MUI X v8: Highlights since the last major release
José Freitas
@joserodolfofreitas
Ale Thomas
@alelthomasWe're happy to share the newest MUI X features shipped over the last several months. As we gear up for the next major version, here's a tour of the latest improvements we've made to the Charts, Data Grid, Date Pickers, and Tree View—all available now in v8.
Table of contents
Charts
Brush selection
Drag a brush across any Cartesian chart to focus the conversation. Zoom a busy week on a time series, isolate a cluster in a scatter, or feed the selected window to your own logic. The brush overlay gives a crisp visual cue while you work:
Intuitive zooming and panning
Zooming and panning now match expected interactions. Wheel or pinch to zoom, press-and-drag to pan, and tap-and-drag on touch to zoom without fiddly gestures.
Tune the interaction config (for example, require Ctrl to zoom and Shift to pan) so charts play nicely with your page shortcuts.
Zoom slider with preview
A compact slider under the axis makes long ranges effortless to navigate, and the optional preview shows exactly what's in view—the dashboard equivalent of a map's mini-overview:
Keyboard navigation and a11y improvements
Charts are now more comfortable to explore from the keyboard. Focus highlights stay in sync as you move, and tooltips and axes cooperate so you can read values without a mouse:
While these features are a work in progress, we are currently increasing our efforts to improve accessibility across all Charts components.
Sankey and upgraded charts
A Sankey diagram joins the lineup for flow visualization, while Funnel charts gain polished presets (including pyramid/step-pyramid) so conversion stories read clearly at a glance:
Clearer axes for dense categories
Multi-level label groups on band/point axes tidy up long category lists and comparisons—perfect for "Region Country City" break-downs:
Performance and export
Heavy dashboards feel lighter thanks to faster string measurement, tuned bar rendering, and an SVG batch renderer for large scatter plots. When it's time to share, capture the exact view with image export or print/PDF.
Performance tips • Export guide
Data Grid
Server-side pivoting
Pivot at scale without locking the browser. The Grid coordinates with your back end to compute pivots and aggregates, so the UI stays snappy while you slice by any model you can dream up:
Row grouping that adapts as you explore
Reorder grouping levels on the fly and stay in place. Expanded groups stay open even as data updates, so you don't lose context during refreshes:
Charts integration
Turn selections into visuals in seconds. An integrated panel renders the right chart for the current view and stays in sync with Grid interactions—ideal for quick investigations and stakeholder snapshots:
Smoother reordering with clear affordances
Drag-and-drop row reordering now shows a precise drop indicator so users can reorganize with confidence—perfect for backlogs and ranked lists:
Pinned areas and scrolling polish
Pinned rows and aggregates cooperate with the scrollbar and scroll shadows, making wide and tall tables easier to parse at a glance:
Pinning guide • Scrolling guide
Export resilience
Excel export now relies on our own internally vetted and private ExcelJS fork to avoid transitive vulnerabilities and keep exports reliable at scale:
Date and Time Pickers
Better range defaults
Range components can use different reference dates for starting and ending values, so pickers open where users expect—for example, next Monday through Friday for travel, or "this month" for reporting.
Polished inputs across devices
Edits feel steadier. Compact one-column time layouts keep the intended format, view switching behaves predictably, and browser quirks are smoothed out so the field stays readable and consistent:
Tree View
Drag-and-drop support and other improvements
Between refined editing, ordering, and selection behaviors, trees hold up better as they grow. Reorder by dragging and dropping, wire up inline renaming, and keep identifiers flexible so you can mirror your domain model precisely:
What's next
We're targeting a v9 stable release by the end of March. After that, we'll invest heavily in customization and rewrite our components on top of Base UI to fully embrace composition, a cleaner slots API, and a more modern developer experience The aim is to make it easier to swap parts without forking, line up with your design tokens, and build complex UIs with less prop-surface ceremony.
If you rely on deep customization today, now is the perfect time to tell us about your pain points—your input will shape the plan.
Cheers!