pfSense

Still working on this, but as an update:

Going from v4 to v5 is a breaking change (as expected) and a number of icon names changed, which can be found in this script: https://github.com/estebandelaf/scripts/blob/master/fontawesome4to5.sh

Give the varying ways we have implemented the icons, scripting doesn't seem reliable as a way to cover all bases. Also, from what I can tell there isn't really a way to know if you missed updating an icon, the icon just disappears from the web interface, not always leaving a blank space behind.

There is a shim to make the transition smoother, but we probably don't want to leave that in long term: https://fontawesome.com/how-to-use/on-the-web/setup/upgrading-from-version-4

More information can be found here: https://fontawesome.com/how-to-use/on-the-web/setup/upgrading-from-version-4

I will add that the Snort and Suricata GUI packages both use FontAwesome icons in many places, and a cursory review of the script Jared linked indicates those packages use some of the changed icon names.

So as this winds its way through pfSense base code, please keep us package developers in the loop so we know when to make changes to our packages.

Thanks,
Bill

Thanks Bill! I was going to post an update when it said someone else had commented.

The icons will need to updated across all packages as well, as you point out. Given that, I put the shim in and that will allow us to update the icons over time and then remove the shim at a later date. I'm thinking about maybe creating a new ticket for that part.

I just tested the shim and it works so that change was just committed and it should show up in the next build. To confirm, if you view the page source there should be a vendor/font-awesome/css/v4-shims.css that is being used as well.

Here is the commit: https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense/commit/fb43504511cbb74e5a4a290567925e10f5b3ea30

Thanks Jared. Just to make sure I'm clear, this FontAwsome update is currently limited to just pfSense-2.5, or do you plan to bring the shim and new FontAwesome into 2.4.5 as well? Asking because if us package guys start changing icon names we will need to potentially keep two different package versions for 2.5 versus 2.4.5. I know I likely would for the Snort and Suricata packages. If I am understanding the shim's operation, it will translate old icon names into their new names by way of aliases, but it will not translate new icon names back to their FA 4.x names. So if we changed names in a GUI package, the icons would render properly in 2.5, but they would not render in 2.4.x (as of now).

If possible, my vote would be to include the FontAwesome update over in RELEASE as well in some manner. Perhaps as a 2.4.6 maybe, especially if something else forces a 2.4.6 update to be released ???

With the current shim in place we don't have to tackle the renaming of classes just yet, in fact it maybe be better to wait in this case. The official v6 release isn't until this winter, so there should be some time to make the transition.

I think I am going to mark this as resolved, with the caveat that packages should not use Font Awesome v5 classes just yet in order to remain compatible with previous versions. If newer classes are to be used by a package, a conditional must be put in place for the package to use one or the other pfSense versions.

Jared Dillard wrote:

With the current shim in place we don't have to tackle the renaming of classes just yet, in fact it maybe be better to wait in this case. The official v6 release isn't until this winter, so there should be some time to make the transition.

I think I am going to mark this as resolved, with the caveat that packages should not use Font Awesome v5 classes just yet in order to remain compatible with previous versions. If newer classes are to be used by a package, a conditional must be put in place for the package to use one or the other pfSense versions.

Thanks Jared. Waiting a bit works for me. This is likely to be a challenge for the packages because most of them are really designed to work in both the RELEASE and DEVEL branches of pfSense. It's easier in the base OS because it is only one or the other.