Just-opened narrow sometimes flickers "no messages" before fetch has started

[chrisbobbe]

const isFetching = fetching.older || fetching.newer || loading;
// [...]
const sayNoMessages = messages.length === 0 && !isFetching;

We fudge fetching.older and fetching.newer as false in fetchingReducer when this is a narrow we've just opened, one that state.fetching doesn't have info for yet.

fetchMessagesInNarrow correctly sets fetching.older and fetching.newer to true when it's called. But by the time it's called, it's too late: the false values have already made sayNoMessages true, wrongly, for at least a frame. And during that time, we've told the user there are no messages.

Right?

[chrisbobbe]

We fudge fetching.older and fetching.newer as false in fetchingReducer when this is a narrow we've just opened; one that state.fetching doesn't have info for yet.

Should we be fudging it as true, or not fudging it at all?

[chrisbobbe]

A user report from @anshuman-8 with screenshots from #5636 (which I'm about to close as a duplicate; please let me know if you think this is wrong):

In every chat page, the "No messages" text displays for a second before showing a loading placeholder.

For a better experience, the chat page should start with a loading placeholder and then continue to show no messages or all chats.

"No messages" text before placeholder

[anshuman-8]

Yes @chrisbobbe , this seems to be the same issue as #5636 , where sayNoMessage gets set as true before fetchMessagesInNarrow in chatScreen causing "No messages" to come up before loading placeholder.
May I work on this issue?

[chrisbobbe]

Sure, thanks! I've just assigned it to you.

[anshuman-8]

Hey @chrisbobbe ,

I have submitted a pull request to fix this problem.
Please review it and let me know if anything further is needed.

Thank you.