26
Aug
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CyanogenMod Nightlies Add A Cool Feature From Other ROMs: Long-Press The 'Recents' Button To Switch To The Previous App

Posted by in News

While CyanogenMod is generally regarded as the biggest and best of the innumerable custom ROMs, some of the others tend to implement interesting additions to Android much sooner. The latest nightly builds of CM 11 (Android 4.4) have added something that's not exactly new, but should be very much appreciated by immigrants from other ROMs. Users can now long-press the physical or virtual Recents button to quickly open the last app "under" the current one. Observe:

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GIF credit: Wesley J. Marcolino

It's a cool little touch akin to a quick tap of Alt-Tab in Windows. We're actually not sure which competing ROM implemented this first, but in a recent Reddit thread, users of Omni, Carbon, Paranoid Android, and others claim that it's been in their ROMs for a while. There's also a setting in the popular Xposed module GravityBox (very much recommended for root users who can't find a good non-stock ROM) for this behavior. The CyanogenMod changelog says that the addition was placed into nightly builds last week by Roman Birg, a Cyanogen Inc. employee who's also worked on the popular AOKP family of ROMs.

Wherever the new feature comes from, it's yet another little flourish that should please power users. The long-press Recents switch will probably be implemented in the M10 snapshot release in early September, or the next month at the latest.

Source: CyanogenMod code review, Reddit - thanks, Wesley J. Marcolino!

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Michael Crider
Michael is a native Texan and a former graphic designer. He's been covering technology in general and Android in particular since 2011. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order.

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  • Brad

    This kind of stuff tends to be bittersweet... I prefer the stock android experience...

    • tintin.92

      I would disagree. CM on my OPO gets rid of nearly every single annoyance from stock. And boy, there are quite a few.

      • http://www.baronsofbullshit.com/ seriosbrad

        I think he meant stock vanilla android, not stock... Samsung or HTC for example.

        • tintin.92

          That's what I meant as well. I'd take a stable version to CM to stock android (as on Nexus 5) any day of the week.

    • Damian

      Yea pure stock android with bloated apps and no root, can't live without it.

      • Android Developer

        You can still root it...
        Also, there aren't so many bloated apps there at all. Just really basic ones.
        Not only that, but the rom takes about 100-200 MB ...

    • http://ignaciozippy.com/ Ignacio Zippy

      It's like stock Android for power users, letting you hide options everywhere and such.

    • John

      ...then don't use cyanogenmod? If you want stock android, get a google play edition rom. Don't use a rom if you don't like it.

      • Brad

        I have a nexus... but I'm just saying, these sorts of things are what make the rom not for me. clearly some people enjoy it.

    • s3icc0

      Well then it is up to you what ROM you will use.

  • http://mobers.org/ psydex

    I wonder how this will be implemented in legacy devices (like galaxy s2) without "recents"

    • http://about.me/stevecrane Steve Crane

      I was thinking this too. Recents is already a long press of the home button on those devices.

      • Damian

        In Pac-Man ROM for GS2 you can set double click on the home button to see recents, maybe that new feature could be implemented using triple click?

        • http://mobers.org/ psydex

          Perhaps... We hope...

        • Konstantinos Pap

          No, over 9000 clicks. That way, your home button will be destroyed sooner.

      • Daniel Vilar Tavares

        You should be able to customize that on the buttons option under setting. I set my menu key to go to the recent apps

        • tintin.92

          Yeah, I had done that too. Samsung agreed with me, apparently.

      • http://www.anivision.org/ Christopher Bailey (Xcom923)

        I was just about to post the exact same thing. I still have apps that don't have a menu button and I have to long press the recent button to get that option

    • Happy

      Request on cm jira.

    • s3icc0

      "recents" is standard android feature all phones have it

      • http://mobers.org/ psydex

        No shit sherlock!? We meant the dedicated recents button obviously

        • s3icc0

          well then accept my appology. I solve it on the samsung phones I put recents function on short press of menu key and long press is just the menu - it also improves the delay you need for the long press and then for recents to appear - getting close to Nexus experience.

