[FEATURE] Add external font libraries to be used as icons for buttons (fontawesome)

[royvandongen]

Describe the feature
After using Streamdeck combined with companion lately i noticed it is a bit of a hassle to create PNG images for the buttons. It might be a nice idea to implement some widely available icon-fonts like Font Awesome in order to be used on the buttons itself.

Usecases
Font Libraries like FontAwesome have pre-defined images readily available for various usecases (lightbulbs, signals, switches, you name it). Therefor it could be used to give a nice addition to the buttons, without ever needing to make own PNG's

Please note, next to FontAwesome there are multiple of really cool and open source fontlibraries which support icons.

[BrianGilbert]

Thought it would be helpful to add some potential sources to the ticket:

• https://thenounproject.com/icons/
• https://lineicons.com/
• https://materialdesignicons.com/
• https://www.flaticon.com/icons
• https://feathericons.com/
• https://linearicons.com/free
• https://icons.coreui.io/icons/
• https://icons8.com/line-awesome

[Julusian]

I think the challenge here will be how should this work
Are you thinking of choosing a single icon from fontawesome to be a central image, with the companion text written below?

[royvandongen]

In my mind it would work if there is a 70% screensize filled with an icon of choice, maybe even in a color of choice and use the additional 30% of the screen with the label. Like "Lightbulb" as an image, and below that the value of brightness "55%". It would make it look a bit nicer, since you would not have to write out the descriptions and have a neat image.

[KzBoy]

Does #1774 take care of this issue?

Though I would still like the limit to go a bit below 36, at least 32 imo. That way you can use 18px text comfortably.

[dnmeid]

We've been thinking of using a vector based text rendering system and also tried for a short period but it has been too difficult to get this working cross platform. For that reason Companion still is using bitmap based fonts.
From time to time I think of revisiting that part.
In between I want to mention that the Companion fonts (except 7pt) have already many Icons available. You can acces them with Unicode just like smileys.
https://github.com/bitfocus/companion/wiki/Text-input

[metawops]

In between I want to mention that the Companion fonts (except 7pt) have already many Icons available. You can acces them with Unicode just like smileys. https://github.com/bitfocus/companion/wiki/Text-input

But only black & white, no color icons / Emojis currently (V 3.4.1) possible via Unicode characters, right? 😳