Context / scenario

We run a large ASP.NET AJAX application with a fully custom, self-maintained CSS theme — we do not use any of Telerik's built-in skins. For this kind of setup we need complete control over every stylesheet that gets loaded into the page, both for consistency of our design system and to avoid unexpected CSS side effects or class-name collisions with resources we don't manage.

Issue

We found that fonticons.css is automatically and unconditionally injected by the Lightweight rendering path used by the controls (e.g. RadButton, RadTextBox, and other controls using the Lightweight render mode). This injection happens regardless of the EnableEmbeddedSkins and EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet settings, which normally let developers opt out of Telerik's embedded/base CSS resources. In other words, even with both of those settings disabled and no skin applied, fonticons.css is still loaded — there is currently no supported way to prevent it.

We raised this with Telerik support and it was confirmed internally: the fonticons.css injection is currently hard-wired into the Lightweight rendering path and is not gated by any existing configuration option.

Why this matters

• It breaks the expectation that EnableEmbeddedSkins / EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet = "nothing gets injected automatically" for teams running a fully custom theme.
• It adds an extra, unaccounted-for HTTP resource / set of CSS rules (font-face declarations and generic icon base classes) that our theme did not ask for and cannot easily audit or version alongside the rest of our stylesheet.
• Teams with strict content-security / asset-inventory requirements (e.g. wanting every loaded CSS file to be explicitly declared and controlled) currently have no clean way to achieve that with Telerik controls in Lightweight mode.
• The only current workaround (intercepting or modifying Telerik's internal resource registration) is explicitly discouraged by Telerik support itself, since that internal logic can change between versions and is not a supported extension point.

Feature request

Introduce a supported opt-out for the automatic fonticons.css injection in the Lightweight rendering path — for example, a new setting such as EnableFontIcons (page/control or global web.config level, consistent with how EnableEmbeddedSkins / EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet are already exposed) that lets developers explicitly disable this injection when they provide their own icon/font handling.

We understand from Telerik support that this is not a small, isolated change — it requires auditing and refactoring how style resources are declared and loaded across the whole control set (including some legacy resource-registration code) before a dedicated opt-out setting can be safely introduced, and that this carries a real risk of regressions if rushed. We're not expecting a quick fix; we're submitting this as a tracked feature request, as recommended by Telerik support, so it can be prioritized and voted on by other customers with the same fully-custom-theme use case.

Suggested acceptance criteria

• A documented way (config setting and/or API) to disable automatic fonticons.css injection specifically in Lightweight rendering mode.
• Behavior consistent with EnableEmbeddedSkins / EnableEmbeddedBaseStylesheet: when disabled, no font-icon CSS is emitted by the framework, leaving the developer fully responsible for providing equivalent styles if needed.
• No behavior change for existing applications that don't set the new opt-out (backward compatible by default).