Coverflow Carousel

A beautiful, highly customizable 3D coverflow-style carousel for Flutter.

Create immersive experiences with smooth perspective effects, overlapping cards, dynamic scaling, and effortless programmatic navigation.

Perfect for music apps, movie browsers, ecommerce showcases, galleries, portfolios, and modern mobile interfaces.

Features

🎬 Visuals & 3D Perspective	🛠️ Customization & Builders
Smooth 3D Coverflow Design Immersive carousel layout with customizable 3D perspective, skew angles, and depth scaling.	Center Card Overlays Stack play buttons, badges, or details directly on the centered card with distance-linked fade transitions.
Layouts & Infinite Loop Horizontal or vertical scroll directions with properly oriented 3D transforms and seamless circular looping.	Fully Adjustable Spacing Set custom overlap parameters, near/far card spacing, viewport fractions, and visible card counts.
Dynamic Entry Animations Staggered fades, zoom scales, spacing expansions (horizontal fanning), sliding, and physical stacking effects.	Custom Dimensions Support for explicit card width and height constraints.
Depth, Shadows & Blur Real-time drop shadow calculations, customizable elevation, and blur/obscure effects for off-center cards.	Builder-Based API On-demand widget creation optimizes rendering performance for large or infinite datasets.
🎮 Interactions & Input	⚡ Performance & Controller
3D Hover & Tilt Effects Interactive pointer-tracking that tilts cards in 3D space with customizable angles and smooth deceleration.	Synchronous & Stream Controllers Programmatic navigation (`next`, `previous`, `animateTo`) paired with real-time stream/notifier scroll updates.
Mouse Wheel & Trackpad Throttled desktop scroll wheel and trackpad swipe support for smooth page transitions.	Desktop Optimizations Automatic scrollbar suppression and platform-tailored drag/scroll sensitivity controls.
Gestures & Click-to-Focus Active cards support internal gestures naturally, and off-center cards auto-navigate to center when clicked.	Production Ready Optimized performance, fully tested, and zero external widget dependencies.

Preview

Note

This is a demo of an application of this package. You can download the example app from the github repo to test all the features.

Coverflow Carousel Demo 1 Coverflow Carousel Demo 2

Installation

Add the package to your pubspec.yaml.

dependencies:
  coverflow_carousel: ^2.0.1

Run the command in the terminal in your project root

flutter pub add coverflow_carousel

Then run:

flutter pub get

Basic Usage

Important

API Change in v2.0.0: The scrollDirection parameter is now required (compulsory) in the CoverflowCarousel.builder constructor to make layout orientation explicit.

CoverflowCarousel.builder(
    itemCount: 10,
    itemWidth: 250,
    itemHeight: 320,
    scrollDirection: Axis.horizontal,
    itemBuilder: (context, index) {
        return Container(
            decoration: BoxDecoration(
                borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(24),
                color: Colors.blue,
            ),
        );
    },
)

Controller Support

Control the carousel from anywhere in your application.

final controller = CoverflowCarouselController();

CoverflowCarousel.builder(
  controller: controller,
  itemCount: items.length,
  itemWidth: 250,
  itemHeight: 320,
  scrollDirection: Axis.horizontal,
  itemBuilder: (context, index) {
    return MyCard(index: index);
  },
)

controller.next();
controller.previous();
controller.animateTo(5);

Listen to Scroll Progress

You can listen to real-time scroll updates (for custom page indicators, ambient colors, animations, etc.) using streams or value notifiers:

// Notifiers (synchronous value updates)
controller.pageListenable.addListener(() {
  double currentPage = controller.page; // Normalized index in [0, itemCount)
});

controller.rawPageListenable.addListener(() {
  double rawPage = controller.rawPage; // Raw PageController values
});

// Broadcast Streams
controller.pageStream.listen((double normalizedPage) {
  // Triggers on every fractional scroll update
});

controller.rawPageStream.listen((double rawPage) {
  // Triggers on every raw scroll update
});

Make sure to call controller.dispose() when the controller is no longer needed to clean up stream subscriptions.

Tip

Performance Tip: For lightweight, synchronous UI bindings (e.g. customized page indicators), prefer using controller.pageListenable or controller.rawPageListenable to avoid the asynchronous overhead of streams.

Entry Animations

Make the carousel feel organic and alive when it first appears on the screen. Select from staggered fades, zoom scaling, spacing expansions, or horizontal slides.

