fix: messages content overlap when bottom sheet is shown

[kirillzyusko]

Details

A successor of #16356

The first step of react-native-keyboard-controller migration plan

Important

This PR relies on react-native-keyboard-controller (useKeyboardHandler) hook and KeyboardAvoidingView component).

How it works 🤔

This PR is iOS only for now. Other platforms are not affected. Also, in this explanation, we are talking about iOS only since on Android, iOS web and Android Web keyboard handling works differently.

Note

We're talking about default platform behavior. If we start to use react-native-keyboard-controller on Android - it'll disable all default keyboard handling by OS and will delegate the keyboard handling to us - so we will have identical behavior across both iOS/Android platforms.

But it may introduce additional issues (because we need to enter edge-to-edge mode - that would be good to do on entire app level, but it may bring some issues with StatusBar paddings, so everything has to be verified very carefully). That's why I think it would be better to handle in separate PR.

When we long press on a message, we want to be able to see it. It's easy when we have the keyboard closed. But gets tricky when the keyboard is open.

But first of all let's focus on the case when the keyboard is closed. User long press on the message, we render the bottom sheet (action sheet) with some options. If the message is higher than the height of bottom sheet - the message is visible. When the message is the last one (first from the bottom), it can be fully or partially covered by the bottom sheet.

Press to see videos

Message above bottom sheet	Message and bottom sheet overlap
300481023-9dc8be61-799d-470b-997f-ee5c5995fe19.mp4	300481277-0d0570cd-a85f-4cf5-8a91-6a3d5ad72c58.mp4

Also everything is tricky when we have keyboard open 😓

Press to see videos with keyboard

emoji picker instead of the keyboard (the messages should not jump)	showing a message which is covered by the keyboard and the bottom sheet
300482884-cbe3b610-fa85-4071-a3dd-bbc1a9d56e05.mp4	300483006-2e5ba833-c0fa-4fad-b383-b3854e5fa112.mp4

To achieve this goal we had to:

• use our own scroll component on iOS for FlatList of ReportListView (it uses reanimated to move the view by the offset)
• use KeyboardAvoiding so we're in sync with keyboard-avoiding style updates
• implement animated style handling using a state machine
• create ActionSheetAwareScrollViewContext to pass the transition function, so we can transition from one state to another by action triggered from different parts of the application

Below you can find more use cases that involves keyboard and other UI elements interactions:

Interactions with other UI elements

Add attachment	Call popover
300483536-04991f52-a41b-4d3e-abaf-12712b94f1aa.mp4	300483723-91b076a9-4c7a-4fbb-bc50-1e8194763e9d.mp4

Note

Call popover, bottom sheet and emoji picker are implemented as Modal windows and on iOS keyboard instantly gets hidden when modal window is shown. But "Attachment" popup is implemented not as modal, so for this type of transition we are using progress-based animations. When we press on plus -> popup is already shown under keyboard and we dismiss the keyboard. Overall the mechanism is similar to what we've used in the past, except the moment where we substitute translationY value - in case when keyboard disappear/appears we interpolate it by progress variable to achieve smooth transitions.

Technical details ⚒️

So in order to calculate the offset for the message, we:

1. Measure the message item in the window using ref.current.measureInWindow, so we can have height and y coordinate of the image
2. Measure the height of the bottom sheet using onLayout callback
3. Get the window height from Dimensions
4. Get safeArea.top since y coordinate doesn't get into account safe area
5. Calculate offset as elementOffset = (y + safeArea.top + itemHeight) - (windowHeight - popoverHeight)
   In order to animate item when they keyboard was open, we need to also know its height which is provided by useAnimatedKeyboard hook from react-native-reanimated, but we should always subtract safeArea.bottom from it since it's not part of the calculation for the offset, but only keyboardHeight.

Overall, the keyboard is the tricky part. On iOS, the keyboard doesn't resize the viewport. So for the content to not be covered by the keyboard, KeyboardAvoidingView is used. In React Native, KeyboardAvoidingView is implemented as a view that changes its height or resizes the children's view by the keyboard height. It's done using RN's Layout Animations. This results in the animation for the keyboard being applied using the native event emitter callback which uses the bridge. So open/close events of the keyboard will always be delayed that resulting in the delayed keyboard avoiding animation and, which is more important, scheduling layout animations.

