The SVG Forge Icon Manager Block loads a central SVG sprite file (by default the bundled sprite.svg), shows all contained <symbol> elements in a convenient picker and inserts the selected icon as <svg><use href="/wp-content/plugins/sf-icon-manager/sprite.svg#symbol-id"> into your content.

The SVG sprite is a static SVG fragment file loaded by the browser via <use> — no JS on the frontend. Since you own the sprite file, every icon stays small, cacheable and fully under your control — exactly the way a hand-built icon set should be maintained.

Who is this plugin for?

This plugin is primarily aimed at advanced theme and plugin developers. It does not give you a code-free icon manager: every icon must first exist as a <symbol> in a sprite file that you own, build and version.

Since WordPress 7.1, core ships its own icon system (wp_register_icon_collection(), wp_register_icon(), wp_get_icon()): icons then automatically appear in the native Icon block’s picker and in the REST API, and can be rendered directly in PHP. If you only need a few icons and can register them in code, use core instead — this plugin is then unnecessary.

The fragment approach has advantages when you run a real sprite pipeline:

Full SVG via <use>: stroke-based icons, gradients, currentColor, inline styles and custom viewBox values survive. WordPress 7.1’s sanitizer only allows <svg>, <path> and <polygon> (no stroke, no inline styles) and therefore breaks many stroke-based icon sets.
Reuse existing sprites: generate a sprite with svgforge-cli (sanitization + svgo optimization) and upload it — no per-icon PHP code required.
Need a sprite? Learn step by step how to build your own custom SVG icon set: Creating custom icon sets with svgforge-cli.
One file: the sprite is a single cacheable file that lives in the theme repo and is versioned with Git.
Cache friendly: the sprite is one static SVG file, so the browser caches it once and every icon on the whole site reuses that cached file — no per-icon HTTP requests.
Control per block: fill and stroke colours, size (standard Dimensions panel with preset slider + custom input), links with rel handling and aria-labels — per icon instance, without touching a stylesheet.
Also runs on WordPress versions before 7.1 (from 6.6).

Limitations you should know about:

To add or change icons you have to rebuild the sprite file — typically with svgforge-cli, which handles sanitization and svgo optimization. There is no in-browser icon editor or management UI.
The icons live in your content as a block. There is no replacement for the simple wp_get_icon() helper in theme PHP — that is what the native 7.1 approach is for.

Features

Settings page (Settings SVG Forge Icon Manager) to upload the SVG sprite file — svgforge-cli handles full sanitization and svgo optimization, the plugin strips scripts, event handlers and javascript: links as a safety net.
Theme override via the sfim_sprite_url filter (e.g. get_theme_file_uri()) – the filter has priority over everything.
Symbol picker in the editor with a live preview of all icons from the sprite; icons from sprite subdirectories (IDs like directory--filename) are grouped and selectable via a filter in the dropdown.
Icons can be linked (new tab + rel attributes including noopener/noreferrer).
Aria-label for screen readers; linked icons are automatically labelled via the link.
Fill and stroke colour as well as size per block (square, preset slider + custom input with units).
Fully dynamic server-side rendering (render.php) with get_block_wrapper_attributes().
Block supports: alignment, anchor, additional CSS classes.

Configure the sprite file

The SVG sprite file is resolved in this order (first existing source wins):

Filter sfim_sprite_url – the canonical override (has priority).
Uploaded file from Settings SVG Forge Icon Manager (backend upload).
Fallback: sprite.svg in the plugin directory.

Override with a filter (recommended, versionable with the theme) in the theme’s functions.php:

add_filter( 'sfim_sprite_url', fn () => get_theme_file_uri( 'assets/ico.svg' ) );

or point it at a CDN:

add_filter( 'sfim_sprite_url', fn () => 'https://cdn.example.com/icons/ico.svg' );

SVG Forge Icon Manager is a developer-focused Gutenberg block that arranges a curated set of SVG icons as one central sprite and reuses them everywhere in your content. It works with any symbol sprite produced by modern build tools, is fully translated, and gives you precise control over colours, size, links and accessibility on every single block instance. The plugin prefers simplicity and performance: no tracking, no third-party requests, no page-weight overhead, and no vendor lock-in to a particular icon pack or service.

Development

Development is done on GitHub.