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SVG Core Plugins

The SVG Core library includes a Plugins architecture so you can limit the file size and improve performance with only the features you need.

Font Awesome Can Do a Lot

Here are the plugins:

Plugin nameWhat it does
InjectCSSAdds CSS to the <head> of the page that is needed to display icons
ReplaceElementsReplaces <i> elements with <svg> icons
LayersSupport for layers
LayersCounterSupport for layer counters
LayersTextSupport for layer text
PseudoElementsSupport for pseudo-elements
MutationObserverWatches the page (DOM) for changes and replaces elements (i to svg)
PowerTransformsSupport for Power Transforms
MasksSupport for masking
MissingIconIndicatorMark missing icons with an animated indicator
SvgSymbolsSupport for SVG symbols

When you import anything from @fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core it comes with all batteries included.

But with a few small changes you can pick the plugins you wish to use. This saves bytes and can improve performance if you aren’t wasting time doing unnecessary things.

An Example

This example is using Rollup.js but the same principles apply to most other projects that use Webpack or even tools like ESBuild.

Terminal window
mkdir fa-lite
cd fa-lite
npm init -y

This will create a package.json file in the fa-lite.

Next up is installing some dependencies for Rollup and Font Awesome. (Don’t act surprised, you kinda knew we’d be installing some deps didn’t you?)

Terminal window
npm install --save-dev rollup @rollup/plugin-node-resolve rollup-plugin-terser
npm i --save-dev @fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core
npm i --save-dev '@awesome.me/kit-KIT_CODE'

Create src/fontawesome.js

import { library, dom } from '@fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core'
import { all } from '@awesome.me/kit-KIT_CODE/icons'


library.add(...all)


window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
  dom.i2svg()
  dom.watch()
})

Create rollup.config.js

import resolve from '@rollup/plugin-node-resolve'


const plugins = [resolve()]


export default [
  {
    input: 'src/fontawesome.js',
    output: {
      file: 'dist/fontawesome.js',
      format: 'esm'
    },
    plugins
  }
]

Open a terminal in the current directory and we’ll run Rollup with --watch:

Terminal window
npx rollup -c rollup.config.js --watch
Terminal window
rollup v2.56.3
bundles src/fontawesome.js → dist/fontawesome.js...
created dist/fontawesome.js in 536ms


[2021-09-13 15:03:39] waiting for changes...

Create index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
    <title>Index</title>
    <script src="dist/fontawesome.js" type="module"></script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <i class="fas fa-alien"></i>
  </body>
</html>

Open another terminal in the current directory and we’ll run a small HTTP server:

Terminal window
npm install --save-dev http-server
npx http-server
Terminal window
Starting up http-server, serving ./


http-server settings:
CORS: disabled
Cache: 3600 seconds
Connection Timeout: 120 seconds
Directory Listings: visible
AutoIndex: visible
Serve GZIP Files: false
Serve Brotli Files: false
Default File Extension: none


Available on:
  http://127.0.0.1:8080
  http://127.51.68.120:8080
  http://192.168.4.22:8080
  http://192.168.4.42:8080
Hit CTRL-C to stop the server

Load this up in the browser to see an alien icon.

Switching to Plugins

While the icons have been subsetted you are still including every single one of the features Font Awesome provides.

Create src/fontawesome-lite.js next:

import {
  register,
  InjectCSS,
  ReplaceElements
} from '@fortawesome/fontawesome-svg-core/plugins'


const api = register([InjectCSS, ReplaceElements])


import { all } from '@awesome.me/kit-KIT_CODE/icons'


api.library.add(...all)


window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
  api.dom.i2svg()
  api.dom.watch()
})

Modify rollup.config.js

import resolve from '@rollup/plugin-node-resolve'


const plugins = [
resolve()
]


if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
  plugins.push(require('rollup-plugin-terser').terser())
}


export default [
{
  input: 'src/fontawesome.js',
  output: {
    file: 'dist/fontawesome.js',
    format: 'esm'
  },
  plugins
},
{
  input: 'src/fontawesome-lite.js',
  output: {
    file: 'dist/fontawesome-lite.js',
    format: 'esm'
  },
  plugins
}
]

Since we’ve changed rollup.config.js we need to stop and re-start. Type CTRL+C and then run Rollup again.

Terminal window
npx rollup -c rollup.config.js --watch

Change dist/fontawesome.js to use our dist/fontawesome-lite.js version

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
    <title>Index</title>
    <script src="dist/fontawesome-lite.js" type="module"></script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <i class="fas fa-alien"></i>
  </body>
</html>

What to Expect

Compare the file-sizes before and after using the plugin system.

FilenameSize
dist/fontawesome.js61k
dist/fontawesome-lite.js45k

Well, butter my bread! That’s 16k saved. Using “lite” may be a bit generous, but we’ll be continuing to improve this API as time goes on. This architecture also promises to open up some new possibilities with Font Awesome in the future.