Unlock the Power of Font Awesome in Your Angular App
What is Font Awesome?
Font Awesome is a versatile icon toolkit that offers over 1,500 free icons, making it a popular choice among developers. These icons are scalable vectors that inherit CSS sizes and colors, ensuring they look great on any screen size.
Getting Started with Font Awesome in Angular
Before Angular 5, installing Font Awesome was a bit of a hassle. However, with the release of Angular 5, integrating Font Awesome into your project became much easier. You can now create a clean and seamless integration using the Angular component for Font Awesome.
Creating a Demo Angular App
To get started, create a new Angular app using the command ng new my-app. Make sure you have Node.js and Angular CLI installed on your system.
Installing Font Awesome Dependencies
Once your app is set up, install the Font Awesome dependencies using the command npm install @fortawesome/angular-fontawesome @fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core @fortawesome/free-solid-svg-icons.
Using Font Awesome Icons in Your Angular App
There are two ways to use Font Awesome icons in your Angular app: at the component level and using the Font Awesome icons library.
Using Font Awesome Icons at the Component Level
While this approach is not recommended, as it involves importing icons into each component that needs them, it can be useful if you only need to use an icon in one component. To use an icon at the component level, import the FontAwesomeModule in your app.module.ts file, and then import the specific icon you want to use in your app.component.ts file.
Using the Font Awesome Icons Library
This is the recommended approach, as it allows you to use Font Awesome icons across all components without re-importing icons or importing one icon multiple times. To use the Font Awesome icons library, import the FontAwesomeModule in your app.module.ts file, and then use the icons directly in your app.component.html file.
Icon Styling in Font Awesome
Font Awesome offers four different styles: solid, regular, brand, and light. Each style has its own prefix and can be imported from different packages.
Changing Icon Color and Size
You can change the color and size of Font Awesome icons without writing a CSS style. To do this, use the fa-icon attribute and set the color and size properties accordingly.
Animating Font Awesome Icons
Font Awesome also allows you to animate icons without using CSS or animation libraries. You can add a spinner effect to your icons by adding the spin attribute to the icon tag.
Conclusion
In this article, we explored how to use Font Awesome icons in an Angular project, including how to add basic styling and animation. With Font Awesome, you can take your app’s UI to the next level.