A simpler way to use font icons with NativeScript + Angular.

The Problem

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

.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:

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

Install

npm install nativescript-ngx-fonticon --save

Usage

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 TNSFontIconModule 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.

Example configurations:

/* NS out of the box webpack configuration or NS6+  */
// Assuming you placed your css file in `src/app/assets/css/fa-5.css`:
TNSFontIconModule.forRoot({ fa: require("~/app/assets/css/fa-5.css") });

/* Non-webpack */
// Note that the location of the file relative to your app.module
// is what determines the path that require takes.
// This assumes that assets is a sibling folder of `app.module.ts`.
TNSFontIconModule.forRoot({ fa: require("./assets/css/fa-5.css") });

import { TNSFontIconModule } from 'nativescript-ngx-fonticon';

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	bootstrap: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	imports: [
		NativeScriptModule,
		TNSFontIconModule.forRoot({
			'fa': require('~/app/assets/css/fa-5.css'),
			'ion': require('~/app/assets/css/ionicons.css')
			/*
			For non webpack, assuming the assets folder is a sibling of app.module.ts:
			'fa': require('./assets/css/fa-5.css')
			*/
		})
	]
})

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 { TNSFontIconModule, TNSFontIconService } from 'nativescript-ngx-fonticon';
// turn debug on
TNSFontIconService.debug = true;

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	bootstrap: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	imports: [
		NativeScriptModule,
		TNSFontIconModule.forRoot({
			'fa': require('~/app/assets/css/fa-5.css')
			/*
			For non webpack, assuming the assets folder is a sibling of app.module.ts:
			'fa': require('./assets/css/fa-5.css')
			*/
		})
	]
})

Setup your component

import { Component } from '@angular/core';

@Component({
  selector: 'demo',
  template: '<Label class="fa" [text]="'fa-bluetooth' | fonticon"></Label> '
})
export class DemoComponent {

}