Clean up composer footer and match action buttons to the emoji button

[shawnborton]

Explanation of Change

Cleans up the composer footer (the "Write something…" box at the bottom of every chat) and makes its action buttons consistent with the emoji and send buttons.

• Removed the vertical divider (textInputComposeBorder) between the create (+) button and the text input, in both the live composer and the loading placeholder.
• Restyled the create (+) button to match the emoji button exactly: PressableWithoutFeedback with a hover/pressed background color (getButtonBackgroundColorStyle) instead of the old opacity dim, and a dynamic icon fill (getIconFillColor).
• Applied the same treatment to the expand/collapse button.
• Grew the shared composerSizeButton from 32×32 to 40×40 and centered its icon (alignItems: 'center'), so the create, expand/collapse, and message-edit cancel buttons all match the 40px emoji/send buttons.
• Anchored the create button to the bottom of the composer at all times (justifyContentStart in a reversed column), matching the emoji and send buttons, instead of only when the expand button is present.
• Trimmed 8px of left padding from the composer text input so the text sits closer to the enlarged create button.

Note: composerSizeButton and textInputCompose are shared with the inline message-edit composer, so those buttons/input are updated consistently there too. Adding the Design label so @Expensify/design can review.

Fixed Issues

$ #98809
PROPOSAL:

Tests

1. Open any chat and focus the composer at the bottom.
2. Verify there is no vertical divider line between the + button and the text input.
3. Hover the + button — verify it shows a background color and icon-fill change identical to the emoji button on the right (no opacity dim).
4. Verify the + button is 40×40 with its icon centered, matching the emoji and send buttons.
5. Type a couple of lines — verify the + button stays anchored to the bottom of the composer.
6. Expand the composer (expand button) — verify the expand/collapse button has the same hover background and 40×40 size, and the + button remains bottom-anchored.
7. Edit a sent message — verify the cancel (X) and expand buttons in the edit composer match the same size/hover treatment.
8. Verify that no errors appear in the JS console.

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

Offline tests

Not applicable — style-only change with no network behavior.

QA Steps

Same as tests.

• Verify that no errors appear in the JS console

PR Author Checklist

• I linked the correct issue in the ### Fixed Issues section above
• I wrote clear testing steps that cover the changes made in this PR
  • I added steps for local testing in the Tests section
  • I added steps for the expected offline behavior in the Offline steps section
  • I added steps for Staging and/or Production testing in the QA steps section
  • I added steps to cover failure scenarios (i.e. verify an input displays the correct error message if the entered data is not correct)
  • I turned off my network connection and tested it while offline to ensure it matches the expected behavior (i.e. verify the default avatar icon is displayed if app is offline)
  • I tested this PR with a High Traffic account against the staging or production API to ensure there are no regressions (e.g. long loading states that impact usability).
• I included screenshots or videos for tests on all platforms
• I ran the tests on all platforms & verified they passed on:
  • Android: Native
  • Android: mWeb Chrome
  • iOS: Native
  • iOS: mWeb Safari
  • MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• I verified there are no console errors (if there's a console error not related to the PR, report it or open an issue for it to be fixed)
• I followed proper code patterns (see Reviewing the code)
  • I verified that comments were added to code that is not self explanatory
  • I verified that any new or modified comments were clear, correct English, and explained "why" the code was doing something instead of only explaining "what" the code was doing.
  • I verified any copy / text that was added to the app is grammatically correct in English. It adheres to proper capitalization guidelines (note: only the first word of header/labels should be capitalized), and is either coming verbatim from figma or has been approved by marketing (in order to get marketing approval, ask the Bug Zero team member to add the Waiting for copy label to the issue)
• If a new code pattern is added I verified it was agreed to be used by multiple Expensify engineers
• I followed the guidelines as stated in the Review Guidelines
• I tested other components that can be impacted by my changes (i.e. if the PR modifies a shared library or component like Avatar, I verified the components using Avatar are working as expected)
• If a new CSS style is added I verified that:
  • A similar style doesn't already exist
  • The style can't be created with an existing StyleUtils function (i.e. StyleUtils.getBackgroundAndBorderStyle(theme.componentBG))
• If new assets were added or existing ones were modified, I verified that:
  • The assets are optimized and compressed (for SVG files, run npm run compress-svg)
  • The assets load correctly across all supported platforms.
• If the PR modifies code that runs when editing or sending messages, I tested and verified there is no unexpected behavior for all supported markdown - URLs, single line code, code blocks, quotes, headings, bold, strikethrough, and italic.
• If the PR modifies a generic component, I tested and verified that those changes do not break usages of that component in the rest of the App (i.e. if a shared library or component like Avatar is modified, I verified that Avatar is working as expected in all cases)
• If the PR modifies a component related to any of the existing Storybook stories, I tested and verified all stories for that component are still working as expected.
• If the PR modifies a component or page that can be accessed by a direct deeplink, I verified that the code functions as expected when the deeplink is used - from a logged in and logged out account.
• If the PR modifies the UI (e.g. new buttons, new UI components, changing the padding/spacing/sizing, moving components, etc) or modifies the form input styles:
  • I verified that all the inputs inside a form are aligned with each other.
  • I added Design label and/or tagged @Expensify/design so the design team can review the changes.
• I added unit tests for any new feature or bug fix in this PR to help automatically prevent regressions in this user flow.
• If the main branch was merged into this PR after a review, I tested again and verified the outcome was still expected according to the Test steps.

