Issue: XF2.1 Font-Awesome 5, editor buttons, icons

For the XenForo 2 version, it would probably make sense to utilise XF2's FA less style variables rather than explicitly coding in FontAwesome 5. From Chris D's footnote to style designers, it sounds as though this approach would take out some of the complexities of dealing with FA4 and FA5's differences without compiling separate FA4 and FA5 versions ... provided that the FA variables haven't changed, of course! In XF2.0, these are found in the template "setup_fa_variables.less", e.g.:
And an example of how this is used for structured lists (template: "structured_list.less", e.g. threads:

Please see the new XF2.1 Font-Awesome changes:
https://xenforo.com/community/thread...xf-2-1.155536/

Since XenForo 2 comes with Font Awesome 5 Pro, this could require us to get a Font Awesome Pro Creators license, even if we are not distributing the fonts ourselves. Based on this quote from Font Awesome's licensing page:
So basically, assuming XenForo devs have a Creators license and are not pirating Font Awesome Pro, they do not pass permission to any add-on developer to use Pro icons in XenForo add-ons, even though the fonts are bundled with XenForo. Any XenForo add-on, especially if it uses icons in a new way (such as VaultWiki having an icon chooser), must have its own Creators license to do anything with the icons designated as 'Pro'.

Source: https://fontawesome.com/license#what...ors-may-not-do

But this further complicates making Pro icons available in the icon chooser. In this case, anyone who installs VaultWiki 4.1.x on XenForo 2 would need their own Creators license. Further, every forum user who can edit wiki icons would need to be covered by that license, which means that a forum with VaultWiki installed would need to add significant numbers of seats to their Creators license unless they lock down permission for the icon field to a small number of admins. This would be very confusing from a permissions standpoint, and I'm not sure how it would work.

At the very least, the easiest solution to this would be not allowing VaultWiki users to use the new pro icons at all. In that case, we would need to manually filter out all icons that aren't in Free. Either way, Font Awesome 5 support is not so simple.

What is the idea here... support FA5 only with XF2.1+ or ship FA5 within VW? If the former, could you maybe adopt XF2's *.less template variables for the various FA icons rather than directly embedding the icons? This might solve some of the FA4 vs FA5 complexities too, at least for the icons that exist in both versions under the same name.

In XF2.1, there is the templates "setup_fa.less" and "setup_fa4_variables.less", "core_fa.less". For XF 2.0, there is only "setup_fa_variables.less" and "core_fawidths.less"

Example: @fa-var-eye returns "\f06e". @fa-var-eye is a stock XF *.less variable.

This post from Chris D says they (XF) are licensed to use FA5 Pro (emphasis mine):
https://xenforo.com/community/thread...1/post-1287489

I'm no lawyer, but if VW is 'hooking in' to an existing XenForo instance that ships with FA5 Pro on a particular site is it really a "new project"? And besides (again, not a lawyer) if VW isn't packing the FA5 fonts in the download package and just referencing XF's default font location in XF templates within XF system etc, why would it be VW's problem.

But anyway, if you wanted to cover yourself regardless, could the 'icon chooser' only display/suggest the FA4/FA5 free icons (the ones listed in setup_fa4_variables.less) but then have a method for manually typing in any fa css class? A bit like how XF2.1's new <xf:fa> template tag works textually via the "icon" attribute. Visually what I'm suggesting is something along the lines of XF2.1's emoji picker with the search box, except it could just override the icon selector with whatever text is entered rather. Emoji picker: https://xenforo.com/community/thread...6/post-1289242

Something else to consider is FA5's different font weights. XF has automatic handling of the Solid/Regular/Light weights, e.g. <xf:fa icon="fa-user" /> = far/fal/fas depending on the active style's fontAwesomeWeight property. In other areas this is handled by fa_weight() in the CSS class, e.g. <i class="fa{{ fa_weight() }} fa-user"></i>. Details: https://xenforo.com/community/thread...6/post-1292577).

I reached out to Font Awesome support and their response was:
Obviously this applies whether XenForo is licensed or we are licensed. And obviously it applies directly to the way VaultWiki uses icons.

The font-weights that you mention complicated things a lot and were something I mentioned too in my email to them. Some icons that are considered Pro in the solid weight are Free in the regular weight and vice verse. But all Lite weights are considered Pro. We cannot use XenForo's fa_weight() for this reason, but would not really want to anyway since it would limit choice in the chooser. We have designed the chooser so that editors can choose solid vs regular themselves.

However their reply did point me in a helpful direction that would make it easier to exclude the Pro icons from the chooser.

Since there is an overlap of Free/Pro for the same icon because of Solid/Regular/Lite not all being Free for the same icon, this would mean that any custom CSS rules that an admin uses to circumvent the weight selection to a Pro weight would not be covered by the Free license, and would require that the admin doing so has a Pro license.

