SVG Icons

As of the R1 SP1 2023 release, the Kendo UI for jQuery supports rendering of SVG icons instead of the traditional Font icons.

To ensure that all icons are displayed correctly, use one of the supported SASS themes. For installing a SASS theme, go to the article on adding SASS themes to your Kendo UI for jQuery project.

What Are SVG Icons

A Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) icon is a web-friendly vector file format. Such files can be significantly resized without losing any of their quality, which makes them ideal for logos and complex online graphics. Apart from that, SVGs are written in XML code, meaning they store any text information as literal text rather than shapes. This storing approach allows search engines, like Google, to scan SVG graphics for keywords thus helping websites to move up in search rankings.

SVG vs. Font Icons

SVG icons provide the following benefits over Font icons:

• High scalability—In case of low icon resolution, your webpage will not suffer quality losses.
• Customization options—Unlike the single-color font icons, SVG icons not only allow you to add more colors, but also enable you to animate individual strokes.
• Fewer server requests—Specifying a font icon in CSS may require you to use the @font-face rule and, as a result, the browser will have to request the font file. With SVGs, you do not need to send a server request.
• SEO enhancement—As SVG icons can be used in the <img> format, you can enhance your search engine optimization practices by using a descriptive filename and proper alt text thus enabling search engines to boost website rankings.

Rendering SVG Icons

With the R1 SP1 2023 release, Kendo UI for jQuery introduced a new kendo.ui.icon method. Depending on the global configuration, which is font by default, kendo.ui.icon allows you to render either an SVG icon or a Font icon. Through the method, you can also specify the icon over the iconType field.

The following example shows how to create an SVG icon by extending an existing HTML element.

<span id="icon"></span>

<script>
    kendo.ui.icon($("#icon"), { icon: 'camera' });
</script>

The following example shows how to create an SVG icon without an element.

<script>
    var icon =  kendo.ui.icon('camera');
    $('body').append(icon);
</script>

The following example shows how to create a specific SVG icon.

<script>
    var icon =  kendo.ui.icon({ icon: 'camera', type: 'svg' });
    $('body').append(icon);
</script>

The following example shows how to set a custom SVG icon.

 <script>
    var icon =  kendo.ui.icon({
        type: 'svg', // if default is svg you can omit this option
        icon:{
            viewBox: '0 0 512 512',
            content: '<path d="M448 128h-64l-64-64H192l-64 64H64c-17.6 0-32 14.4-32 32v288c0 17.6 14.4 32 32 32h384c17.6 0 32-14.4 32-32V160c0-17.6-14.4-32-32-32zM256 416c-61.9 0-112-50.1-112-112s50.1-112 112-112 112 50.1 112 112-50.1 112-112 112zm64-112c0 35.3-28.7 64-64 64s-64-28.7-64-64 28.7-64 64-64 64 28.7 64 64z" />'
        }
    });
    $('body').append(icon);
</script>

The following example shows how to set a custom SVG icon renderer.

 <script>
    var icon =  kendo.ui.icon({
        type: (element, options) => `<span class="my-custom-icon"><span class="k-icon k-i-${options.icon}"></span></span>`
        icon: 'camera'
    });
    $('body').append(icon);
</script>

Reverting to Font Icons

Depending on your preference, you can still use Font Icons either through the iconType option or through the kendo.setDefaults method.

The following example shows how to configure a specific Font icon.

<script>
    var icon =  kendo.ui.icon({ icon: 'camera', type: 'font' });
    $('body').append(icon);
</script>

The following example shows how to globally configure Font icons.

<script>
    kendo.setDefaults('iconType', 'font');
    var icon =  kendo.ui.icon({ icon: 'camera' });
    $('body').append(icon);
</script>