How to use icons and symbols from "Font Awesome" on Native Android Application

I'm trying to use Font Awesome on my application, I was able to integrate the font using Typeface.createFromAsset(), but I also want to use the icons provided by this font, but so far I haven't been able to do that.

This particular font contains icons inside the Unicode Private Use Area (PUA), for things like media player controls, file system access, arrows, etc.

Has anybody used fonts that contain icons and symbols on Android, is this possible at all?

Solution 1:

Font Awesome seems to be working fine for me in my android app. I did the following:

1. Copied fontawesome-webfont.ttf into my assests folder
2. Found the character entities for icons I wanted, using this page: http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/cheatsheet/

3. Created an entry in strings.xml for each icon. Eg for a heart:

   <string name="icon_heart">&#xf004;</string>
   

4. Referenced said entry in the view of my xml layout:

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/like"
        style="?android:attr/buttonStyleSmall"
        ...
        android:text="@string/icon_heart" />
   

5. Loaded the font in my onCreate method and set it for the appropriate Views:

   Typeface font = Typeface.createFromAsset( getAssets(), "fontawesome-webfont.ttf" );
   ...
   Button button = (Button)findViewById( R.id.like );
   button.setTypeface(font);
   

Solution 2:

Try IcoMoon: http://icomoon.io

• Pick the icons you want
• Assign characters to each icon
• Download the font

Say, you picked the play icon, assigned the letter 'P' to it, and downloaded the file icomoon.ttf to your asset folder. This is how you show the icon:

xml:

<TextView
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:textSize="48sp"
  android:text="P" />

java:

Typeface typeface = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(), "icomoon.ttf");
textView.setTypeface(typeface);

I've given a talk on making beautiful Android apps, which includes explanation on using icon fonts, plus adding gradients to make the icons even prettier: http://www.sqisland.com/talks/beautiful-android

The icon font explanation starts at slide 34: http://www.sqisland.com/talks/beautiful-android/#34

Solution 3:

Maybe too late but I had the same need so I've published this https://github.com/liltof/font-awsome-for-android It's an android ready xml version of font awesome usable just like Keith Corwin said

Hope it will help others.