Since Font Awesome has confirmed that there would be no legal way for the icon chooser to offer Pro icons due to the license restrictions on modifications to content that uses Pro icons,

The icon chooser, in XenForo 2.1, behaves as follows:
- Three headings: Solid, Regular, Brands. These correspond to the three Font Awesome styles of the same names. There is no heading for the Lite style because it is only for Pro licensees.
- Clicking each heading will show the icons that are included in Free for that style. If a selected icon exists under multiple headings, switching the heading with automatically select and preview the identical icon from that style.
- All the internal validation will verify that the selected icon is available in Free, or the selection will be rejected.

The CHAR BB-Code, in XenForo 2.1, behaves as follows:
- Where the value is only a unicode entity like "f000", the character will be converted to the FA5 entity and implied FA style for that corresponding FA4 value.
- Where the value is in the form like "f000-X", where X is a valid style identifier (solid, regular, brands), a FA5 entity will be assumed.
- This detected FA5 entity will be verified that it is available in Free. If it is not available in free, it will be output as an entity using the default font rather than Font Awesome (will probably render as a ?).

Since you brought up the <xf:fa /> tag, I should warn that what I was told by Font Awesome's team is that each person who enters or alters something like this will need their own Pro license:
- If you write XenForo add-ons and your add-on options have FA icons or your templates use &lt;xf:fa /&gt;, you need a Pro license, because fontAwesomeWeight offers Lite, so that Pro-combination is going to be distributed to whatever admin installs your add-on, even if you don't intend that.
- If you make custom XenForo 2.1 styles, you need a Pro license, because you are modifying content that contains Pro icons.
- If you install a custom XenForo 2.1 style, you need a Pro license, because you are not covered by the style author's Pro license, and you are modifying XenForo's style which contains Pro icons.
- If you use template modifications to remove an existing Pro icon from your XenForo style, you need a Pro license.
- If you use XenForo 2.1's admin tool to move around your editor buttons, and any of the editor buttons you move are Pro icons, you need a Pro license.

You are not covered by XenForo's Pro license. It is non-assignable. It is really unfortunate that they chose the Pro font and not the Free font. It seems like they did not consult with Font Awesome about how the license affects end-users.

That is why the icon chooser can't have Pro icons. Allowing users to enter a fa-variable would be the same problem.
It's one thing in the XenForo 2.1 admin area, since only one or a few admins need the license on each site. But VaultWiki's icon chooser is public-facing.

By things I have read, and some implications of their larger email to me, it sounds like they have an Enterprise-type license in the works, which might be useful in the icon-chooser situation. If such a license is ever released, we can add Pro icon support at that time, based on an admin checkbox "I have a Font Awesome Enterprise license". For now, we will enforce that only Free icons are used in wiki content.

It may be that XenForo has a "theme" license from the kickstarter: https://xenforo.com/community/thread...1/post-1287778

Which one of its features is:
Source: https://fontawesome.com/support#license-pre

Which still wouldn't help with the page icon picker as it is one licence per "theme buyer"

How will the non-editable FA icons found around VW as part of the UI adopt/not adopt the XenForo fontweight setting if at all? Would this part of VW also just use the free only icons?

If XenForo has a theme license, that would definitely satisfy the requirements allowing XenForo admins to modify their own copy of XenForo. It would clear up questions about this if XenForo spells it out in a LICENSE file somewhere in the package.

However, any XenForo add-on developer messing with Pro icons would still need a Pro license if they plan to redistribute their add-ons, and admins who use those add-ons and want to make changes to the add-ons would need a Pro license, since the add-ons are not part of XenForo's Themes.

So regarding VaultWiki, while we are limited for the page icon picker, we are NOT limited in the non-editable icons we can pick.
But we will try to keep them among the Free icons. To assist with this, where possible, we do not intend to adopt the font-weight setting. We really can't, since it is not possible to get a Theme license anymore.
In all, this should prevent admins from needing a FA Pro license for the most part in order to change the font-weight setting; however, we would spell out the specific icons, if any, that might be affected by this, via a LICENSE file.

For the remaining part of this request before we can mark it Implemented:
VaultWiki lets you select a Font Awesome button in 4.1.x starting with XenForo 2.0. This does not change in 2.1 so you will already be able to choose FA5 buttons for the editor without any change. However, I do not recommend using Pro icons unless you have purchased a FA Pro license.

What does need to be changed for XenForo 2.1 regarding editor buttons (and more a focus of the reference link in the OP) is migrating VaultWiki's own wiki editor button groupings to XF's new editor button manager. This is really separate and apart from the FA support, even though it seemed similar at the start.

This is now implemented in Alpha 2. In XenForo 2.1:
- The font-based icon chooser separates icons by FA5 style and allows selection of the Free icons in each of those styles.
- Editor buttons are now grouped using the Button Manager, rather than a BB-Code's Wiki-Related Options. Code updated where necessary so that wiki buttons still appear and work as expected.