fix: apply safe area padding for workspace screens

[kirillzyusko]

Explanation of Change

To keep a consistency I specified includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom on screens that had transparent navigation bar.

Fixed Issues

$ #53186
PROPOSAL: N/A

Tests

1. Open the app and log in
2. Create a workspace if there is no any
3. Navigate to the workspace settings
4. Enable More features and enable Workflows, Rules and Invoices options
5. Navigate to Profile, Invoices, Workflows. Rules and More features
6. Ensure that device buttons navigation bar has borders and visible

Offline tests

N/A

QA Steps

1. Open the app and log in
2. Create a workspace if there is no any
3. Navigate to the workspace settings
4. Enable More features and enable Workflows, Rules and Invoices options
5. Navigate to Profile, Invoices, Workflows. Rules and More features
6. Ensure that device buttons navigation bar has borders and visible

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
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• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
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  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
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Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: Native

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

MacOS: Desktop

[melvin-bot]

@paultsimura 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]

[paultsimura]

Thanks @kirillzyusko, I will review it soon. Could you please fix the lint issues in the meantime?

[kirillzyusko]

@paultsimura they are coming not because of my changes (I think recently new eslint rule was introduced and it hasn't been fixed yet).

Not sure if I should fix it in this PR (or should I fix it at all?..)

[paultsimura]

They are coming not because of my changes (I think recently new eslint rule was introduced and it hasn't been fixed yet).

Not sure if I should fix it in this PR (or should I fix it at all?..)

This is the same as it was with the useOnyx migration – now, when a file you edit has some default IDs, you should fix it in the PR: https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C01GTK53T8Q/p1734427537784129

[kirillzyusko]

now, when a file you edit has some default IDs, you should fix it in the PR

Ah, okay, cool, thanks for clarifications - will do that soon!

[kirillzyusko]

@paultsimura I believe PR is ready for review. One remaining failure will be added to exception list in #54288 (comment)

[paultsimura]

Please use CONST.DEFAULT_NUMBER_ID here and in 2 other places in this function instead of 0.

[paultsimura]

Please use string | undefined to always enforce passing the policyID but allow undefined.
A rule of thumb should be: if a function is useful without a param, make it optional using param?. If not – make it required with a possible undefined value: param: T | undefined.

@VickyStash please correct me if I'm wrong on this approach.

Suggested change

	function getWorkspaceAccountID(policyID?: string) {
	function getWorkspaceAccountID(policyID: string | undefined) {

[paultsimura]

Same here:

Suggested change

	function getPolicyExpenseChat(ownerAccountID: number, policyID?: string): OnyxEntry<Report> {
	function getPolicyExpenseChat(ownerAccountID: number, policyID: string | undefined): OnyxEntry<Report> {

[paultsimura]

And here.

[paultsimura]

@kirillzyusko could you please share what emulator device did you use, and how I cane add one? All I tried had no buttons on the screen

[kirillzyusko]

could you please share what emulator device did you use, and how I cane add one? All I tried had no buttons on the screen

I tested on a real phone and enabled 3 button navigation. You just need to go to Setting -> search for "navigation mode" and select "3 button navigation" instead of "gesture navigation".

Or test on Android 9 for example (there is only one type of 3 button gesture navigation available)

[paultsimura]

Same issue on WorkspaceProfilePage.

Screenshot

WorkspaceInvoicesPage (to reproduce, just increase the font size in the device settings).

Screenshot

And these 2 related to Profile:

Screenshots

[paultsimura]

Now with all these changes it looks like the majority of WorkspacePageWithSections usages is with includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom=true. Maybe it makes sense to default it to true and pass false in exceptional cases?

[paultsimura]

It looks like now, with includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom=true in most of the profile & workspace pages, we kinda sacrifice the look on the gesture-controlled devices for the sake of those with 3-buttons navigation. I guess there is no win-win solution here.

Here's some before/after:

---

---

Do we really want to proceed this way?
@lakchote @mountiny @Expensify/design

[kirillzyusko]

we kinda sacrifice the look on the gesture-controlled devices for the sake of those with 3-buttons navigation

Just for an additional context - we already did the same fix for "Search" screens group (and it was accepted) 👀

[kirillzyusko]

Same issue on WorkspaceProfilePage.

And

Now with all these changes it looks like the majority of WorkspacePageWithSections usages is with includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom=true. Maybe it makes sense to default it to true and pass false in exceptional cases?

If UX team is happy with a proposed approach in this PR then I'll change includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom=true by default and will check other screens to be sure all screens follow the same pattern 👍

[dannymcclain]

Man I'm pretty torn. I get why we'd want to add in the safe area... But most of the apps I'm looking at on my phone do not include that safe area padding on screens that don't have bottom tabs. @Expensify/design any strong feelings?

[shawnborton]

Personally, at least on iOS, I feel strongly that we should do it exactly like you are showing in your examples Danny. I find this version to feel completely broken IMO:

That being said, I'm not sure what is standard for Android in this situation.

[dannymcclain]

I agree with you that it looks pretty shoddy on iOS. I'm also not as familiar with standard Android patterns though.

