nowplaying-pager-no-feedback-loop

Now-playing pager without a feedback loop

The pager is a two-way binding: it slides when the player advances, and it seeks when the user settles on another page. Each direction writes what the other watches — keep one quiet at a time.

Traps

The in-progress-scroll flag is true for programmatic animation too. It is the obvious way to mean "the user is dragging" and it is wrong: the pager sets it identically for a drag and for the animate-to-page call your own follow effect just made, so it blocks the follow while it runs. Use a flag you own:

// adapted
var isAnimatingFromPlayer by remember { mutableStateOf(false) }
var isUserDraggingActive by remember { mutableStateOf(false) }
LaunchedEffect(pagerState) {
    snapshotFlow { pagerState.isScrollInProgress to isAnimatingFromPlayer }
        .collect { (scrolling, animating) -> isUserDraggingActive = scrolling && !animating }
}

Bracket every programmatic scroll with that flag in a try/finally. Not tidiness — the effect is cancelled whenever its keys change, which is what happens when the track advances again mid-animation, and a flag left true by that cancellation blocks every later write permanently.

// adapted
LaunchedEffect(currentIndex, queue.size) {
    val target = currentIndex
    if (!isUserDraggingActive && target in queue.indices && target != pagerState.currentPage) {
        isAnimatingFromPlayer = true
        try { pagerState.animateScrollToPage(target) } finally { isAnimatingFromPlayer = false }
    }
}

Dispatch from the settled page, never the current or target page. The current page flips as soon as a drag crosses the halfway point and can flip back inside one gesture; the target page changes with the fling. Either one sends a seek per crossing — "one swipe skipped two tracks":

// adapted
LaunchedEffect(pagerState, currentIndex, queue.size) {
    snapshotFlow { pagerState.settledPage }
        .distinctUntilChanged()
        .collect { settled ->
            if (isAnimatingFromPlayer) return@collect
            if (settled !in queue.indices) return@collect
            if (settled == currentIndex) return@collect
            dispatch(computeSeekAction(settled, currentIndex))
        }
}

The last guard is the loop-breaker: after the player moves and the follow effect slides the pager to match, the pager settles and emits — without it, that emission goes back at the player as a seek it has already done.

Keep the decision a pure function, outside the composition — four outcomes from one subtraction, in a file importing a domain model and nothing from the UI toolkit, so it is exercisable with no UI:

// as written
internal fun computeSeekAction(
    newPage: Int,
    currentOrderIndex: Int,
): ArtworkSeekAction =
    when (newPage - currentOrderIndex) {
        0 -> ArtworkSeekAction.NoOp
        1 -> ArtworkSeekAction.Next
        -1 -> ArtworkSeekAction.Previous
        else -> ArtworkSeekAction.Skip(newPage)
    }

The branch exists because adjacent and far moves are different commands: a ±1 move reuses the player's own next/previous, preserving whatever transition machinery the adapter runs between neighbouring items (see crossfade-dual-player); a longer jump goes through seek-by-index.

Use the skip-to-previous-item command for a backwards swipe. Plain previous implements the standard "restart the current track if the playhead is past a few seconds" rule — a literal position threshold in the desktop adapter, a configurable maximum-seek-to-previous-position on the mobile engine. Swipe backwards half a minute in and the player restarts that song, leaving the pager a page away; the follow effect slides it back and the swipe bounces. Every other caller of "previous" still wants the restart rule, so this is a second command, not a changed one.

The page index is in play order; the engine's seek-by-index is in timeline order. The pages are the queue the user can see, which under shuffle is a permutation of the engine's list — full treatment in queue-index-vs-shuffle-space. Route the far skip through the handler entry point that converts (if (shuffleModeEnabled) getUnshuffledIndex(index) else index), or a far swipe under shuffle plays a different song than the one under the finger. The ±1 branch is unaffected.

Derive the page from the queue using the id the queue actually stores. Engines are commonly handed a decorated media id — a prefix naming which rendition is loaded, or a cache key — and comparing that against the plain queue ids fails for exactly the decorated entries, so the pager sits on page 0 whenever one of them plays.

// as written
internal fun deriveOrderIndex(
    queue: List<Track>,
    nowPlayingVideoId: String?,
): Int {
    if (queue.isEmpty() || nowPlayingVideoId.isNullOrEmpty()) return 0
    return queue
        .indexOfLast { it.videoId == nowPlayingVideoId }
        .coerceAtLeast(0)
}

The coercion keeps the pager on a valid page while the queue has been replaced and the now-playing state has not caught up. Matching by id cannot tell two copies of one track apart, so read queue-index-vs-shuffle-space first — and for the same reason page keys must stay unique when the queue is not: build the key from the id and the index, or a repeat collides.

Two edge states need explicit handling. A queue that shrinks below the current page leaves the pager past the end — watch the size and scroll to the last index. And with repeat-one on, next/previous do not move, so a settled swipe is dragged straight back: disable scrolling (userScrollEnabled = !isRepeatOne && queue.isNotEmpty()) instead of letting the user fight it.

Verifying it

1. grep -rn --include="*.kt" "isScrollInProgress\|animateScrollToPage\|settledPage\|scrollToPage(" . — the four sync points together. Every animated scroll must sit inside the owned flag's try/finally; an instant scrollToPage snaps, so it emits no intermediate pages — but its one settled destination still reads as a swipe, so bracket it too unless the guards already drop it.
2. grep -rn "^import" $(grep -rl --include="*.kt" "fun computeSeekAction" .) — the decision file must import no UI-toolkit package at all; a domain model and nothing else is the expected listing.
3. grep -rn --include="*.kt" "seekToPrevious()\|seekToPreviousMediaItem()" . — both must exist on the player interface and every adapter, and the backwards branch must reach the media-item one.
4. By hand, in order: swipe forward one page (one advance, no bounce); let a track end on its own (the pager slides, no seek goes back); swipe backwards well past the restart threshold (previous track, not a restart); swipe several pages quickly (one jump, landing where you released); repeat with shuffle on, checking the audible track against the artwork; then turn repeat-one on.