[HOLD for payment 2024-02-20] [$500] IOU - Inconsistency seen for regular messages &IOU while interacting with thread options

[lanitochka17]

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Version Number: 1.4.31-1
Reproducible in staging?: Y
Reproducible in production?: Y
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail:
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: Applause - Internal Team
Slack conversation:

Action Performed:

1. Go to https://staging.new.expensify.com/
2. Send a message
3. Long press the message and note context menu displays "leave thread" option
4. Send a IOU
5. Long press the message and note context menu displays "join thread" option
6. Now long press text message, and tap " Leave thread"( note LHN behavior) and then "join thread" ( note LHN behavior)
7. Note, tapping on join thread, a separate conversation is not displayed in LHN
8. Now long press IOU created, and tap " join thread"( note LHN behavior) and then "Leave thread" ( note LHN behavior)
9. Note, tapping on join thread, a separate conversation is displayed in LHN

Expected Result:

There must be consistent behavior in showing thread option in context menu for regular text messages and IOU. Similarly, consistent behavior must be shown on displaying conversation in LHN for regular text messages and IOU on tapping join thread

Actual Result:

When we send message, context menu shows leave thread option, but while request money, join thread option is displayed

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

Which of our officially supported platforms is this issue occurring on?

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

Screenshots/Videos

Add any screenshot/video evidence

Bug6353562_1706121043249.thread.mp4

View all open jobs on GitHub

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~01457ddb9bb6fce778

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @mallenexpensify (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details.

[melvin-bot]

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

[paultsimura]

This is intentional. The Expense reports have a "Hidden" notification preference by default, while the messages have "Always". The "join/leave thread" buttons are displayed based on the notification preference.

[fedirjh]

Long press the message and note context menu displays "leave thread" option

This seems like a bug to me. It makes sense to display this option only if the message is linked to a thread.

Long press the message and note context menu displays "join thread" option

This looks like a bug as well. Inside the IOU report, there is no option to leave the thread. Also, there is no option to change the notification preference

[paultsimura]

It makes sense to display this option only if the message is linked to a thread.

This was done intentionally to mimic the Slack's "Turn on/off notification for the responses".
Even if your message has no thread created, you automatically will be notified about the replies in the thread once it's created – this is only if you are the author of the message.

Same about messages posted by others – there might be a message that has no thread yet, but you want to subscribe to the thread once it's created (let's say, someone posted a question – it has no answers yet, but you want to be notified once they appear).

So by default, if you are the message's author, you will be notified about new replies, but you can unsubscribe (leave thread) manually. And if you are not the author – you can subscribe (join the thread) even if no thread has been created yet.

[paultsimura]

I think @srikarparsi can tell more about the expected behavior here as he was the author of the leave/join functionality

[paultsimura]

Proposal

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

The "Join/Leave Thread" options appear for Report Preview (Expense & IOU).

What is the root cause of that problem?

We explicitly allow these options to appear for the REPORTPREVIEW actions:

App/src/pages/home/report/ContextMenu/ContextMenuActions.tsx

Lines 274 to 285 in caf91ae

	shouldShow: (type, reportAction, isArchivedRoom, betas, menuTarget, isChronosReport, reportID) => {
	const childReportNotificationPreference = ReportUtils.getChildReportNotificationPreference(reportAction);
	const isDeletedAction = ReportActionsUtils.isDeletedAction(reportAction);
	const shouldDisplayThreadReplies = ReportUtils.shouldDisplayThreadReplies(reportAction, reportID);
	const subscribed = childReportNotificationPreference !== 'hidden';
	const isCommentAction = reportAction?.actionName === CONST.REPORT.ACTIONS.TYPE.ADDCOMMENT && !ReportUtils.isThreadFirstChat(reportAction, reportID);
	const isReportPreviewAction = reportAction?.actionName === CONST.REPORT.ACTIONS.TYPE.REPORTPREVIEW;
	const isIOUAction = reportAction?.actionName === CONST.REPORT.ACTIONS.TYPE.IOU && !ReportActionsUtils.isSplitBillAction(reportAction);
	const isWhisperAction = ReportActionsUtils.isWhisperAction(reportAction);
	return !subscribed && !isWhisperAction && (isCommentAction || isReportPreviewAction || isIOUAction) && (!isDeletedAction || shouldDisplayThreadReplies);
	},

App/src/pages/home/report/ContextMenu/ContextMenuActions.tsx

Lines 305 to 317 in caf91ae

	shouldShow: (type, reportAction, isArchivedRoom, betas, menuTarget, isChronosReport, reportID) => {
	const childReportNotificationPreference = ReportUtils.getChildReportNotificationPreference(reportAction);
	const isDeletedAction = ReportActionsUtils.isDeletedAction(reportAction);
	const shouldDisplayThreadReplies = ReportUtils.shouldDisplayThreadReplies(reportAction, reportID);
	const subscribed = childReportNotificationPreference !== CONST.REPORT.NOTIFICATION_PREFERENCE.HIDDEN;
	if (type !== CONST.CONTEXT_MENU_TYPES.REPORT_ACTION) {
	return false;
	}
	const isCommentAction = reportAction?.actionName === CONST.REPORT.ACTIONS.TYPE.ADDCOMMENT && !ReportUtils.isThreadFirstChat(reportAction, reportID);
	const isReportPreviewAction = reportAction?.actionName === CONST.REPORT.ACTIONS.TYPE.REPORTPREVIEW;
	const isIOUAction = reportAction?.actionName === CONST.REPORT.ACTIONS.TYPE.IOU && !ReportActionsUtils.isSplitBillAction(reportAction);
	return subscribed && (isCommentAction || isReportPreviewAction || isIOUAction) && (!isDeletedAction || shouldDisplayThreadReplies);
	},

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

If we want to hide the "Join/Leave Thread" options for Report Previews, we should change these conditions to check for !isReportPreviewAction:

return !subscribed && !isWhisperAction && !isReportPreviewAction && (isCommentAction || isIOUAction) && ...

Depending on the expected behavior, we can hide these options for the individual Money Request Previews as well – use !isIOUAction

Also, if we decide that we want to hide the "Join/Leave" options for the messages without actual threads created – we should early return false in the corresponding shouldShow functions if !lodashGet(reportAction, 'childReportID', '0').

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)