Disable avatar issue

Issue Description

Avatar component is still rendering and taking space for upcoming messages even renderAvatar={() => null}

Is there a way to hide it?

Additional Information

• React Native version: 0.64.2
• react-native-gifted-chat version: 0.16.3
• Platform(s) (iOS, Android, or both?): both

[jgable]

I was able to subclass the default Message component to overcome the display of the empty avatar;

import {
  GiftedChat,
  Message as GiftedChatMessage,
  MessageProps,
  IMessage,
} from "react-native-gifted-chat";

// Subclass the existing Message
class NoAvatarMessage extends GiftedChatMessage {
  // This fixes an issue where blank avatars are rendered;
  // https://github.com/FaridSafi/react-native-gifted-chat/issues/2093
  renderAvatar() {
    return null;
  }
}

// Render custom blank avatar messages
const CustomMessage = (props: MessageProps<IMessage>): JSX.Element => (
  <NoAvatarMessage
    {...props}
  />
);

<GiftedChat
  messages={displayedMessages}
  onSend={onMessageSend}
  renderMessage={CustomMessage}
  user={user}
/>

Hope that helps someone else.

[Bhavya0101]

I solved this issue by adding

renderAvatar={() => null}

but it had a few glitches in the UI. So, it was solved by adding

showAvatarForEveryMessage={true}

So that it renders avatar for every message and all of them are set to null.