stacked-bars-double-consume-window-insets

Stacked bars each reserve the system bar

A bar that can be used two ways takes its insets as a parameter, defaulted to the framework value:

@Composable
fun SelectionTopAppBar(
    state: SelectionState,
    /* … */
    // Defaults to the status-bar inset, like any top bar. Pass WindowInsets(0) when this bar is
    // STACKED below something that already consumed that inset.
    windowInsets: WindowInsets = TopAppBarDefaults.windowInsets,
) {
    TopAppBar(windowInsets = windowInsets, /* … */)
}

Modifier.windowInsetsPadding(insets) — which every inset-aware component applies internally — pads by the insets and consumes them for its own descendants. Consumption is a parent-to-child relationship; it does not travel sideways. Two bars that are siblings in a Column therefore each read the full, unconsumed inset and each pad by it. The first pushes itself clear of the status bar; the second pushes itself clear of the status bar again, from a position already below it, and what is left between them is a band exactly one status bar tall.

Traps

The component does not decide; the parent's layout does. The same bar is correct with the default on one screen and correct with zero on the next, and nothing inside it can tell which. Stacked as a sibling below another bar in a Column: zero. Drawn in a Box over the screen's own bar, replacing it while a mode is active: the default, because it is then the only thing at that position and nothing above it reserved anything. Grep will not separate these — step 2 lists the call sites, and each has to be read for the container it sits in.

Two right answers, and mixing them reopens the band. Either the container consumes once (Modifier.windowInsetsPadding(...) on the Column, every stacked child passed zero) or the first child owns it (the top bar keeps the default, everything stacked under it passes zero). Both work; what fails is doing one for the container and forgetting a child, which is the original defect with an extra step in front of it. Record which shape a screen uses — the second call site gets added by someone who cannot see the first.

Default the new parameter to the framework value, never to zero. Adding windowInsets: WindowInsets = TopAppBarDefaults.windowInsets is a no-op for every existing caller, which is what makes it safe to add to a component already used on a dozen screens. Defaulting it to WindowInsets(0) silently removes the inset from every overlay call site — bars that were correct now sit under the status bar, in a change that looks like it touched only the two screens you edited.

Zeroing the parameter drops more than the top. A top bar's framework default covers the horizontal system-bar sides as well as the top. Replace it with WindowInsets(0) and the bar also loses its landscape side inset, so on a device with a cutout the leading icon slides under it. Whatever consumes once for the stack has to carry those sides too, or the stacked children need a horizontal-only inset rather than a flat zero.

It hides in whichever mode is conditional. A selection bar wrapped in AnimatedVisibility(selectionActive) only stacks while selection is on, so the band exists in a mode nobody screenshots — and on the screens where the same component replaces a bar rather than stacking under one, the identical code is fine. The overlap of "second bar visible" and "stacked, not overlaid" is the only configuration that shows it.

Measure the gap before naming it. Dead space between two bars has several possible parents: a spacedBy arrangement, a padding constant, a stray Spacer. This one is identifiable — its height equals the status bar exactly, so it changes with the device, grows on a tall-status-bar phone, and vanishes on a desktop window where that inset is zero. A gap that survives on a window with no system bars is not this.

Never subtract it back. A negative offset or a hardcoded -24.dp on the lower bar cancels the doubled inset on the one device it was measured on and is wrong on every other, plus in landscape, plus in split-screen. The inset is a runtime value; the only correct edit is to stop reserving it twice.

Chained on one element they see each other; placed on two siblings they do not. This is the whole rule in one comparison. Modifier.navigationBarsPadding().imePadding() on a single element behaves, because a modifier chain is a parent-to-child chain and the second node sees what the first consumed. Move those two onto two children of a Column and each applies in full. When a gap appears, the first question is not "which inset" but "are these two paddings in series along the axis" — only stacked siblings sum; a parent-child chain consumes, and two siblings overlaid in a Box share an edge.

A scaffold's PaddingValues reserves without consuming. Modifier.padding(innerPadding) is ordinary padding: it makes room and tells nothing downstream, so a bar inside it that keeps its default insets reserves the same space a second time — the identical band, arrived at from a different direction. The pairing is Modifier.consumeWindowInsets(innerPadding) alongside the padding, or handing the children zero explicitly.

An explicit zero can be redundant and still worth writing. Under a container that already consumed, a child routing its insets through windowInsetsPadding resolves them to zero on its own, so passing zero changes nothing there. It still belongs at the call site: it survives a refactor that moves the consumption, and it is the only thing that helps a child which reads a raw WindowInsets.statusBars value, since a raw read ignores consumption entirely.

Verifying it

# 1. Every inset an inset-aware component is handed or defaults to. Read the shape of each: a
#    parameter declaration is a component that can be stacked, an argument is a decision someone
#    made. Note the `[:=]` — a declaration reads `windowInsets: WindowInsets = …`, so a regex closed
#    on `=` matches the arguments and none of the components that can be stacked.
grep -rn --include="*.kt" -E "windowInsets *[:=]" . | grep -v "/build/"

# 2. Every zero — note the open paren, since `WindowInsets(0)` and `WindowInsets(0, 0, 0, 0)` are
#    the same argument and a regex closed on `(0)` silently misses most of them. Not every hit is a
#    stacked bar: a sheet or dialog zeroes because it does its own inset handling. The ones to read
#    are the bars, and each must sit under something that consumed the inset once.
grep -rn --include="*.kt" -E "windowInsets = WindowInsets\(0" . | grep -v "/build/"

# 3. Who consumes at all. Compare against step 1: consumption is what makes a zero correct, so a
#    screen passing zeros with nothing from this list above them is mis-stacked.
grep -rn --include="*.kt" -E "windowInsetsPadding\(|consumeWindowInsets\(" . | grep -v "/build/"

# 4. Screens holding more than one bar — the candidate list. For each, read whether the bars are
#    siblings in a Column (stacked: all but one pass zero) or in a Box (overlay: all keep the default).
grep -rn --include="*.kt" -E "^ *[A-Za-z]*(TopAppBar|SearchBar|BottomAppBar)\(" . | grep -v "/build/" \
  | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | awk '$1 > 1'

Then put the screen into the mode that stacks the bars, on a device with a visible status bar, and compare the gap between them against the status bar itself — a phone with a tall cutout makes a correct build look unchanged and a doubled one obviously wrong. Rotate to landscape while stacked: the horizontal sides are the half people forget, and a leading icon sliding under a cutout is a zero that should have been a horizontal-only inset. Finally run the same screen where that inset is zero — a desktop window, or a fullscreen mode with the bars hidden — and confirm the layout is identical in both builds, which is what proves the band was the inset and not a padding constant.

Related: selection-mode-state-holder (the holder behind a bar that appears and disappears), responsive-gate-size-not-platform (the other reason one screen renders two different bar arrangements).