I was inspired by The Noun Project, a project that offers up “Metro-style” icons in SVG format. The project is licensed under a public domain license and while it’s a great project, all of the content is in SVG format. Jon Galloway has a great post (from 2007) talking about the differences between SVG and XAML so I highly recommend that for some background. I thought it would be helpful to the WPF/Windows Phone 7/Silverlight community to provide the content in alternative formats for use in your applications. The Goods I’ve put together a package of the 500 icons (502 actually) in PNG, XAML and the original SVG format along with a couple of sample projects so you can see them in action. There’s a WPF desktop app: And a Windows Phone 7 app: Building It To get all the content first I wrote up a quick program to suck the original SVG files. Luckily they’re all in a common path just named 1.SVG, 2.SVG, and so on. Easy sleazy to grab the contents. Once I had 500 SVG files I used the latest copy of XamlTune, an open source CodePlex project that has a command line conversion tool to convert the directory of SVG files into XAML (the tool also created a PNG file of each SVG so that’s just icing on the cake). Conversions The conversion from SVG to XAML isn’t 100%. While you can just drop the content into a WPF app, it doesn’t work that way for WP7. There are just some small adjustments I made to each format so you’ll have to do the same. Follow the information below or refer to the sample applications. As a sample, here’s an icon we want to use: Here’s the original SVG file: <svg version="1.0" id="Layer_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" x="0px" y="0px"
width="100px" height="94.616px" viewBox="0 0 100 94.616" enable-background="new 0 0 100 94.616" xml:space="preserve">
<path d="M25.076,15.639c4.324,0.009,7.824-3.488,7.82-7.82C32.9,3.512,29.4,0.012,25.076,0c-4.313,0.012-7.814,3.512-7.821,7.819
C17.262,12.15,20.763,15.648,25.076,15.639L25.076,15.639z"/>
<path d="M4.593,43.388h6.861l4.137-15.135h1.716L13.22,43.388h24.318l-4.389-15.135h1.817l2.32,7.415
c1.08,3.131,3.852,3.851,6.003,1.162l8.375-10.142c2.651-3.42-2.104-7.021-4.844-4.035l-4.993,5.952
c0.007,0.095-0.96-3.278-0.96-3.278c-1.135-3.978-4.918-7.903-10.595-7.922H19.576c-5.071,0.019-9.043,4.434-9.888,7.214
L4.593,43.388L4.593,43.388z"/>
<polygon points="56.206,22.753 56.206,7.163 49.192,7.163 49.192,22.753 56.206,22.753 "/>
<path d="M79.87,15.738c4.332-0.014,7.831-3.516,7.82-7.82c0.011-4.332-3.488-7.833-7.82-7.82c-4.306-0.013-7.806,3.488-7.821,7.82
C72.064,12.222,75.564,15.725,79.87,15.738L79.87,15.738z"/>
<path d="M89.759,89.556v-43.19h5.751V22.804c0.007-3.079-2.757-5.448-6.71-5.449H70.436c-3.65,0.001-4.539,1.186-5.551,2.168
L49.597,37.889c-3.098,3.848,2.428,8.333,5.55,4.743L69.
88,25.226v64.43c-0.019,6.475,9.06,6.686,9.081,0.201v-36.58h1.765v36.379
C80.748,96.109,89.772,96.13,89.759,89.556L89.759,89.556z"/>
<polygon points="100,54.035 100,45.155 0,45.155 0,54.035 100,54.035 "/>
</svg>
Here’s the XAML that XamlTune created. It can be used in any WPF app without any changes:
<Canvas Name="Layer_1" Width="100" Height="94.616" ClipToBounds="True" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation">
<Path Fill="#FF000000">
<Path.Data>
<PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M25.076,15.639C29.4,15.648 32.9,12.151 32.896,7.819 32.9,3.512 29.4,0.012 25.076,0 20.763,0.012 17.262,3.512 17.255,7.819 17.262,12.15 20.763,15.648 25.076,15.639L25.076,15.639z" />
</Path.Data>
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000">
<Path.Data>
<PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M4.593,43.388L11.454,43.388 15.591,28.253 17.307,28.253 13.22,43.388 37.538,43.388 33.149,28.253 34.966,28.253 37.286,35.668C38.366,38.799,41.138,39.519,43.289,36.83L51.664,26.688C54.315,23.268,49.56,19.667,46.82,22.653L41.827,28.605C41.834,28.7 40.867,25.327 40.867,25.327 39.732,21.349 35.949,17.424 30.272,17.405L19.576,17.405C14.505,17.424,10.533,21.839,9.688,24.619L4.593,43.388 4.593,43.388z" />
</Path.Data>
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000">
<Path.Data>
<PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M56.206,22.753L56.206,7.163 49.192,7.163 49.192,22.753 56.206,22.753z" />
</Path.Data>
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000">
<Path.Data>
<PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M79.87,15.738C84.202,15.724 87.701,12.222 87.69,7.918 87.701,3.586 84.202,0.0849999999999991 79.87,0.097999999999999 75.564,0.084999999999999 72.064,3.586 72.049,7.918 72.064,12.222 75.564,15.725 79.87,15.738L79.87,15.738z" />
</Path.Data>
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000">
<Path.Data>
<PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M89.759,89.556L89.759,46.366 95.51,46.366 95.51,22.804C95.517,19.725,92.753,17.356,
88.8,17.355L70.436,17.355C66.786,17.356,65.897,18.541,64.885,19.523L49.597,37.889C46.499,41.737,52.025,46.222,55.147,42.632L69.