[paultsimura]

What is the plan here then? 🙂

[shawnborton]

@Julesssss or @dubielzyk-expensify - do you know what is expected for Android? Should those buttons have a background behind them, or should they float on top of the content like we'd expect on iOS?

[paultsimura]

@Julesssss or @dubielzyk-expensify - do you know what is expected for Android? Should those buttons have a background behind them, or should they float on top of the content like we'd expect on iOS?

My 2 cents: most Android phones nowadays also use the iOS-like gesture control with a dash at the bottom. This safe area padding will affect them as well

[mountiny]

I agree that with iOS its better without the padding

The problem with android with the buttons is that its bad ux imho when you show interactive elements under the android navigation buttons it leads to confusion as you can see two buttons overlayed - hence i think in that case we should definitely include safe area

[paultsimura]

hence i think in that case we should definitely include safe area

From what I see, there is no way to include the safe area only in some specific case. So we'll have it on iOS as well.

[mountiny]

We could make it android specific, right @kirillzyusko

[kirillzyusko]

We could make it android specific, right @kirillzyusko

Yes, we can make it platform specific.

Moreover on Android I think we can also make those padding transparent if it's gesture-navigation bar, and for 3 button navigation - we can apply a padding.

However such refactoring may introduce some problems. Let me explain my concerns.

1️⃣ Non consistent paddings across various screens

As you could observe, somewhere we had transparent navigation bar (Search screens, workspaces screen). On some screens we always applied padding (settings screen).

The current approach that we aim to follow is to always have that padding. But as you can see in this PR some screens are still have old behavior and not always add the padding.

2️⃣ Additional padding from ScreenWrapper gets removed when keyboard is shown

Me and @hannojg (while re-working the approach with insets handling) discovered, that in all cases we don't want this navigation bar padding to be present when keyboard gets shown, so we re-structured the code to make it by default.

If we are goind to refactor that code again, we should also consider this point and try to change the ScreenWrapper API with as small as possible changes.

---

Now, when we want to make changes again I would prefer to have a codebase in a valid state and move atomically from one consistent state to another.

So I have several steps in my head:

• merge this PR as is, because it adds consistency on how we handle paddings on screens (always include padding and be consistent on all screens)
• to remove unused code in app (at the moment we often specify includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom={true} property, even if it's true by default) - something that I planned to do when app will be in a stable form after all our changes.
• to add a conditional code, that will apply transparent padding on gesture-based nav bar and will keep padding for 3 buttons navigation.

I think such approach will help us to have as small as possible intermediate issues and will assure we are always in consistent state. Let me know what do you think 👀 🙌

[paultsimura]

• merge this PR as is, because it adds consistency on how we handle paddings on screens (always include padding and be consistent on all screens)

If we go this way, I would encourage to cover more pages than these in the PR. At least add the ones I've mentioned during the initial review.

[kirillzyusko]

If we go this way, I would encourage to cover more pages than these in the PR. At least add the ones I've mentioned during the initial review.

Yeah, sure, absolutely agree 🙂 Just want to understand whether we are okay to follow a proposed approach or not and then I can proceed and make corresponding changes based on a chosen decision 👀

[mountiny]

@kirillzyusko Thanks for the explanation. Would your proposed steps lead to the state where the iOS native wont have the extra padding either (same as android without the navigation buttons)?

If yes, I am fine with this atomic approach.

[kirillzyusko]

Would your proposed steps lead to the state where the iOS native wont have the extra padding either (same as android without the navigation buttons)?

@mountiny yes, the last step will lead to this 😊

[paultsimura]

@mountiny, what should be the next steps here, considering the conversation above?

[mountiny]

I think we can go ahead with this plan, but lets prepare it a bit more, I dont like that ios would have this extra padding for more time than needed cc @lakchote

Also we can use this thread to discuss https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C049HHMV9SM/p1736238279772929

[lakchote]

Posted in Slack here for the next steps.

[chrispader]

Ok, so this PR now removes includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom={false} from all screens/components, which will apply (additional) bottom safe area padding to all components/screens, that disabled this before.

Ideally we'll want to merge #55633 right after this. That PR also removes includeSafeAreaPadding={true} (or simply includeSafeAreaPadding), and disables bottom safe area padding in ScreenWrapper alltogether. In that PR, i fix the paddings based on both of these changes. The changes from the first PR (removing includeSafeAreaPaddingBottom={false}) will effectively cancel out, because the safe area padding is disabled completely.

Still, there are some more issues to consider, that i'm explaining in a comment in the original issue.

[mountiny]

cc @lakchote for visibility.

@chrispader would be great to write down the plan anad also I think we should ask QA to test these on adhoc builds. Should it just be this pr to start with?

[chrispader]

@chrispader would be great to write down the plan anad also I think we should ask QA to test these on adhoc builds. Should it just be this pr to start with?

i'm on it right now. I going deeper into the plan and potential follow-up or split up PRs in the issue. #53186 (comment)

[chrispader]

@kirillzyusko i think we can close this PR, since we decided to go with a new plan discussed here

This is the new "Base PR" that we'll use instead: #57128

[paultsimura]

@kirillzyusko please close this PR.