reanimatedStyle}>Press me</Button>

There is no elevation prop; elevation follows mode="elevated".

Appearance changes, no code change needed

  • outlined label and icon use onSurfaceVariant instead of primary.
  • Default icon size is 20dp, up from 18dp.
  • labelStyle={{ fontSize }} no longer changes the icon size - it follows size.
  • The resting corner is the full pill radius rather than a fixed 20dp.

Card.Actions

Defaults its children to outlined for the first and filled for the rest, where
it used to default to contained. It no longer forwards compact or uppercase.

Follow-ups

  • feat: add MD3 keyboard focus indicators #5084 - MD3 keyboard focus indicators. That PR gives every
    TouchableRipple consumer a focus ring, so Button gets one with no code here - which is why none
    is implemented locally. One thing to settle there: it defaults to
    focusRing="outward" and warns an outward ring is trimmed by "any clipping
    ancestor sized to its content". This PR wraps Button's ripple in a permanent
    overflow: 'hidden' clip view (needed so the ripple follows the animated
    corner), so Button will likely need focusRing="inward" or the ring on the
    outer view. There is a TODO in Button.tsx pointing at it.
  • fix: expand interactive targets to the 48dp minimum #5080 - 48dp touch targets overlaps with the hitSlop expansion here and also touches Button's snapshot. Whichever lands second will need a rebase; the
    two approaches should be reconciled rather than stacked.
  • refactor: remove ToggleButton #5095 - remove ToggleButton. Split out of this PR and open separately, so
    neither depends on the other. It points icon-only toggles at IconButton's
    existing selected prop; the selected prop added here is the replacement path
    for a toggle that carries a label.

Notes for review

  • The outlined border colour is unchanged from main (outlineVariant).
    @adrcotfas asked for outline in the component review and the original branch
    made that change; I reverted it. OutlinedButtonTokens.OutlineColor in the
    Compose reference - the implementation the review itself names as the
    cross-check - is OutlineVariant.

Review threads

All ten from the previous round:

Thread Resolution
Remove label, keep children Reverted; children is byte-identical to main
"what makes these legacy?" The unsized path is deleted - size defaults to small, so the concept is gone
Use Reanimated Corner morph is a Reanimated spring; elevation and container colour ride Surface's transitions. Both read motion tokens
Drop uppercase Removed, along with its injection from Dialog.Actions
contentStyle doc must not mention flexDirection Rewritten; row-reverse support removed
No deprecation warning for row-reverse Support removed outright - Button now has no console.warn at all
Breaking changes undocumented This description plus migration.md
Warnings fire every render All deprecation warnings are gone
Card.Actions mode default break Documented above and in migration.md
Animated.timing never .start()ed Effect deleted. Elevation is now a Surface prop derived during render, so a disabled/mode change moves it with nothing to chase

Test plan

  • yarn lint, yarn typecheck, yarn test pass. 55 suites, 727 tests, 1 skipped.
  • New tests cover: the toggle colour table per mode × state, selected === undefined
    vs false, the per-size token table, shape radii per size, the pressed radius per
    size, the corner morph and its opt-out, the reduce-motion skip, the resting shadow
    per mode, the 48dp target, and that every mode renders at the token height
    including an outlined toggle in both states.
  • Tested on Android/iOS simulator and on the web browser:
    • Android dark mode - no square artifact behind text/outlined labels.
    • Android + iOS - the ripple follows the morphing corner.
    • Every mode the same height at a given size, including an outlined toggle.

BREAKING CHANGE: Button is redesigned for MD3 Expressive with no deprecation
aliases.

  • mode="contained"mode="filled", mode="contained-tonal"mode="tonal".
    The old values are removed.
  • The default mode is now filled, not text.
  • uppercase is removed. Use labelStyle={{ textTransform: 'uppercase' }}.
  • compact is removed. Use size="extra-small".
  • contentStyle={{ flexDirection: 'row-reverse' }} no longer moves the icon. Use
    iconPosition="trailing".
  • style is a StyleProp<SurfaceStyle>, so it no longer sets border radius and no
    longer accepts RN Animated values. Use shape or a corner token override for
    the radius, and a Reanimated style for animation. There is no elevation prop.
  • outlined label and icon use onSurfaceVariant; the default icon size is 20dp;
    labelStyle.fontSize no longer drives the icon size; the resting corner is the
    full pill radius.
  • Card.Actions defaults its children to filled rather than contained, and no
    longer forwards compact or uppercase.

azizbecha and others added 30 commits May 23, 2026 23:40
Introduce a `label?: string` prop as the primary way to set the button
text. The `children` prop keeps working as a deprecated fallback (when
both are set, `label` wins) and emits a dev-only warning.