Screenshots/Videos

Android: Native

Android: mWeb Chrome

iOS: Native

iOS: mWeb Safari

MacOS: Chrome / Safari

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ Changes either increased or maintained existing code coverage, great job!

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
...ortActionCompose/AttachmentPickerWithMenuItems.tsx	85.32% <100.00%> (+0.27%)	⬆️
...rt/ReportActionCompose/ComposerWithSuggestions.tsx	61.20% <ø> (ø)
...eport/ReportActionCompose/ExpandCollapseButton.tsx	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)
src/styles/index.ts	63.00% <ø> (ø)
src/styles/variables.ts	100.00% <ø> (ø)
...report/ReportActionCompose/ComposerPlaceholder.tsx	0.00% <0.00%> (ø)
... and 10 files with indirect coverage changes

[shawnborton]

cc @dubielzyk-expensify to check this one out - this cleans up the composer's create and expand/collapse buttons to match the emoji button. It gets rid of the border as well:

CleanShot.2026-08-17.at.12.43.47.mp4

[github-actions]

🚧 shawnborton has triggered a test Expensify/App build. You can view the workflow run here.

[dubielzyk-expensify]

Tested on web and iOS. Can we triple check that the text has the same padding from the left edge? Seeing the composer placeholder and a message it doesn't quite look like they add up to the same x pixel position:

Otherwise this feels great

[shawnborton]

Good catch, let me dig into that!

[shawnborton]

I think it is indeed off by 1px:

I will push a fix.

[github-actions]

🚧 shawnborton has triggered a test Expensify/App build. You can view the workflow run here.

[github-actions]

🧪🧪 Use the links below to test this adhoc build on Android, iOS, and Web. Happy testing! 🧪🧪
Built from App PR #98781.

Android 🤖	iOS 🍎
https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rock-artifacts/ad-hoc/rock-android-Adhoc-9159f18-cbdbedd-f995fbac3770fc98f75e725c12a4e01f9f870ef1/index.html	https://ad-hoc-expensify-cash.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/rock-artifacts/ad-hoc/rock-ios-device-AdHoc-9159f18-cbdbedd-20fd7d40af71ed53b0c6abfd83d0365d20daa3f4/index.html

Web 🕸️
https://98781.pr-testing.expensify.com

---

👀 View the workflow run that generated this build 👀

[dubielzyk-expensify]

Is it still off?

[shawnborton]

Maybe you need a hard refresh? This is what I see:

[melvin-bot]

@Eskalifer1 Please copy/paste the Reviewer Checklist from here into a new comment on this PR and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]

[shawnborton]

@Eskalifer1 can you help with platform screenshots since this is a Claude/Melvin PR? Thanks!

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[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Keep the deferred composer placeholder aligned

When ComposerPlaceholder appears during a navigation transition, it still centers the plus icon and applies variables.avatarChatSpacing (12px) on both sides of its text, while the real composer now bottom-aligns the plus button and uses the new 5px left padding. Swapping in the real composer therefore visibly shifts the placeholder text horizontally and the plus icon vertically; update the placeholder's manual styles to mirror both new layout values.

Useful? React with 👍 / 👎.

[dubielzyk-expensify]

I did a hard refresh but maybe something went wrong. Looks good now 👍 Send it!