Complete Guide to Angular Material Icons: Official Lists and Usage Details

Overview of Angular Material Icon Resources

In Angular Material development, the <mat-icon> component is the core tool for displaying Material Design icons. A major challenge many developers face is finding complete, updated lists of icon names. According to community feedback, the original Material.io link now redirects to the Google Fonts icons page, which has become the most authoritative official resource.

Major Icon Resource Platforms

Due to potential update delays in the official website's icon list, community developer Jossef Harush Kadouri maintains a forked project called Material Design Icons DX (MDIDX). This project is continuously updated, providing more comprehensive icon coverage and serving as an important reference resource for developers.

Google recently introduced Material Symbols with support for variable font technology, accessible through option switching on the same page. This new technology allows for more flexible icon style adjustments and represents the future direction of icon technology.

Icon Configuration in Angular Projects

The Angular Material team expects developers to manage the inclusion of Material Design icon fonts themselves. The basic configuration steps are as follows:

First, add the Google Web Fonts CSS link in the HTML file:

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/icon?family=Material+Icons" rel="stylesheet">

Then import MatIconModule in the Angular module:

import { MatIconModule } from '@angular/material/icon';

@NgModule({
  imports: [MatIconModule],
  // ...other configurations
})
export class AppModule { }

Basic and Advanced Icon Usage

Using font ligatures is the simplest way to display icons:

<mat-icon>home</mat-icon>

This will display the standard home icon. The Material icon font contains over 900 icons, all packaged in a single 42KB file, organized into more than 10 categories including Action, Communication, Device, Editor, and others.

For non-Angular environments, traditional <i> tags can be used:

<i class="material-icons">home</i>

Icon Customization and Theming

Material icons support complete CSS theming. Developers can easily adjust icon color, size, and other visual properties through CSS:

.custom-icon {
  color: #1976d2;
  font-size: 24px;
}

All modern web browsers support Material icons. Developers can choose to use Google's CDN service or self-host the font files to meet specific performance or security requirements.

Detailed Icon Categories

Material icons are divided into multiple categories by function, each containing related icon sets:

• Action Icons: Include commonly used operation icons like 3d_rotation, accessibility, account_balance
• Communication Icons: Provide communication-related icons such as call, email, chat
• Device Icons: Include device icons like devices, computer, smartphone
• Navigation Icons: Cover navigation elements including menu, arrow_back, chevron_left

Complete icon lists can be found in reference resources, and developers should choose appropriate icon categories based on specific application scenarios.

Best Practices and Recommendations

When selecting icon resources, it's recommended to prioritize the MDIDX project for the latest icon support. For projects requiring variable font functionality, Material Symbols is the better choice. In performance-sensitive applications, consider self-hosting icon fonts to reduce external dependencies.

Icon naming should follow Material Design specifications, using underscores to separate words, such as add_shopping_cart instead of addShoppingCart. Maintaining naming consistency facilitates team collaboration and code maintenance.