This decouples the button layout from arbitrary child structures and
makes `uppercase` work reliably, since the label is always a string.
Update the components that compose Button (Banner, Snackbar,
DataTablePagination) to pass the new `label` prop instead of children,
and update the `## Usage` / `@example` JSDoc blocks (and the test
files) accordingly so nothing relies on the deprecated `children` prop.
Add an `iconPosition?: 'leading' | 'trailing'` prop to control where the
icon sits relative to the label. The previous approach of setting
`contentStyle={{ flexDirection: 'row-reverse' }}` still works but is now
deprecated and emits a dev-only warning.

The icon margins are extracted into a `getButtonIconStyle` helper,
replacing the previous matrix of computed StyleSheet keys, and
DataTablePagination is updated to use the new prop.
Add a `rippleColor?: ColorValue` prop and, by default, drive the ripple
/ state layer with the label color at the pressed-state opacity (per
Material Design 3) instead of TouchableRipple's onSurface-based default.

The color is computed by a new `getButtonRippleColor` helper, which
falls back to `undefined` (TouchableRipple's own default) when the
label color is not a plain string, e.g. an Android Material You
PlatformColor.
Wrap the expensive derived values (color computation, border-radius
extraction, ripple color, icon style, touchable ripple style, and the
flattened style objects) in `useMemo`, memoize the press handlers with
`useCallback`, and replace the `isMode` `useCallback` with a plain
local function. No behavior or render-output change.
Update the example screens to use the new `label` prop instead of
children, and the `iconPosition="trailing"` prop instead of the
`contentStyle={{ flexDirection: 'row-reverse' }}` hack.
Update the hand-written guide snippets (icons, react-navigation, ripple
effect) and the docs-site example components to use the new `label` prop
instead of children. The generated component reference pages are derived
from the JSDoc and will be regenerated by the docs build.
Add a `size?: 'extra-small' | 'small' | 'medium' | 'large' | 'extra-large'`
prop. When omitted, the Button keeps its current visuals; when set, the
per-size MD3 metrics (minHeight, horizontal padding, icon size,
icon/label gap, label typescale) are applied via a new
`getButtonSizeStyle` helper.
Add a `shape?: 'round' | 'square'` prop. When omitted, the button keeps
its legacy corner radius. When set, `'round'` uses the full-pill radius
and `'square'` uses a per-size smaller corner; the mapping comes from a
new `getButtonShapeRadius` helper. An explicit `borderRadius` in `style`
still wins.
Add a `selected?: boolean` prop. When `true`, the button flips its
`shape` (round ↔ square) so the selected/unselected pair contrasts, and
for `outlined`/`text` modes adopts a filled tonal-selected appearance
(`secondaryContainer` background, `onSecondaryContainer` label, no
border). `accessibilityState.selected` is set so screen readers announce
the toggle state. Other modes keep their colors and only flip the shape.

The `selected` flag is threaded through `getButtonColors` and its
sub-helpers.
Showcase the new expressive props in the example app: one button per
size in the Size section, a round and a square row across sizes in the
Shape section, and stateful selected/unselected toggles in the Toggle
section.
Treat `iconPosition` as logical (reading-order) and swap leading/trailing
under RTL. The layout engine already mirrors `flexDirection` and physical
margins when the platform direction is RTL (native I18nManager, or
react-native-web with an active I18nManager), so we only flip manually when
the locale direction disagrees with the platform default — e.g. a web
LocaleProvider override where I18nManager is a no-op. This avoids a
double-flip on native RTL.
Use a single `label` vocabulary internally to match the public `label` prop
and the MD3 spec:
- getButtonColors returns labelColor/labelOpacity (was textColor/textOpacity)
- getButtonTextColor -> getButtonLabelColor; customTextColor -> customLabelColor
- getButtonRippleColor takes labelColor

Also drop the md3 prefix from the no-size styles (md3Label* -> legacyLabel*).
The public `textColor` prop is unchanged. Internal-only rename; no behavior or
snapshot change.
Align the outlined variant with the MD3 spec:
- border color: theme.colors.outline (was outlineVariant)
- label color: theme.colors.onSurfaceVariant (was primary)

text and elevated modes keep the primary accent; the selected-outlined tonal
branch is unchanged. Snapshot updates in Menu and DataTable reflect the same
outlined Button color change.
For the legacy (no-`size`) button:
- icon size 18 -> 20dp
- horizontal padding 24 -> 16dp (legacyLabel marginHorizontal)
- keep the 8dp icon-label gap: the icon's negative margin is calibrated
  against the label margin, so the non-text icon margins go -16 -> -8 to
  compensate for the smaller label margin (otherwise the gap collapses to 0).

