fix(mobile): steady New DM picker rows and animate picks by brow · Pull Request #9249 · block/buzz

brow · 2026-11-08T00:25:01Z

On iOS, the New DM (and Add Members) picker is a native UIKit sheet that Flutter drives by pushing the picker's whole state on every rebuild. Each push called reloadData, which rebuilt every visible row in a fresh, unreused cell showing the initials fallback, then fetched each avatar again over the platform channel. So whenever anything refreshed (several refreshes land right after foregrounding), every avatar blinked to its initial for a frame or two. Picks also jumped instantly from the results to the chosen section.

Now the picker:

ignores a pushed state identical to the one it shows;
applies the rest as a diffable snapshot, so unchanged rows keep their cells and changed rows are redrawn in place, in reused cells;
keeps loaded avatars by avatar key for the life of the sheet, so a redrawn row shows its avatar at once;
animates a member's row moving between the chosen and result sections when it's picked or removed (no animation with Reduce Motion).

Flutter's toggle handlers in both pickers now read the current selection rather than the one captured at build time. A fast second tap could otherwise add the same person twice, which the diffed table would reject.

Validation

Native member picker test (scripts/test-mobile-member-picker.sh), extended: after an avatar loads, a changed row is redrawn with that avatar and requests nothing more. The avatar check fails on main and passes here; the existing identity and accessibility checks still pass with the diffable table.
Added a New DM test: two toggles before Flutter rebuilds never list a person twice. It fails without the toggle fix.
Full mobile Flutter suite and analyzer pass in CI on the current head, which includes main's fix for the right-drag link tests.
Simulator runs of the app (iPhone 17 Pro, iOS 27, signed in to a test community): opened New DM, backgrounded and foregrounded the app, searched, picked from the list and from a search, and removed a pick. Without this change, every avatar flashed to its initial after a foreground. With it, no avatar flashed at any point, and picks and removals animate between sections. Recordings show real community members, so they're shared in Buzz rather than here.

Full-app comparison, `main` vs this PR

The same scripted New DM sequence on a clone of the same signed-in simulator (iPhone 17 Pro, iOS 27), first on main (65e8643) and then on this PR (330805c): pick george, then glm; search "ju", pick judge, clear the search; remove george; background and reopen the app. The list shows only agents, no people.

Both builds end in the same state: each pick moves into the selected section with its check mark, search narrows to one result and clearing it restores the full list, the removed pick returns to the list, and every avatar keeps rendering after the app reopens. Sampled at 6 frames per second around the reopen, neither build fell back to initials in this run. The visible difference is motion: on main a picked row jumps into the selected section, and here it animates there.

Before (main):

main-annotated.mp4

After (this PR):

pr-annotated.mp4

Before merge

Update onto main once main's link swipe tests are fixed (they were fixed by #9255 Solo chat settings), so Mobile Checks can pass.

buzz-review-completed

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Every state update from Dart reloads the native member picker, which built fresh cells showing the initials fallback and fetched each avatar again over the platform channel, so avatars blinked whenever results refreshed, most visibly right after foregrounding. Keep loaded avatars by key and draw them at once when a cell is rebuilt. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Co-authored-by: studio <dc2fc481343672df31a689840c09299972e704dac592e0da6f18486646a7ee3e@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz> Signed-off-by: Tom Brow <tomb@squareup.com>

Flutter pushes the picker's whole state on every rebuild, and each push reloaded every visible row with fresh, unreused cells. Drop identical states, apply the rest as a diffable snapshot that redraws only changed rows in reused cells, and animate a member's row moving between the chosen and result sections when it is picked or removed. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Co-authored-by: studio <dc2fc481343672df31a689840c09299972e704dac592e0da6f18486646a7ee3e@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz> Signed-off-by: Tom Brow <tomb@squareup.com>

A second tap could reach Flutter before the rebuild that reflected the first, and both toggles read the selection captured at build time, so the same person was added twice. The diffed native table traps on a duplicate row. Read the current selection instead, and fail loudly if a shown member row is missing from the state. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Co-authored-by: studio <dc2fc481343672df31a689840c09299972e704dac592e0da6f18486646a7ee3e@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz> Signed-off-by: Tom Brow <tomb@squareup.com>

chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-11-08T00:52:27Z

Codex Review Summary: ✅ Completed

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Review	Status	Commit	Review trigger
📝 Code Review	✅ Completed 2026-11-08T00:54:54.639032Z	`c8b7672`	Draft marked ready

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github-actions · 2026-11-08T00:54:22Z

🔐 Codex Security Review

Note: This is an automated, security-focused review generated by Codex.
Use it as a supplement to human review; false positives are possible.

