Android: Fixes #13854: Fix missing icons where react-native-paper IconButton is used

[mrjo118]

In the initial release of the Joplin 3.5 mobile app, there is a regression whereby all icons are missing when implemented via the react-native-paper IconButton component. This is only an issue in the release build for Android, hence why it was not noticed until now, where the first 3.5 release was recently made for the mobile app.

The issue relates to the inclusion of getExpoDefaultConfig(__dirname) in the metro configuration (originally added in React Native 0.77 upgrade in PR #12179). I made various attempts suggested by AI and suggestions online, to override potentially problematic sections of the default expo config, however none of the suggested solutions were able to resolve the issue. However, what is clear from my testing is that the release build of Android works fine without any obvious issues when completely excluding getExpoDefaultConfig(__dirname), but it is required for the dev build to work. Therefore this PR resolves the issue by excluding this config, but only when building a release build and for the Android app specifically.

The issue is very likely related to issues various users have reported on this GitHub issue expo/expo#21568. On that report, some users have reported the missing icons issue only happening on Android, although a couple of users mentioned it happening on iOS as well. I have not tested whether or not this issue occurs on iOS release builds as well, but if it is also an issue on iOS, this change could potentially be extended to cover iOS as well in a followup PR.

This fixes #13854

Testing

1. Using a modified version of the build-android pipeline which publishes the built apk as a release, I have verified that the built apk installs and loads without any obvious issues, and that the missing icons problem is fixed. See https://github.com/mrjo118/joplin/releases/tag/1765068956
2. At some point since the Joplin 3.4 release, I stopped being able to build Android release apks without modifying the code locally to get it to work on Windows. I had to remove getExpoDefaultConfig(__dirname) in metro.config.js to bypass the build issues. Now I am able to build a release using 'gradlew.bat assembleRelease', with the only modification being supplying valid certificate details, and the resulting apk does not have the missing icon issue
3. I have verified that building and installing a dev build of Joplin still works without issues
4. I verified the web app is unaffected

Screenshots:

Before:

After:

[personalizedrefrigerator]

Thank you for fixing this!

For future reference:

• The issue might be related to this upgrade of react-native-paper, which includes "support @react-native-vector-icons 12.x".
• The react-native-paper change adds a block that requires different modules in different conditions:
  • It first tries require('@react-native-vector-icons/material-design-icons') (for react-native-vector-icons v12). This will fail since Joplin uses react-native-vector-icons v10.3.0.
  • It then tries require('@expo/vector-icons/MaterialCommunityIcons'). This might succeed (run without throwing an Error), since Joplin does use Expo. However, I don't believe that @expo/vector-icons is in package.json or has configuration/setup logic, so this might be the source of the issue.
  • Finally, if the other two requires failed, it returns require('react-native-vector-icons/MaterialCommunityIcons'). This is for react-native-vector-icons v11 or lower. Joplin currently uses v10.
• A work-in-progress change that upgrades react-native-vector-icons to v12 can be found here.

Testing

Be aware that the camera, voice recorder, and biometric unlock functionality all use expo. It would be good to also check that these still work in a release build (if this hasn't been done already).

[mrjo118]

Be aware that the camera, voice recorder, and biometric unlock functionality all use expo. It would be good to also check that these still work in a release build (if this hasn't been done already).

Thank you for this info! I've now tested all 3 of these functions using a real device and they all work without issues. FYI I used an older device on Android 10, but presumably this would not make any difference.

Also, given that #12782 which was a problem in Joplin 3.4 is also likely related to the expo default config, and it was causing issues for my local release builds on Windows, I think it is still worth excluding it for the Android release builds, even if this particular issue could be fixed by some library upgrades.

EDIT: I tested the WIP react-native-vector-icons upgraded to v12 changes (rebased onto my branch) on the GitHub pipeline and the upgrade does indeed fix the icon issue. So if the issue affects iOS as well, then it will be addressed by this upgrade. See https://github.com/mrjo118/joplin/releases/tag/1765203601