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

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
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
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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

[shubham1206agra]

@kirillzyusko Conflicts in PR

[kirillzyusko]

Okay, I resolved all merge conflicts - will check all bugs that @shubham1206agra discovered and will post my results here!

[luacmartins]

Thanks @kirillzyusko!

[kirillzyusko]

BUG: Extra padding gets introduced to edit composer

@shubham1206agra Can not reproduce this on latest branch version:

demo-1.mp4

BUG: Wrong position when try to do edit again.

Also can not reproduce:

BUG: Weird stutter happening on going to search

It happens because each screen has KeyboardAvoidingView, so when you go back with open keyboard you also can see a remaining navigation on a previous screen. It could be fixed like enabled={shouldEnableKeyboardAvoidingView && isFocused}, but it touches basic ScreenWrapper component (which means that all screens will be affected) and I wouldn't like to include that change in this PR if possible.

I think a similar problem can be spotted on Android (several hours ago commit with animated keyboard transitions on Android was merged into main). So if possible let's fix it as a follow up 🙏

[mountiny]

Making a new build @shubham1206agra can you please prioritize this testing and review so we can get it merged asap? @kirillzyusko please merge main again. Thanks!

[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 👀

[luacmartins]

Let's get the latest build tested so we can get this one through the finish line

[mountiny]

@shubham1206agra what is your eta for testing this?

[mountiny]

@rojiphil too

[rojiphil]

Testing the iOS native app do not work well when the keyboard is displayed. It seems like some extra space is added after the most recent message which is causing the long-pressed message not to be seen completely. This is strange as it was not observed in my last review video here. The code changes since then were also minor. So, I doubt if our PR has introduced this problem. @kirillzyusko Can you also check if you can reproduce this problem?

This problem is not observed though when the keyboard is not displayed.

Attaching the test video of both the cases for reference below.

iOS: Native - With Keyboard - DOES_NOT_WORK

42143-gap-issue-002.mp4

42143-gapi-issue-001.mp4

iOS: Native - Without Keyboard - WORKS

42143-ios-native-works-002.mp4

[kirillzyusko]

Okay @rojiphil - I can confirm the issue is reproducible again

Will see how can I fix it and why it was introduced 👀

[kirillzyusko]

@rojiphil I fixed this problem. Would you mind to conduct a new round of review? 🙏

[rojiphil]

I fixed this problem.

Thanks @kirillzyusko for the fix. Can you please merge the PR with the latest main as I am running into build issues due to another offending PR that was reverted?
Meanwhile, I quickly checked, and the fix seems to work well. I will test again after the merge.

42143-fix-works.mp4

[kirillzyusko]

@rojiphil merged! Feel free to re-test when you have a time 🙌

[rojiphil]

@kirillzyusko We have some conflicts to resolve.

Otherwise, the changes LGTM and works well on iOS native platform too. However, I could not test for regressions on the android native platform as I am getting build issues (looks like something is broken in main). I will test this too once the merge conflicts are resolved. Thanks.

iOS: Native Platform

42143-ios-native-006.mp4

iOS: mWeb Platform

42143-mweb-safari-006.mp4