[$250] Chat - Emoji category selection buttons not working

[IuliiaHerets]

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Version Number: 9.0.30-4
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: https://expensify.testrail.io/index.php?/tests/view/4935849
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): rybkina+082024@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team

Action Performed:

1. Launch App
2. Tap on any chat
3. Open emoji picker near compose and tap on any icon to select section under search field

Expected Result:

Emoji picker should be scroll to selected section.

Actual Result:

Scroll emoji via icon doesn't works. Nothing happens when tap on any icon to select section under search field

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: Native
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Native
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Bug6594734_1725578443077.RPReplay_Final1725578253.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

Upwork Automation - Do Not Edit

• Upwork Job URL: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021833174513558591946
• Upwork Job ID: 1833174513558591946
• Last Price Increase: 2024-09-16
• Automatic offers:
• allgandalf | Reviewer | 104018090

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @allgandalf

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @alexpensify (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[IuliiaHerets]

@alexpensify FYI I haven't added the External label as I wasn't 100% sure about this issue. Please take a look and add the label if you agree it's a bug and can be handled by external contributors

[nyomanjyotisa]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Emoji category selection buttons not working

What is the root cause of that problem?

The scrollToHeader here on native not working properly

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Change scrollToHeader here to the following

    const scrollToHeader = useCallback(
        (headerIndex: number) => {
            if (!emojiListRef.current) {
                return;
            }
    
            const calculatedOffset = Math.floor(headerIndex / CONST.EMOJI_NUM_PER_ROW) * CONST.EMOJI_PICKER_HEADER_HEIGHT;
    
            emojiListRef.current.scrollToOffset({
                offset: calculatedOffset,
                animated: true,
            });
        },
        [emojiListRef],
    );

RESULT

Chat---Emoji-category-selection-buttons-not-working-.-Issue-48693-.-Expensify-App.mp4

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[bernhardoj]

Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2024-09-07 11:26:48 UTC.

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Emoji category button doesn't work.

What is the root cause of that problem?

When we press the emoji category, we call scrollTo and pass the ref to the function.

App/src/components/EmojiPicker/EmojiPickerMenu/index.native.tsx

Lines 68 to 74 in 4af620b

	const scrollToHeader = (headerIndex: number) => {
	const calculatedOffset = Math.floor(headerIndex / CONST.EMOJI_NUM_PER_ROW) * CONST.EMOJI_PICKER_HEADER_HEIGHT;
	runOnUI(() => {
	'worklet';
	scrollTo(emojiListRef, 0, calculatedOffset, true);
	})();

scrollTo is a reanimated function to scroll synchronously which requires an animated component or RN built-in component.

However, we are using FlashList as the list component.

App/src/components/EmojiPicker/EmojiPickerMenu/BaseEmojiPickerMenu.tsx

Lines 105 to 106 in 4af620b

	<FlashList
	ref={ref}

But the doc also mentioned that it would work if the component implements getNativeScrollRef for the new arch which doesn't exist on FlashList and they have no plan on adding it.

This previously worked fine because we have a patch to add the getNativeScrollRef to flash-list and recylcerlistview which is the deps of flash-list, but was removed when upgrading RN. (the linked PR is part of the RN upgrade)

Btw, we used an animated FlatList when the scroll code was introduced.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Use the ref scrollToOffset directly.

emojiListRef.current?.scrollToOffset({offset: calculatedOffset, animated: true})

Change it on both index and index.native files. Then, we can change this to useRef

App/src/components/EmojiPicker/EmojiPickerMenu/useEmojiPickerMenu.ts

Line 13 in 4af620b

const emojiListRef = useAnimatedRef<FlashList<EmojiUtils.EmojiPickerListItem>>();

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

There is already an upstream PR that will add the function but it has been stale for months. So, we can re-add the patch back that adds the getNativeScrollRef, but only the patch for the flash list code.

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~021833174513558591946

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @allgandalf (External)