Scope

Exact PR diff: 8cce12f591988f29cc2beab5ff0c89d51862f31b...330805cfc4132dc38619235f8c377361141db08c

Model: gpt-6.1-sol

💡 Click "edited" above to see earlier reviews for this PR.

Review Summary

Overall Risk: NONE

No concrete security, correctness, or reliability findings in the authorized PR range after tracing picker updates, candidate deduplication, avatar callbacks, and submission paths.

Findings

No concrete security, correctness, or reliability findings were identified.

Notes

Review used read-only source and history inspection. Builds and tests were not run, as instructed.

_{Generated by Codex Security Review |

Requested by: @brow |

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Reviewed commit: c8b7672aa2

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-11-08T00:54:52Z

+    loadAvatar(pubkey, key) { [weak self, weak cell] data in
+      guard let data, let image = UIImage(data: data) else { return }
+      let avatar = image.withRenderingMode(.alwaysOriginal)
+      self?.avatars[key] = avatar


Bound the native avatar cache

In the iOS New DM/Add Members sheet, every distinct avatar encountered across successive searches is retained in avatars until the sheet closes. The Dart-side cache deliberately evicts after 64 entries, but this decoded UIImage cache has no corresponding limit, so browsing many results in a large community can make memory usage grow monotonically. Use a bounded eviction policy or NSCache while retaining enough recent entries to prevent the avatar blink.

AGENTS.md reference: AGENTS.md:L249-L257

Useful? React with 👍 / 👎.

🤖 Fixed in a2ea37f: the cache is now an NSCache capped at 64 entries, matching the Dart side.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Co-authored-by: studio <dc2fc481343672df31a689840c09299972e704dac592e0da6f18486646a7ee3e@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz> Signed-off-by: Tom Brow <tomb@squareup.com>

tlongwell-block · 2026-11-09T04:12:38Z

🤖 Meli, Tyler’s AI agent, posting on his explicit behalf.

The production UIKit picker assertions pass, including changed-row redraw, no repeated avatar fetch, immediate cached-image rendering, identity and accessibility. The full mobile suite also passed. The remaining concern is incomplete full-app visual verification: please complete a main/PR New DM selection and search sequence to check row updates, selected state and avatar rendering in the actual sheet. This is a validation gap, not a confirmed code defect.

Reviewed head: 330805cfc4132dc38619235f8c377361141db08c.

brow · 2026-11-09T04:23:47Z

🤖 Thanks, Tyler. I ran the full-app check: the same New DM selection and search sequence on a clone of the same signed-in simulator, on main (65e8643) and on this PR (330805c). Both builds end in the same state for row updates, selected state and avatars, including after backgrounding and reopening. The only visible difference is that a picked row animates into the selected section here instead of jumping there. Nothing needed fixing. The captioned before/after videos are now in the description under "Full-app comparison".

kazemek21

Kyle reviewed this PR and the Nexus review-tracker notes and approved with no comments.

Posted by Codex (gpt-6.1-sol) on behalf of kylez

…ction-p * origin/main: (111 commits) feat(mobile): tag the reacted-to message author on reactions (#9141) fix(mobile): steady New DM picker rows and animate picks (#9249) perf(mobile): keep remote images on disk and show small ones as thumbnails (#9158) fix(relay): deliver slow cross-node events late instead of closing their recipients (#9235) fix(mobile): read only shown events from filtered Activity rows (#9215) fix(mobile): show the channel name as the notification subtitle (#9173) fix(mobile): keep Home's header clean under sheets (#9152) fix(mobile): show already-loaded custom emoji in the iOS reactions sheet (#9150) mobile: add follow and remind actions to inbox row menu (#9142) fix(mobile): start no threads in Solo chats (#9123) mobile: persist user profiles so names and avatars render on launch (#9116) fix(mobile): keep a sent thread reply above the composer (#9026) [buzz] Recover database pool capacity after stalled connections (#9267) feat: send a User-Agent on relay WebSocket upgrades (#9246) Record why relay connections close and quiet close warnings (#9245) fix(relay): say "channel owner or admin" in the call_webhook save refusal (#9169) feat(mobile): consolidate Solo chat settings in one sheet (#9255) fix(cli): preserve attachments across successive edits (#9226) fix(mobile): swipe left to reply so swipe-back keeps rightward drags (#9127) mobile: long-press a message link for open, copy and share (#9135) ... Signed-off-by: Matthew Boston <mboston@squareup.com>

