How can I change the font-size of the whole app on (ionChange)?

Question

I would like to offer the user the option to choose the font-size of the whole app on his own. My problem is that I don't know how to change the font-size globally on runtime. I already tried adding a class in global.css:

...
* {
font-size: large; //that works
} 
...
.large-font {
font-size: large; //that doesn't work
...

but that didn't work because I also don't know which are the actual HTMLElements, of which the font-size has to be changed.

This is the current version of my function for the (ionChange)-Event:

onSelectFontSize() {
    const app = Array.from(
      document.querySelectorAll('*') as unknown as HTMLCollectionOf<HTMLElement>
    );
    console.log('app: ', app);
    // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/prefer-for-of
    for (let i = 0; i < app.length; i++) {
      app[i].style.setProperty('font-size', '96px !important');
    }
  }

I am working with ionic 6 + Angular 14 with almost 2 months of experience in these technologies. I have already tried other solutions here in stack overflow.

Thank you in advance

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 31 '22 at 04:39

The following is an example for Ionic React (because I use React, not Angular) but the basic principle should be the same.

Ionic 6 makes extensive use of CSS variables. So my solution was to add font size variables to variables.css:

:root {
  /* https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/visual-design/typography/ */
  --app-text-size-base: 1.25rem; /* Assumes 16px base size. */
  --app-text-size-title: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 1.2); /* 24px */
  --app-text-size-title-h1: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 1.3); /* 26px */
  --app-text-size-title-h2: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 1.2); /* 24px */
  --app-text-size-title-h3: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 1.1); /* 22px */
  --app-text-size-title-h5: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 0.9); /* 18px */
  --app-text-size-title-h6: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 0.8); /* 16px */
  /* iOS default big size */
  --app-text-size-small: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 0.85); /* 17px */
  --app-text-size-half: calc(var(--app-text-size-base) * 0.5); /* 10px */
  --app-text-size-half-negative: calc(var(--app-text-size-half) * -1); /* -10px */

In several places, Ionic assumes a fixed font size, so I had to make various tweaks; see text.scss in my gist here.

Once this is in place, you can use a simple function to set the CSS variable (React TypeScript example):

const setThemeTextSize = (newTextSize: string): void => {
  const root = document.querySelector(':root') as HTMLElement;
  if (root) {
    root.style.setProperty('--app-text-size-base', `${newTextSize}px`);
  }
};

I have to include some more elements but it really worked well. Thank you very much for your solution! I would upvote this but my reputation is still too low — scjminova, Sep 07 '22 at 07:40
You're welcome. Even if you can't upvote, you can mark the answer as the accepted answer by clicking the checkbox next to the voting widget. — Patrick Kenny, Sep 08 '22 at 07:35

How can I change the font-size of the whole app on (ionChange)?

1 Answers1