A simpler way to use font icons with NativeScript + Angular2.

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:

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

Install

npm install nativescript-ng2-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/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 the app directory.

import { TNSFontIconModule } from 'nativescript-ng2-fonticon';

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	bootstrap: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	imports: [
		NativeScriptModule,
		TNSFontIconModule.forRoot({
			'fa': 'font-awesome.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-ng2-fonticon';
// turn debug on
TNSFontIconService.debug = true;

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	bootstrap: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	imports: [
		NativeScriptModule,
		TNSFontIconModule.forRoot({
			'fa': 'font-awesome.css'
		})
	]
})

• Setup your component

It is important to inject the service into the constructor of your root component. Otherwise Angular 2's DI system will not instantiate your service.

import { Component } from 'angular2/core';
import { TNSFontIconService } from 'nativescript-ng2-fonticon';

@Component({
  selector: 'demo',
  template: '<Label class="fa" [text]="'fa-bluetooth' | fonticon"></Label> '
})
export class DemoComponent {
  constructor(private fonticon: TNSFontIconService) {
    // ^ IMPORTANT to cause Angular's DI system to instantiate the service!
  }
}

Configuration Options

If your font collection name does not match the classname prefix, you can pass the font collection name as an argument to the pipe like this:

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

With a configuration like this:

@NgModule({
	declarations: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	bootstrap: [
		DemoComponent,
	],
	imports: [
		NativeScriptModule,
		TNSFontIconModule.forRoot({
			'fontawesome': 'font-awesome.css'
		})
	]
})

Demo FontAwesome (iOS)	Demo Ionicons (iOS)

Demo FontAwesome (Android)	Demo Ionicons (Android)

How about just NativeScript without Angular?

The standard NativeScript converter is here:

• nativescript-fonticon

Why the TNS prefixed name?

TNS stands for Telerik NativeScript

iOS uses classes prefixed with NS (stemming from the NeXTSTEP days of old): https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSString_Class/

To avoid confusion with iOS native classes, TNS is used instead.

Credits

Idea came from Bradley Gore's post here.

Contributors

• NathanaelA

License

MIT