A simpler way to use font icons with NativeScript

Usage

npm install nativescript-fonticon --save

NOTE: If you were using v7 or lower, you were using TNS prefix naming whereas v8+ drops the prefix since no longer needed. Also nativescript-fonticon is now combined here to be accessibly like other packages via nativescript-fonticon/angular - See usage examples below.

The Problem

You can use icon fonts with NativeScript by combining a class with a unicode reference in the view:

• css

.fa {
  font-family: FontAwesome;
}

• view

<Label class="fa" text="\uf293"></Label>

This works but keeping up with unicodes is not fun.

The Solution

With this plugin, you can instead reference the fonticon by the specific classname.

Including font icons in your app

FontAwesome will be used in the following examples but you can use any custom font icon collection.

• Place font icon .ttf file in app/fonts, for example:

app/fonts/fontawesome-webfont.ttf

• Create base class in app.css global file, for example:

.fa {
  font-family: FontAwesome, fontawesome-webfont;
}

NOTE: Android uses the name of the file for the font-family (In this case, fontawesome-webfont.ttf. iOS uses the actual name of the font; for example, as found here. You could rename the font filename to FontAwesome.ttf to use just: font-family: FontAwesome. You can learn more here.

• Copy css to app somewhere, for example:

app/assets/font-awesome.css

Then modify the css file to isolate just the icon fonts needed. Watch this video to better understand.

• Import the FontIconModule passing a configuration with the location to the .css file to forRoot:

Use the classname prefix as the key and the css filename as the value relative to directory where your app.module.ts is, then require the css file.

Vanilla

Configure your fonts and setup the converter if using vanilla NativeScript:

import { Application } from 'application';
import { FontIconFactory, fonticon } from 'nativescript-fonticon';

// Optional. Will output the css mapping to console.
FontIconFactory.debug = true;

// Configure paths to font icon css
FontIconFactory.paths = {
  'fa': 'font-awesome.css',
  'ion': 'ionicons.css'
};

// Load the css
FontIconFactory.loadCss();

Application.setResources( { fonticon } );
Application.run({ moduleName: 'main-page' });

Use the fonticon pipe in your markup.

<Label class="fa" text="{{'fa-bluetooth' | fonticon}}"></Label> 

Angular

Setup your module:

import { FontIconModule } from 'nativescript-fonticon/angular';

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	bootstrap: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	imports: [
		NativeScriptModule,
		FontIconModule.forRoot({
			'fa': require('~/app/assets/css/fa-5.css'),
			'ion': require('~/app/assets/css/ionicons.css')
		})
	]
})

Use the fonticon pipe in your markup.

<Label class="fa" [text]="'fa-bluetooth' | fonticon"></Label>

• Optional Configure the service with DEBUGGING on

When working with a new font collection, you may need to see the mapping the service provides. Passing true as seen below will cause the mapping to be output in the console to determine if your font collection is being setup correctly.

import { FontIconModule, FontIconService } from 'nativescript-fonticon/angular';
// turn debug on
FontIconService.debug = true;

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	bootstrap: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	imports: [
		NativeScriptModule,
		FontIconModule.forRoot({
			'fa': require('~/app/assets/css/fa-5.css')
		})
	]
})

Credits

Idea came from Bradley Gore's post here.

License

MIT