Android NTP background images are the wrong aspect ratio

[petemill]

There have been a few reports that NTP images, both sponsored and regular, are being stretched. In portrait mode, that appears to usually make the image wider than it should be.

What we have found out:

• The amount of stretch seems to be dependent on the device size.
• The issue does not happen if the Brave News feature flag is disabled.

The issue seems to be caused by creating an image that is the device width and height, but setting it directly on the FrameLayout. The bug was possibly caused in brave/brave-core#13951 because previous to that, the image was being set on a scroll view.

However, it seems that possibly because of the refactor in brave/brave-core#13951 we don't even need to be using the code path involving Glide and the FrameLayout at all:

Bypassing the code that calls BraveActivity.getBraveActivity().setBackground(bgWallpaper); fixes the issue and doesn't seem to cause any bugs scrolling down to Brave News. So perhaps that code path was only needed when the scroll view was used.

        public void bgWallpaperRetrieved(Bitmap bgWallpaper) {
            // if (ChromeFeatureList.isEnabled(BraveFeatureList.BRAVE_NEWS)) {
                // if (BraveActivity.getBraveActivity() != null && mTabProvider.get() != null
                        // && !mTabProvider.get().isIncognito()) {
                    // BraveActivity.getBraveActivity().setBackground(bgWallpaper);
                // }

            // } else {
                mBgImageView.setImageBitmap(bgWallpaper);
            // }
        }

Test Plan

TBD - something that measures the "squareness" or the aspect ratio of something identifiable on one of the bg images.

Maybe we can coordinate a test using --use-dev-goupdater-url in Slack in the #ntp-sponsored-image channel? (employee only)

[kjozwiak]

The above requires 1.48.170 or higher for 1.48.x verification 👍 @deeppandya will also help verify this on his Pixel 7 Pro device that originally reproduced the above issue as well.

[Uni-verse]

Verification Passed on Pixel 7 Pro using the version 1.48.171 per https://bravesoftware.slack.com/archives/C0YL5KMA8/p1677164300099009?thread_ts=1677135710.642299&cid=C0YL5KMA8

screen-20230223-202548.mp4

cc: @deeppandya

[Uni-verse]

Verified on Samsung GS 21 5G using version:

Brave	1.48.171 Chromium: 110.0.5481.177 (Official Build) (64-bit) 
Revision	f34f7ab2d4ca4ad498ef42aeba4f4eb2c1392d63-refs/branch-heads/5481@{#1239}
OS	Android 13; Build/TP1A.220624.014

• Ensured that NTP SI are displayed properly and have the correct aspect ratio

Example	Example	Example	Example