In order to be consistent 100% of the time with animation and timings, we had to:

• use KeyboardAvoidingView from react-native-keyboard-controller for iOS. It reacts on keyboard height/state change on UI thread in the same frame, so we can schedule an update for styles in the next frame
• use just useDerivedValue for all the logic, since introducing useAnimatedReaction or having multiple shared values will delay updates for 1 frame, but we want to be 100% in sync with keyboard updates
• use paddingTop: translateY (because ScrollView is inverted).

Another important aspect of the implementation is the usage of the state machine for the animation. State machine allows us to specify the chain of events and how to handle them, and more importantly what actions to ignore, for example:

1. Initial state is idle. it can react to KEYBOARD_OPEN action
2. we open emoji picker. it sends EMOJI_PICKER_OPEN action
3. there is no handling for this action in idle state so we do nothing
4. we close emoji picker and it sends EMOJI_PICKER_CLOSE action which again does nothing
5. we open keyboard. it sends KEYBOARD_OPEN action. idle can react to this action by transitioning into keyboardOpen state
6. our state is keyboardOpen. it can react to KEYBOARD_CLOSE, EMOJI_PICKER_OPEN actions
7. we open emoji picker again. it sends EMOJI_PICKER_OPEN action which transitions our state into emojiPickerOpen state. now we react only to EMOJI_PICKER_CLOSE action
8. before rendering the emoji picker, the app hides the keyboard. it sends KEYBOARD_CLOSE action. but we ignore it since our emojiPickerOpen state can only handle EMOJI_PICKER_CLOSE action. so we write the logic for handling 9. hiding the keyboard but maintaining the offset based on the keyboard state shared value
9. we close the picker and send EMOJI_PICKER_CLOSE action which transitions us back into keyboardOpen state.

Fixed Issues

$ #10632
PROPOSAL: N/A

Tests

These steps were performed on all the platforms. The new behavior is iOS only for now.

1. Open chat
2. Long press on the first message - message should be pushed up to be displayed above the bottom sheet
3. Long press on the top message - if the message is not covered by the bottom sheet, it should stay in place
4. Long press on any attachment (document, message) should result in the same behavior
5. Pressing on reaction icon on the message should push the message above it too.
6. Long press on the message and then pressing on the reactions icon should open the reactions sheet and if the message is covered by the emoji picker it should animate the message so it's above the picker too

Before each next we make sure the keyboard is open:

1. Long press on the message should either animate the message above the bottom sheet or keep it in place
2. Messages should not "jump" because of keyboard hide/open when showing bottom sheet, emoji picker
3. Press on emoji picker in the composer, messages should stay in place even though the keyboard was closer - emoji picker is rendered instead of keyboard
4. Long press on the mesage, click on add reactions - close emoji reactions

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

Should not affect the offline state.

QA Steps

Same as Tests

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
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  • Android: Native
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Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

telegram-cloud-document-2-5460627828225625066.mp4

Android: mWeb Chrome

telegram-cloud-document-2-5460627828225625138.mp4

iOS: Native

1104ff6c-6eba-4295-a905-6caaaf3edf28.mp4

iOS: mWeb Safari

6eff007f-3c61-4f19-a60e-43f46d2f0e61.mp4

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

e5e28bd8-529f-4da3-8ae7-bff03bd14499.mp4

MacOS: Desktop

2c813bc9-6988-4fbc-8f36-3282c9cecd82.mp4

[melvin-bot]

@Santhosh-Sellavel Please copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

[shubham1206agra]

Tagging @rojiphil here.

[kirillzyusko]

Just a quick update - after enabling new architecture I see very low FPS for animation:

Simulator.Screen.Recording.-.iPhone.15.Pro.-.2024-05-14.at.18.11.00.mp4

Currently trying to understand why it works so slow and what needs to be changed to speed it up 👀

Also found a crash and fixed it in kirillzyusko/react-native-keyboard-controller#444

Keep working on this PR 💪

[kirillzyusko]

I continue to work on this problem. Still investigating why we observe performance drop - the problem is that even if we don't change layout of list/footer etc. and run a simple animation of red square (via translateY property), then it's still laggy 🤯

Screen.Recording.2024-06-06.at.13.02.07.mov

I think this investigation will take more time, than I initially expected.

