vite-purge-bootstrap-icons

FOREWORD Modifying fonts for performance is usually pointless. As of writing this, the woff2 file for boostrap-icons is only 119kb, and the css is 94kb. Using a tool like PurgeCSS will cut that in half, so going further is probably overkill. Or not, I'm not your mom.

Problem

When using Bootstrap Icons, there are many ways to include the icons in your project. However, the easiest way is to include the entire package, which loads the icon as text, allowing for easy styling, not using inline svgs, etc.:

<i class="bi bi-github" />

However, this is not ideal for performance, as there are 1800+ icons (~300kb). Again, there are other ways that subvert this issue, but not all of them are ideal for every situation, especially when using a framework.

Solution

This plugin will modify the bootstrap-icons package to only include the icons you use in your project. This includes removing css and modifying the font files at build time. With only a few icons, this reduces the package size to about 5kb.

Usage

Make sure you have Bootstrap Icons installed in your project. Then, import it in your css or scss.

Next, install the plugin:

npm i -D vite-plugin-purge-bootstrap-icons

Then, add it to your vite.config.js:

import purgeBootstrapIcons from 'vite-plugin-purge-bootstrap-icons'
...
export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [ purgeBootstrapIcons({ /* Options */ }) ]
})

Optionally, provide an array to the whitelist parameter, without the bi- prefix:

purgeBootstrapIcons({ whitelist: ['github', 'twitter'] })

This plugin doesn't run in dev mode; rather only when building. Use vite preview to test it.