Invalid Mi 5 - Will "Tap Home button to go back to Home screen" ever get fixed?

[pajser92]

Hello,
I've been using Xiaomi Mi 5 for 2 years now. For the first couple of months I used MIUI xiaomi.eu builds, which were in my opinion much better than MIUI Global ones for multiple reasons. However, it was still a MIUI, and soon afterwards I switched to AOSP based ROMs, first Resurrection Remix, and then to Lineage OS (which I've been using for the longest period of owning my device). However, couple weeks ago LOS switched from Oreo to Pie, and with Pie builds still having some minor bugs, I decided to give MIUI a chance again, because I've not been using it since the days of MIUI 8 and 9.

What do I mean by "It was still a MIUI":

There were some silly things that were bothering me because of how little sense they made to the point where I don't know whether it's an actual bug, or just made with lack of care.

I see that the one thing that's been bothering me since the first day I started using MIUI on my Mi 5 is still present today in 2019:

"Tap Home button to go back to Home screen" only affects short press action, not the long press action as well.

This means that if I want to use my Home button as a capacitive button instead of physical button, I can only do that to go to my Home screen, but if I want to, let's say, launch a Google assistant, I have to physically press and hold the Home button to do that.

So a button that behaves like capacitive on short press, but as a physical button on long press. How does that make any sense?

I believe this is because Mi 5 is one of the rare (if not the only one) Xiaomi devices which actually has the physical ("mechanical") Home button. Majority of other devices have very recognizable three-button capacitive combo, while devices like Mi 5s and Mi 6 have what I believe is force sensitive one, so out of all the devices that Xiaomi makes, this one is too different for developers to take care of its unique properties.

So if you don't want to read this whole rant of mine, my question is this:

"Tap Home button to go back to Home screen" - can this option be made to affect the long press Home button action as well?

If I have that option selected, I clearly want that button to behave as capacitive button as a whole, NOT in half of the functions it does. Remember, it has 2 functions: short press and long press (in my opinion there should also be a double press option, like there is on Lineage, but that's not the topic here), and if those 2 functions can't be made to work consistently (which haven't been made since the phone was launched), that says a lot about the OS as a whole.


Thanks.

 

[pajser92]

You wrote a whole essay and I still don't get it - the configurable "long press" in settings affects only the physical ("mechanical") action of the home button and not the long "capacitive" one?

Yes. There isn't any "long capacitive" functionality of the Home button, nor it can be changed to behave like that.

Let me paint a picture.

In Lineage OS, there is a toggle in Buttons settings named "Use fingerprint as home button", which does something similar, but makes more sense. The difference being:

"Use fingerprint as home button" in Lineage OS
Turned OFF:
Short press is mechanical
Long press is mechanical

Turned ON:
Short press is capacitive
Long press is capacitive


In MIUI however "Tap Home button to go back to Home screen", only affects the behavior of short press option. So it goes like this:

"Tap Home button to go back to Home screen" in MIUI
Turned OFF:
Short press is mechanical
Long press is mechanical

Turned ON:
Short press is capacitive
Long press is mechanical


I fully understand the semantics of the option's caption "Tap Home button to go back to Home screen" and how it only affects short tap and make it go to home screen, but that's exactly my problem - the whole option shouldn't be captioned like that. It should be an option similar to the one in LOS, or even cleaner, there could be "Home button style" drop down menu with two options: Physical and Capacitive, which should affect the behavior of Home button the same way as it is in Lineage.

The short "capacitive" press clearly can't be changed, so the long one either is configurable through settings ori there is no long capacitive press and it is replaced by the physical ("mechanical") press. Here's my follow-up question to you - how does this not make sense to YOU?

I never said that configurability of either short or long press was an issue. Short press is clearly "Go to Home screen", and long press can be chosen from variety of things, but the most common is "Launch Voice Assistant", so I used it in my example. My only problem is that there is no way to activate long press option via long tap (without physically pressing and holding the button), but instead tapping the fingerprint sensor and holding it.

 

[Igor Eisberg]

Something that doesn't work however you would want it to work, is not a bug. Mi 5's fingerprint sensor doesn't support long-press action.

 

[pajser92]

The way you want it - there should be another configurable option for the mechanical press (or the long capacitive one) of the button. It's a nice idea, why not. But maybe there isn't any time for such a triviality. Maybe there is no specific ROM for your phone and it's just a ported one.
The way I see it, the best this is - just a suggestion. No way a bug.

I don't think you understood my point. I'm not asking for two separate customizable actions (like one for "long capacitive" press, one for "long mechanical" press). That's not even the slightest of what I'm saying. What I'm trying to say is that there is no way to activate long press action via tap, or capacitive button. In other words, there is no "Tap Home button to go back to Home screen" counterpart to long press action (like for example "Tap and hold Home button instead of Press and hold"), or what would be the simpler solution, "Tap Home button to go back to Home screen" to affect the behavior of both short and long press.

Well, in this case, pay someone to make you a custom ROM just for you.

Kinda uncalled for. There is Lineage OS, which is free, and where this option works exactly as it should.

Also, you summed up pretty good my point of why "MIUI is still MIUI", because apparently it's "too difficult" to change something that is "so trivial". It's no more than few lines of code, the same way they made it work with short press they can make it work with long press as well, it's literally one IF statement. And it's not something used once in never, the bottom buttons are something that people use constantly, so them setting up correctly is very important for good user experience.

 

[pajser92]

Something that doesn't work however you would want it to work, is not a bug. Mi 5's fingerprint sensor doesn't support long-press action.

I agree, but the fact that I thought it was a bug makes it either a not well-thought option, or half-baked one.

It supports it, because it works like that on Lineage (which is, ironically, a 3rd party ROM). It's the MIUI that doesn't support it, not the hardware (and not because it can't, but because it doesn't care to).

Thanks anyway.

 

[Igor Eisberg]

I agree, but the fact that I thought it was a bug makes it either a not well-thought option, or half-baked one.

It supports it, because it works like that on Lineage (which is, ironically, a 3rd party ROM). It's the MIUI that doesn't support it, not the hardware (and not because it can't, but because it doesn't care to).

Thanks anyway.

And it never will support it on MIUI, because Mi 5 is officially EOL since November 2018.

 

[pajser92]

And it never will support it on MIUI, because Mi 5 is officially EOL since November 2018.

Yeah, I saw it in the chart on the first page of weekly updates and read somewhere that Mi 5 won't be getting MIUI 11. Kinda funny that Mi 5 is a flagship device that came in April 2016 and it will be stuck on MIUI 10, while Redmi 4A, which is basically the cheapest most budget device of Redmi range and came out in November 2016. will apparently be getting MIUI 11.
Does that mean it will only get supported as long as MIUI 10 exists? I know it will not get any feature updates, but what about security patches?

 

[Igor Eisberg]

Yeah, I saw it in the chart on the first page of weekly updates and read somewhere that Mi 5 won't be getting MIUI 11. Kinda funny that Mi 5 is a flagship device that came in April 2016 and it will be stuck on MIUI 10, while Redmi 4A, which is basically the cheapest most budget device of Redmi range and came out in November 2016. will apparently be getting MIUI 11.
Does that mean it will only get supported as long as MIUI 10 exists? I know it will not get any feature updates, but what about security patches?

It will only be supported as long as Mi 5s is supported, and as long as the porting of Mi 5s ROM to Mi 5 works.