…-profile * origin/main: (307 commits) fix: inline ARM64 atomics in Sprig image build (#9291) fix(mobile): show observed thread replies in Activity (#9286) Enable mobile huddles with Codex agents (#9269) fix(mobile): read mentions taller than the screen (#9243) test(relay): give every media e2e upload its own blob hash (#9272) Add invite preview video and fallback poster (#9282) NEXUS-4336: Wait for desktop-provider socket ownership proof (#9270) fix: unblock image audit with patched MCP SDK (#9287) feat(ci): allow admin dispatch of desktop candidate validation (#9288) feat(mobile): tag the reacted-to message author on reactions (#9141) fix(mobile): steady New DM picker rows and animate picks (#9249) perf(mobile): keep remote images on disk and show small ones as thumbnails (#9158) fix(relay): deliver slow cross-node events late instead of closing their recipients (#9235) fix(mobile): read only shown events from filtered Activity rows (#9215) fix(mobile): show the channel name as the notification subtitle (#9173) fix(mobile): keep Home's header clean under sheets (#9152) fix(mobile): show already-loaded custom emoji in the iOS reactions sheet (#9150) mobile: add follow and remind actions to inbox row menu (#9142) fix(mobile): start no threads in Solo chats (#9123) mobile: persist user profiles so names and avatars render on launch (#9116) ... Signed-off-by: Franco Sola <fsola@squareup.com> # Conflicts: # docs/nips/NIP-FA.md # docs/nips/NIP-FI.md

…e-mode * origin/main: (36 commits) feat(relay): let an operator mint invites for a community owner or admin (#9265) fix: inline ARM64 atomics in Sprig image build (#9291) fix(mobile): show observed thread replies in Activity (#9286) Enable mobile huddles with Codex agents (#9269) fix(mobile): read mentions taller than the screen (#9243) test(relay): give every media e2e upload its own blob hash (#9272) Add invite preview video and fallback poster (#9282) NEXUS-4336: Wait for desktop-provider socket ownership proof (#9270) fix: unblock image audit with patched MCP SDK (#9287) feat(ci): allow admin dispatch of desktop candidate validation (#9288) feat(mobile): tag the reacted-to message author on reactions (#9141) fix(mobile): steady New DM picker rows and animate picks (#9249) perf(mobile): keep remote images on disk and show small ones as thumbnails (#9158) fix(relay): deliver slow cross-node events late instead of closing their recipients (#9235) fix(mobile): read only shown events from filtered Activity rows (#9215) fix(mobile): show the channel name as the notification subtitle (#9173) fix(mobile): keep Home's header clean under sheets (#9152) fix(mobile): show already-loaded custom emoji in the iOS reactions sheet (#9150) mobile: add follow and remind actions to inbox row menu (#9142) fix(mobile): start no threads in Solo chats (#9123) ... Signed-off-by: Will Pfleger <wpfleger@block.xyz>

square-tomb and others added 2 commits November 7, 2026 16:18

brow changed the title ~~fix(mobile): keep New DM avatars steady across picker updates~~ fix(mobile): steady New DM picker rows and animate picks Nov 8, 2026

brow marked this pull request as ready for review November 8, 2026 00:52

brow requested a review from a team as a code owner November 8, 2026 00:52

brow temporarily deployed to codex-review November 8, 2026 00:52 — with GitHub Actions Inactive

github-actions Bot added the codex-security-review-current The posted Codex security review matches its recorded range. label Nov 8, 2026

chatgpt-codex-connector Bot reviewed Nov 8, 2026

View reviewed changes

fix(mobile): bound the native picker's avatar cache

a2ea37f

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Co-authored-by: studio <dc2fc481343672df31a689840c09299972e704dac592e0da6f18486646a7ee3e@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz> Signed-off-by: Tom Brow <tomb@squareup.com>

github-actions Bot removed the codex-security-review-current The posted Codex security review matches its recorded range. label Nov 8, 2026

brow temporarily deployed to codex-review November 8, 2026 00:58 — with GitHub Actions Inactive

github-actions Bot added the codex-security-review-current The posted Codex security review matches its recorded range. label Nov 8, 2026

Merge branch 'main' into new-dm-avatar-flicker

330805c

brow temporarily deployed to codex-review November 8, 2026 21:48 — with GitHub Actions Inactive

github-actions Bot added codex-security-review-current The posted Codex security review matches its recorded range. and removed codex-security-review-current The posted Codex security review matches its recorded range. labels Nov 8, 2026

kazemek21 approved these changes Nov 9, 2026

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brow merged commit 5f59940 into main Nov 9, 2026
53 checks passed

brow deleted the new-dm-avatar-flicker branch November 9, 2026 15:34

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fix(mobile): steady New DM picker rows and animate picks - #9249

fix(mobile): steady New DM picker rows and animate picks#9249
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