    • EpicTickles

      i think you can achieve this by using gravitybox

  • http://favarofilippo.wordpress.com/ Favaro Filippo

    Love it "is generally regarded as the biggest and best of the innumerable custom ROMs"

  • http://www.torikomix.pl/ Adam Szopa

    And I would rather have this work the opposite way: single press for "quick switch", long press for the full list. Even better if while performing the long press, I could select the app without lifting by finger (similar to how the options button work in Chrome now).

  • Jaromir KM Bracki

    No long-press button actions (and double tap either) is what keeps me away from CM11 per se. I heavily rely on them and shortage of this feature is what actually put by back on stock with Xposed. Thus I can have needed functionalities without causing conflicts due to overlapping system settings with Xposed activities.

    • Rafael Luik

      Any specific action? There's a bunch of settings for the buttons (even capacitive) in CM at Settings - Buttons, for simple touch, long-press and double tap.

    • s3icc0

      these settings are present on CM11 so maybe first try the ROM and then review it

      • Jaromir KM Bracki

        To be honest - I used to run PAC-ROM for my Nexus 4. It was nice because the navbar mods were taken from AOKP where long press and tapping were both applicable. Once they decided to rewrite the hybrid rome form scratch, the basis was taken from CM and thus I've lost my customization of navbar.

        Of course, pure CM11 was also a driving ROM for few days for me, but - as said before - I lacked those features. Maybe I was unable to find them, but I hereby confirm that capacitive buttons have those features, which I cannot tell about virtual navbar. Any suggestions were to find it in future - along with maybe a screenshot guidance - is more welcome than bringing anyone down.

  • Rahul Srivastava

    I hope this comes as a twek to the Xposed module.

    • ThatGuyzx

      Isn't this already on GravityMod for Xposed? I've used this feature on other roms for something like 10 months now on SlimRom and others. Lack of NavBar customization is a big part of why I didn't stick with CM.

      • Android Developer

        Yes, it's already there, but I think it has some issues. Many times it switches to the wrong app. I have no idea why.

  • ThatGuyzx

    As you mentioned in the article, it has indeed been a longstanding feature of custom roms and xposed modules. Still though, it's good to see the most popular rom include something I find vital on other roms for almost a year (at least with SlimRom).

  • Kit Tihonovich

    By Mike Wilson AKA Zaphod from AOKP back in ICS days.

    • Roman

      Yay Mike!

    • Mike Wilson

      Mike Approves :)

  • humulos

    Did not know this was in Xposed, immediately enabled.

  • random_man

    "CyanogenMod is generally regarded as the biggest and best of the innumerable custom ROMs" -_- surely no one actually believes this?? Take Slim for example, there's an option to put 5 custom buttons on the nav bar. Eats CM for breakfast.

    • s3icc0

      Actually I was on slim in the 4.1 and 4.2 times with my i9000. Then I tried everything possible. And returned back to slim with my i9505 in December 2013 with early 4.4 builds.... since I was using Slim only. Now I am from stupid reasons on CM11 so I can compare - it is truth and visible which way CM goes - another "corporate like" build of android. On the other hand Slim offers a lot of unique features, and a lot of features from other roms - all build from scratch. SlimKAT is full of features and at least on my S4 it is 100% faster then CM11. And it is black. Yes they eat CM for breakfast.

    • The Calm Critic

      "Biggest and best" in terms dev rigor and discipline, not necessarily on features. As long as other ROM developments still rely on CM's device trees or kernels, it's still is the most apt title.

  • Lucas Maffazioli

    GravityBox says hello

  • s3icc0

    Just one note for the author of this article: they don't say it must be long press ... I always use double press of back button for this feature (short press back, long press kill, double press switch to last app).....etc.
    And how someone can possibly say that this feature is crap and no one will use it? - I use it daily (SlimKAT) as it is the fastest way how to use two apps almost simultaneously (e.g. copying part of text from one app to another, etc...), it prevents you from loosing focus.

  • http://www.snaky360.com/ Sébastien Laoût

    FINALLY :-)

    I asked it a long time ago for base Android:

    https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41715

    Please vote for this bug if you want it too in non-modified ROMs.

  • https://twitter.com/DJVargasRun Darwin J. Vargas

    This is great! An alternative to LAS: Last App Switcher app at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abhi.lastappswitcher&hl=en

  • Dan

    Any way to do this with exposed?