Incorporating icons int your application is a great way to not only make the application more engaging, but more intuitive to navigate. This page provides some guidance on how to incorporate icons into your application.

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Table of Contents:

Icon Best Practices

Icons can be included in menu and form lists. In addition to make an application look much nicer, they also can help with navigation.                              

When building out icons

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel: Check with other projects/team members to determine if there is already a relevant set of icons you could leverage

2. Keep it simple: Keep your icons simple by picking a very clear and singular message for each one.

3. Make them match: Make sure all icons in a set are similar in terms of design style, color usage, line/shape weight. Avoid sourcing icons from more than one location (thenounproject, flaticon, icon8, material.io etc).

4. Use the palette: Using the CommCare/Dimagi https://dimagi.com/styleguide/colors/ to pick colors can help to keep your icons uniform.

5. Make them clear: Ensure a high contrast between the icon and background.

6. Examples: Here are a few different icons used in different CommCare applications.

7. Double check your icons: Before you deploy an app, confirm that all of the multimedia links are complete and have the right file type by using the Multimedia Reference Checker. You can also find the pixel size of your image next to the link.

How to Find Existing Icons

The Noun Project: This website has a huge library of free Icons. With a paid version you can download all of the website's icons in many colors. Make sure that these are “public domain” instead of Creative Commons. Public domain icons are freely available to use as much as you want to use them. If you use icons with Creative Commons licensing make sure that you give appropriate credit (http://thenounproject.com/legal/). 

Font Awesome: Another library of free, crowd-sourced icons. (https://fontawesome.com/icons)

Adding Icons in Case List and Case Detail screen

It is currently possible to use icons within the case list or case detail page. This page will go through the process of how to set this up.

Feature Preview

To enable using icons in the case list, you first need to enable the ‘Icons in Case List’ feature preview. For more information on feature previews, please see https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/lArKfw.

1. From your project space, select the Gear in the top right hand corner.

2. Select Project Settings

3. On the left hand side, select ‘Feature Previews’

4. Check the ‘Icons in Case List’ checkbox to enable the feature preview.

Set Up

Once you have enabled the feature preview, proceed to the case list for the module you would like to use icons for. Add a new property to the case list, then alter the format to “Icon (Preview!).”

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Selecting ‘Edit’ will open a window where you can add images. Selecting ‘Add Image’ will display several fields where you can begin mapping your icons.

Upon selecting ‘Add Image,’ several buttons/fields should appear:

• Calculation field: this field is used to set any values that you would like to use to display icons for. At this moment, it is only possible to use basic calculations and functions in this field. 

  • To reference the property that you are configuring the icon for, use a ‘.’ (period). You can use #case for any other properties you would like to use.

  • More details provided in example below.

• Upload: Selecting this button will allow you to upload the image you want to display for an icon

• Set Path: You can use this field to define the path to the icon. This path is used to reference the icon elsewhere in the application. This also means you can use this field to reference any media that is already in use in your application, which can be found through the Multimedia Reference Checker. Simply copy and paste the path from that page, into this field.

• The red button with a cross mark can be used to remove any icons.

Examples

Simple Icon Display

For the following example, we want to display an icon when a mother indicates that she is feeling sick. Let’s look at the case list and set up the following:

After adding the sick property and configuring the necessary fields, hit the ‘Edit’ button that appears below the format column of the sick property and configure our calculations and icons. Once the window appears, select ‘Add Image’ to begin setting up your icons. In the calculation field, let’s enter the calculation:

• . = “yes”

After setting up the calculation, press “upload” to add your icon.

Now that this has been configured, be sure to save your changes. Once deployed to the phone, the case list will look like:

Varied Icon Display

For this example, we want to provide a visual indicator for how the field worker should prioritize visiting their cases. We will base what icons we display to the field worker on the following assumptions:

• If the next visit for a mother is 2 or more days away, show a green icon.

• If the next visit for a mother is within 2 days, show a yellow icon.

• If the worker missed the visit, show a red icon.

In our application, next_visit is a defined case property that is set by the field worker at the time of their last visit. In the case list, we want to display the next visit date, as well as the icon as an easier visual indicator on who to visit. For the following calculations, we are assuming today's date is 12/5/2017 (May 5th, 2017).

Setup the following:

Now that we have that set up, we can begin configuring our icons. First, select edit under the Icon (Preview!) case property and begin setting up your icons.

Once that is setup, select OK and be sure to save your changes. You should now be ready to make a new version of your application and try it on a device!