[roryabraham]

@kirillzyusko I'm going to mark this as WIP, feel free to remove the prefix when you feel it's ready for further reviews

[rojiphil]

@kirillzyusko Meanwhile, can you please merge with the latest main? Hopefully, the merge will solve the jest unit test failure as it does not look like we caused it.

[kirillzyusko]

Meanwhile, can you please merge with the latest main? Hopefully, the merge will solve the jest unit test failure as it does not look like we caused it.

Done 🙌

[rojiphil]

@kirillzyusko Here are the findings on iOS native platform:

1. Long Press Scenarios

2 Long press on the first message - message should be pushed up to be displayed above the bottom sheet
3 Long press on the top message - if the message is not covered by the bottom sheet, it should stay in place
4 Long press on any attachment (document, message) should result in the same behavior
Before each next we make sure the keyboard is open:
1 Long press on the message should either animate the message above the bottom sheet or keep it in place

This works well as demonstrated below.

Long Press Scenarios (with and without Keyboard)

42143-new-longpress-messages.mp4

2. Pressing on the reaction icon

5 Pressing on the reaction icon on the message should push the message above it too.

On pressing the reaction icon after long press, the message is only displayed partly i.e. even without the selected reaction as demonstrated below.

Press on single reaction icon

42143-new-longpress-addreaction.mp4

3. Press on Reactions Icon after long press

6 Long press on the message and then pressing on the reactions icon should open the reactions sheet and if the message is covered by the emoji picker it should animate the message so it's above the picker too
4 Long press on the mesage, click on add reactions - close emoji reactions

Long press on the message and then pressing on the reactions icon opens the reactions sheet but the message is not above the picker. It actually resets to the original position as demonstrated below.

Press on reactions icon

42143-new-long-press-emojipicker.mp4

4. Emoji Picker in Composer

3 Press on emoji picker in the composer, messages should stay in place even though the keyboard was closer - emoji picker is rendered instead of keyboard

This also works fine as demonstrated below

Composer Emoji Picker Scenario

42143-new-composer-addreactions.mp4

5. Message jump

2 Messages should not "jump" because of keyboard hide/open when showing bottom sheet, emoji picker

The above demonstrated videos covers the keyboard scenarios and it seems to be working well for me without jumps.

[rojiphil]

@kirillzyusko On web/mWeb platforms though, it throws up reanimated warnings as demonstrated below. Can you please check if you too get this or is this a problem with my setup?

42143-new-web-platform-warning.mp4

[rojiphil]

Will continue testing tomorrow

[rojiphil]

@kirillzyusko Just tested on Android native to ensure nothing is broken. And it LGTM as demonstrated below.

But I also notice that the message is partly displayed on the selection of a single reaction icon as mentioned in point (2) of iOS native test.
And it seems like this issue is not related to our implementation here. I think we can consider this as a separate issue to avoid clutter.
What do you think?

42143-new-android-native-001.mp4

[github-actions]

🚧 @mountiny has triggered a test build. You can view the workflow run here.

[mountiny]

Making a new build so its easier for @rojiphil to test

[github-actions]

🧪🧪 Use the links below to test this adhoc build on Android, iOS, Desktop, and Web. Happy testing! 🧪🧪

Android 🤖	iOS 🍎
https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.amazonaws.com/android/42143/index.html	https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.amazonaws.com/ios/42143/index.html
Desktop 💻	Web 🕸️
https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.amazonaws.com/desktop/42143/NewExpensify.dmg	https://42143.pr-testing.expensify.com

---

👀 View the workflow run that generated this build 👀

[rojiphil]

On web/mWeb platforms though, it throws up reanimated warnings as demonstrated below. Can you please check if you too get this or is this a problem with my setup?

@kirillzyusko I could reproduce this on the test build on android chrome. And below is the test video for this.

42143-console-warning-002.mp4

[shubham1206agra]

@rojiphil Let me know if you are finished with the review.
I will run through a review then.

[rojiphil]

@rojiphil Let me know if you are finished with the review.
I will run through a review then.

@shubham1206agra Do we need to take turns for review? Can we not share our review feedback in parallel? That way, it can move faster.

[rojiphil]

Meanwhile, I think we need to generate a new test build after merging with the latest main as there was an important fix post 9.0.64.0 which can impact our testing.
@kirillzyusko Can you please merge with the latest main?

[kirillzyusko]

@kirillzyusko Can you please merge with the latest main?

