Animation when the button is pressed pause/play etc

[zhaleff]

I've been using the application for a while now and I feel like I really like it and that it's underrated. I wanted to contribute to the project by adding an animation, because even though everything looks nice, there's something that's still dead and feels very bland, which are the play, pause, next, etc. buttons, you know? I was hoping to find the Kotlin file that had or controlled that, but in the end I didn't find it easily because I couldn't find documentation that explained what each file does, but I'm referring to the following.

These buttons, for example, when you press the pause button, there's no clear animation; it just happens, period. Personally, I find this lifeless. I've seen other applications where pressing a button creates a slight lift, which makes it look a bit better. I'm not saying it definitely looks better, but it feels lifeless now. When you press the button, you can't tell if you actually pressed it or not because there's no animation. If you could give me more specific details, I could try to implement the animation. I should clarify that I'm not a UI expert or a Kotlin expert. I've made a few applications that I haven't published on GitHub, and I really love this project; it has a good track record.\ (More specific details about where the file that controls the player button style is located or what its name is.)

In short, adding a "Lift animation" that raises the button towards the user when it's pressed would be visually appealing. I hope you'll take my suggestion.

[Arturo254]

Thank you for the detailed feedback and for taking the time to evaluate the user experience of the player controls.

I agree that the current playback controls provide limited visual feedback beyond the state change itself. While the actions are executed immediately, the interaction could benefit from additional motion cues that reinforce the user's input and improve perceived responsiveness.

This aligns with the principles introduced in Material 3 Expressive, where motion is used not only as decoration but as a communication mechanism between the interface and the user. The Expressive motion system encourages the use of spring-based animations and subtle transformations to provide tactile feedback, establish hierarchy, and make interactions feel more natural.

For playback controls, a potential approach would be to incorporate expressive spring animations on press and release events, combining scale and elevation transitions with appropriately tuned spring parameters. This would allow the controls to momentarily compress or expand in response to touch, creating a more responsive and physically grounded interaction while remaining consistent with Material Design guidelines.

Your observation regarding project navigation is also valuable. The current project structure has grown considerably over time, and improving architectural documentation would make it easier for new contributors to locate components such as the playback controls and understand their responsibilities.

I appreciate both the UX suggestion and the willingness to contribute. Feedback of this kind helps identify areas where the application can continue to improve beyond functionality alone.

[zhaleff]

You're absolutely right about that. I really want to contribute to the project because it's a beautiful music player, but I see many things that can be improved.

Regarding the button animations, they don't need to be complicated, but they should be nice. If we want it to stand out, it shouldn't be as simple and bland as Spotify, where pressing the play button, for example, doesn't do much.

We could take inspiration from PixelPlayer's animations, which have a small width when the button is pressed.

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I love the project and want to commit to contributing in many ways, because the user flow is important.

For example, here's a mistake that causes me massive anxiety.

What's so strange about this? The option is very close to the edge and is too uneven compared to the rest of the list.

Continuing with the button animation, a blur + gradient style animation when touched would be nice; I have no other way to express or describe it.

But let's say you press the button and the button turns into a blur with a gradient and some stretching (which is more in line with Material You 3) For example, PixelPlayer has a stretching animation on its buttons; you could use that.