WordPress Dash Icons: Understanding and Customizing Them for Your Website [2023]

Updated on by Guides & Tutorials, Plugins

As a WordPress developer, you’re probably familiar with the WordPress dashboard, the central hub of your website where you can manage all your content and settings. But have you ever stopped to think about the icons you see in the WordPress dashboard and what they represent?

Also read: How to Disable Gutenberg and Keep the WordPress Classic Editor

WordPress dash icons are the small icons that appear next to each menu item in the WordPress dashboard. They provide a quick visual reference for users to identify the different sections of the dashboard and are an important part of the user experience.

In this article, we’ll explore the basics of WordPress dash icons, how they work, and how you can customize them to fit the needs of your website.

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Understanding WordPress Dash Icons

WordPress dash icons are based on the open-source Dashicons font, which includes a set of over 350 icons that are designed specifically for the WordPress dashboard. Dashicons are vector-based, meaning they can be scaled to any size without losing their sharpness.

Each icon has a unique CSS class name that you can use to style and customize it in your website’s theme or plugin. For example, the “dashicons-admin-home” class is used to display the house icon that represents the dashboard’s home page.

In addition to the default Dashicons set, you can also use third-party icon sets or create your own custom icons. There are several plugins available that add new icon sets to WordPress, such as the “Better Font Awesome” plugin.

Customizing WordPress Dash Icons

To customize WordPress dash icons, you can use CSS to change the icon’s color, size, and style. Here are a few examples of how you can customize dash icons:

Change the color: You can use the CSS “color” property to change the color of a dash icon. For example, if you want to change the color of the house icon to blue, you can use the following CSS code:

.dashicons-admin-home {

color: blue;

}

Change the size: You can use the CSS “font-size” property to change the size of a dash icon. For example, if you want to increase the size of the house icon to 24 pixels, you can use the following CSS code:

.dashicons-admin-home {

font-size: 24px;

}

Change the style: You can use the CSS “text-shadow” property to add a drop shadow to a dash icon. For example, if you want to add a black drop shadow to the house icon, you can use the following CSS code:

.dashicons-admin-home {

text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px black;

}

In addition to using CSS, you can also customize dash icons by creating your own custom icon font. You can use a tool like Fontello to create a custom icon font that includes your own icons, which you can then load into your website’s theme or plugin.

Plugins for customzing WordPress dashicons

There are also several WordPress plugins available that allow you to customize the dash icons in your WordPress dashboard. Here are a few popular options:

  • Admin Menu Editor: This plugin allows you to customize the WordPress admin menu by reordering, hiding, and renaming menu items. It also includes the ability to change the icons for each menu item.
  • Menu Icons by ThemeIsle: This plugin adds the option to add icons to your WordPress menu items, which can help make your menu more visually appealing and easier to navigate. It includes a library of over 600 icons that you can choose from, as well as the ability to upload your own custom icons.
  • Better Font Awesome: This plugin adds support for the Font Awesome icon library to your WordPress site. It includes a set of over 600 icons that you can use in your site, and also includes the ability to use custom icon sets.
  • Custom Dashboard Widgets: This plugin allows you to create your own custom widgets for the WordPress dashboard. You can use this plugin to add your own icons to the dashboard and customize the layout of the dashboard to better suit your needs.

These are just a few examples of the many WordPress plugins available for customizing dash icons in your WordPress dashboard. It’s important to carefully review and test any plugin before installing it on your site, to ensure that it is compatible with your theme and other plugins, and to avoid any potential conflicts or compatibility issues.

Conclusion: WordPress Dash Icons

WordPress dash icons are an essential part of the WordPress dashboard and play an important role in the user experience. Understanding how they work and how to customize them can help you create a more customized and visually appealing dashboard for your website.

By using the tips and techniques outlined in this article, you can easily customize dash icons to fit the needs of your website and make the WordPress dashboard more user-friendly for your clients and users.

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