Done 🙌

[github-actions]

🚧 @mountiny has triggered a test build. You can view the workflow run here.

[github-actions]

🧪🧪 Use the links below to test this adhoc build on Android, iOS, Desktop, and Web. Happy testing! 🧪🧪

Android 🤖	iOS 🍎
https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.amazonaws.com/android/42143/index.html	https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.amazonaws.com/ios/42143/index.html
Desktop 💻	Web 🕸️
https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.amazonaws.com/desktop/42143/NewExpensify.dmg	https://42143.pr-testing.expensify.com

---

👀 View the workflow run that generated this build 👀

[rojiphil]

@kirillzyusko I have left some review comments below. Please have a look.

1. Long press of a video attachment does not push up the video message. The scroll works for the other cases though.

42143-video-message.mp4

2. Extra padding is added when there is a submit button as demonstrated below.

42143-padding-issue-pr.mp4

3. May be I am missing something here but I could not identify a test scenario to test the state transition to OPEN_CALL_POPOVER via ThreeDotsMenu. Can you please add a test case for this scenario?

4. And, regarding issue 3, I think it is better to keep the message above the bottom sheet when the emoji picker sheet is shown from the context menu. Let me know what you think.

And also there are merge conflicts for us to resolve.

[kirillzyusko]

Web Crashes

On web/mWeb platforms though, it throws up reanimated warnings as demonstrated below. Can you please check if you too get this or is this a problem with my setup?

and

I could reproduce this on the test build on android chrome. And below is the test video for this.

Were fixed in f375a4f

Video press not moving item above the bottom sheet

Long press of a video attachment does not push up the video message. The scroll works for the other cases though.

It has been fixed in b48a247

Extra button padding

Could you please tell me how to get to this screen? I see this screen:

I think I need to pass a registration but I can not find an information how to pass this step? @rojiphil can you help me here?

Open call popover

I think it was the old code, where you could click three vertical points and then popup with a call would be shown. I think this code can be safely removed now?

Emoji picker

I think it is better to keep the message above the bottom sheet when the emoji picker sheet is shown from the context menu. Let me know what you think.

I think @perunt had a discussion with design team and they confirmed, that for now we can add only avoiding for bottom-sheet. Can you confirm it please @perunt ?

New reactions don't move item higher

I think we can consider this as a separate issue to avoid clutter. What do you think?

Yeah, I agree with you - it's better to handle this task separately.

---

And this:

Long press on the message and then pressing on the reactions icon opens the reactions sheet but the message is not above the picker. It actually resets to the original position as demonstrated below.

and

On pressing the reaction icon after long press, the message is only displayed partly i.e. even without the selected reaction as demonstrated below.

@perunt do you think it should be handled as part of this task? Or do we just need to update testing steps? It seems like testing steps were not updated after last conversation with UI/UX team?

[rojiphil]

Could you please tell me how to get to this screen? I see this screen:

I think I need to pass a registration but I can not find an information how to pass this step? @rojiphil can you help me here?

That screen is from Expensify cards section in Workspace settings which requires setting up of an expensify card. I think it is better to skip this test.

The button padding issue can also be reproduced in Private Notes test case and in Search Filter for categories as demonstrated in the same test video. I think these are easily reproducible and also have the same root cause. I think fixing these should also fix the button padding issue in expensify cards.

[rojiphil]

I think it was the old code, where you could click three vertical points and then popup with a call would be shown. I think this code can be safely removed now?

Yeah. It may be safe to remove this. @shubham1206agra What do you think?

[perunt]

I think @perunt had a discussion with design team and they confirmed, that for now we can add only avoiding for bottom-sheet. Can you confirm it please @perunt ?

Yes, I can confirm it. The design team was surprised that we wanted to add so many new handlers. 😊
So either we granulate it, or this PR will be stuck for a long time.

@perunt do you think it should be handled as part of this task? Or do we just need to update testing steps? It seems like testing steps were not updated after last conversation with UI/UX team?

You're right. it looks like they are outdated.

[shubham1206agra]

I think it was the old code, where you could click three vertical points and then popup with a call would be shown. I think this code can be safely removed now?

Yeah. It may be safe to remove this. @shubham1206agra What do you think?

@kirillzyusko Please remove this.

[shubham1206agra]

@mountiny Btw, do we need to add unit tests to this change?