Snapshot updates in Menu and DataTable reflect the same legacy Button metrics.
Add src/components/Button/tokens.ts with one token object per MD3 expressive
size (modelled on Jetpack Compose's Button{Size}Tokens), replacing the inline
BUTTON_SIZE_STYLES and BUTTON_SHAPE_RADIUS maps. Corner radii now reference
shape keys (full / medium / large / extraLarge) resolved against
theme.shapes.corner instead of magic numbers.

- getButtonSizeStyle derives from the tokens
- getButtonShapeRadius takes theme and resolves corner keys (resolveButtonCorner)
- fix extra-small iconSize 16 -> 20 per MD3 spec
- tokens also carry pressed/selected shape fields for the upcoming shape morph

No metric/radius change other than the extra-small icon size.
Align Button mode names with the MD3 spec. This is a breaking rename (no
aliases), matching the v6 breaking-change window:
- contained -> filled
- contained-tonal -> tonal

The resolved styles are unchanged, so there is no visual difference. Updates
the Button mode type, internal isMode checks, CardActions' injected default,
and all consumers (example, docs, tests). Card/IconButton/SegmentedButtons/
ToggleButton keep their own independent contained modes.
Change the default Button mode from text to filled to match the MD3 emphasis
hierarchy (filled is the highest-emphasis, primary button). A bare <Button>
now renders filled instead of text.

All library-internal usages pass an explicit mode, so none are affected.
Snapshots updated for bare buttons (transparent -> primary background,
primary -> onPrimary label).
Extra-small (32dp) and small (40dp) buttons are shorter than the 48dp minimum
accessible touch target, so expand the press area with hitSlop without changing
the visual size (XS -> top/bottom 8, S -> top/bottom 4). A user-supplied
hitSlop wins on the axes it sets; a numeric hitSlop is respected as-is.
Verified on device that taps inside the slop zone register and taps outside
do not.
Shaped buttons animate their corner radius with the theme motion spring: to
corner.small (8dp) while pressed, and between the round/square radii when the
selected toggle flips the shape.

Stability: the animated path resolves round to the real pill radius
(minHeight/2) instead of the cornerFull sentinel so the spring stays bounded,
plus a >= 0 clamp guards against overshoot. Scoped to shaped buttons that
don't pin a radius via style; legacy/size-only buttons keep a static corner.

Web: the inner ripple can't follow an Animated value, so it's rendered as a
rectangle and the Surface clips it (overflow: hidden) to the morphing radius,
keeping the outline and state layer in sync.
Replace the long exhaustive grid with a compact playground: a live Button
driven by Chip controls (mode/size/shape/icon-position) and Switch rows
(show icon/disabled/loading/selected/compact), with smart gating so a control
is never a no-op (icon-position only with an icon; compact only when size is
unset). Keeps trimmed showcase sections: Modes, States, Size, Shape, Toggle,
Custom.
Update the Button doc data sources to match the v6 API: rename the
contained/contained-tonal color + screenshot entries to filled/tonal, set the
outlined label to onSurfaceVariant, and switch mode="contained" to
mode="filled" in the react-navigation and ripple-effect guides. The Button.mdx
page is generated from these sources plus the component JSDoc.
Resolve conflicts between the MD3 expressive Button work and main:

- Button: adopt main's aria props (`aria-label`, `role`, `aria-disabled`)
  and add `aria-selected` for the toggle state; migrate off the removed
  `utils/forwardRef` to React 19 ref-as-prop, keeping the new `size`,
  `shape`, `selected`, `iconPosition`, `label` and `rippleColor` props.
- Button/utils: drop the now-redundant `as Theme` assertions.
- Button tests: migrate to main's RNTL 14 conventions (async `render`,
  `screen` queries, awaited `fireEvent`, `@jest/globals`) and the
  `tokens.md.sys.state.opacity` path; snapshots regenerated for the
  accessibility -> aria rename.
- Docs: take main's rewritten GetStartedButtons, drop the docs test main
  removed, and re-apply the `label` migration to the 6.x icons guide
  (rename detection had landed it on the frozen 5.x copy).
@azizbecha

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Hey @oleksandrzavarzin-callstack, thanks for taking time to continue working on Button component, I was away for a little while haha.

Really happy to see you continuing from where I left off and building on top of my previous commits, appreciated!!

Please let me know if there are any tasks we can share or work on together. I’d be happy to help!

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refactor(button): improve MD3 compliance and modernize content API

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