88,25.226 69.
88,89.656C69.861,96.131,78.94,96.342,78.961,89.857L78.961,53.277 80.726,53.277 80.726,89.656C80.748,96.109,89.772,96.13,89.759,89.556L89.759,89.556z" />
</Path.Data>
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000">
<Path.Data>
<PathGeometry FillRule="Nonzero" Figures="M100,54.035L100,45.155 0,45.155 0,54.035 100,54.035z" />
</Path.Data>
</Path>
</Canvas>
The XAML works AS-IS in a WPF application but there are some changes I did to get it to work in a WP7 app. Here’s the modified XAML in a WP7 application:
<Canvas Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Name="Icon_1" Width="100" Height="94.616">
<Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M25.076,15.639C29.4,15.648 32.9,12.151 32.896,7.819 32.9,3.512 29.4,0.012 25.076,0 20.763,0.012 17.262,3.512 17.255,7.819 17.262,12.15 20.763,15.648 25.076,15.639L25.076,15.639z">
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M4.593,43.388L11.454,43.388 15.591,28.253 17.307,28.253 13.22,43.388 37.538,43.388 33.149,28.253 34.966,28.253 37.286,35.668C38.366,38.799,41.138,39.519,43.289,36.83L51.664,26.688C54.315,23.268,49.56,19.667,46.82,22.653L41.827,28.605C41.834,28.7 40.867,25.327 40.867,25.327 39.732,21.349 35.949,17.424 30.272,17.405L19.576,17.405C14.505,17.424,10.533,21.839,9.688,24.619L4.593,43.388 4.593,43.388z">
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M56.206,22.753L56.206,7.163 49.192,7.163 49.192,22.753 56.206,22.753z">
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M79.87,15.738C84.202,15.724 87.701,12.222 87.69,7.918 87.701,3.586 84.202,0.0849999999999991 79.87,0.097999999999999 75.564,0.084999999999999 72.064,3.586 72.049,7.918 72.064,12.222 75.564,15.725 79.87,15.738L79.87,15.738z">
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M89.759,89.556L89.759,46.366 95.51,46.366 95.51,22.804C95.517,19.725,92.753,17.356,
88.8,17.355L70.436,17.355C66.786,17.356,65.897,18.541,64.885,19.523L49.597,37.889C46.499,41.737,52.025,46.222,55.147,42.632L69.
88,25.226 69.
88,89.656C69.861,96.131,78.94,96.342,78.961,89.857L78.961,53.277 80.726,53.277 80.726,89.656C80.748,96.109,89.772,96.13,89.759,89.556L89.759,89.556z">
</Path>
<Path Fill="#FF000000" Data="M100,54.035L100,45.155 0,45.155 0,54.035 100,54.035z">
</Path>
</Canvas>
All I did was take the data portion and put it directly into a Data attribute on the Path. Note that while it does show up in the app (on the emulator or device) it wouldn’t show up in Visual Studio for me. Maybe some XAML guru out there can tell me why. You can just as easily use the PNG files in WP7 but if you want the crispness of vector graphics, go for the XAML version.
Of course with XamlTune being open source you could always modify the output of that program to cater it to your app. If you do make a change that’s worthy please consider submitting a patch to the project so everyone can benefit.
Hope this helps and happy programming!
Resources and Links
Sample Project and Icons
XamlTune an open source project to convert SVG to XAML
The Noun Project source of the original files
Jon Galloways post on SVG and XAML
StackOverflow question on converting SVG to XAML