CoverflowCarousel.builder(
  itemCount: items.length,
  itemWidth: 250,
  itemHeight: 320,
  scrollDirection: Axis.horizontal,
  entryAnimation: CoverflowEntryAnimation.stack, // Physical stacking effect fanning center-out!
  entryAnimationDuration: const Duration(milliseconds: 1000),
  entryAnimationCurve: Curves.easeOutCubic,
  itemBuilder: (context, index) {
    return MyCard(index: index);
  },
)

Available Animation Types:

CoverflowEntryAnimation.none (Default): Instantly mounts without animation.
CoverflowEntryAnimation.fadeIn: Staggered opacity fade-in from the center outward.
CoverflowEntryAnimation.scaleUp: Staggered zoom scale-up from the center outward.
CoverflowEntryAnimation.spacingExpand: Cards fan out horizontally from a center stack.
CoverflowEntryAnimation.staggeredSlide: Staggered slides in from left/right/top.
CoverflowEntryAnimation.fadeScale: Smooth staggered zoom and fade combined.
CoverflowEntryAnimation.stack: Physical stacking effect where cards scale down from the front fanning center-to-outside.

Center Card Overlay

Stack custom widgets (like play buttons, badges, overlays) directly on the active centered card. Overlays automatically fade out smoothly as the card moves away from the center.

CoverflowCarousel.builder(
  itemCount: items.length,
  itemWidth: 250,
  itemHeight: 320,
  scrollDirection: Axis.horizontal,
  centerOverlayBuilder: (context, index) {
    return Positioned(
      bottom: 20,
      right: 20,
      child: FloatingActionButton(
        onPressed: () => print("Playing $index"),
        child: Icon(Icons.play_arrow),
      ),
    );
  },
  itemBuilder: (context, index) => MyCard(index: index),
)

3D Hover/Tilt Effect

Bring your carousel to life on web and desktop. The focused card tilts in 3D space tracking the user's mouse movements. When the mouse leaves, the card smoothly decelerates back to center.

Configure tilt support with:

enableHoverTilt: Whether to enable 3D hover/tilt effects on the center card (defaults to true).
maxHoverTiltAngle: The maximum rotation angle in radians (defaults to 0.15, approximately 8.5 degrees).

Support scroll wheel and trackpad swipe movements to change pages. Navigation requests are automatically throttled relative to the transition animation duration to guarantee smooth transitions.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
itemCount	int	Number of carousel items
itemBuilder	IndexedWidgetBuilder	Builds each carousel item
itemWidth	double	Width of the focused card
itemHeight	double	Height of the focused card
scrollDirection	Axis	Scroll direction (compulsory: `Axis.horizontal` or `Axis.vertical`)
visibleItems	int	Number of visible cards on each side of focused item (default: `3`)
initialPage	int	Initial focused page index (default: `0`)
nearCardSpacing	double	Spacing for adjacent cards (default: `45`)
farCardSpacing	double	Spacing for distant cards (default: `50`)
skewAngle	double	Card rotation angle (default: `-0.35` for coverflow, `0.0` for classic)
perspective	double	3D perspective intensity (default: `0.0025`)
obscure	double	Blur intensity for side cards (default: `0`)
controller	CoverflowCarouselController?	External carousel controller
animationDuration	Duration	Navigation animation duration (default: `350ms`)
animationCurve	Curve	Navigation animation curve (default: `Curves.easeOutCubic`)
viewportFraction	double	PageView swipe sensitivity and width ratio (default: `0.25`)
isInfinite	bool	Enable circular scrolling loop (default: `false`)
entryAnimation	CoverflowEntryAnimation	Entrance animation type (default: `.none`)
entryAnimationDuration	Duration	Entrance animation duration (default: `600ms`)
entryAnimationCurve	Curve	Entrance animation curve (default: `Curves.easeOutCubic`)
centerOverlayBuilder	Widget Function(BuildContext, int)?	Builder for overlays stacked on the active centered card (default: `null`)
enableHoverTilt	bool	Enable 3D hover/tilt effects on the active centered card (default: `true`)
maxHoverTiltAngle	double	Maximum tilt angle in radians applied during mouse hover (default: `0.15`)
height	double?	Custom height constraint of the carousel container
width	double?	Custom width constraint of the carousel container
autoplay	bool	Enable auto-advancing of cards (default: `false`)
autoplayInterval	Duration	Delay between autoplay advances (default: `3s`)
autoplayPauseOnHover	bool	Pause autoplay when hovered by mouse (default: `true`)
enableShadow	bool	Enable drop shadows on cards (default: `true`)
elevation	double	Shadow elevation depth (default: `8.0`)
shadowColor	Color	Color of the drop shadows (default: `Colors.black`)
cardBorderRadius	BorderRadius	Border radius of the cards to clip shadow paths (default: `24.0`)

🎯 Perfect For

🎵 Music & Audio Apps: Album art browsers, playlist selections, and artist discographies.
🎬 Streaming & Media: Movie posters, video selections, and channel guides.
🛍️ E-Commerce: Product showcases, style catalogs, and featured collections.
📸 Galleries & Portfolios: Photography displays, creative portfolios, and image browsers.
✈️ Travel Apps: Destination highlights, hotel galleries, and trip planners.
🎮 Gaming Interfaces: Character selection screens, level selectors, and item shops.
📱 Modern Mobile UI: High-impact onboardings, splash displays, and feature lists.

💎 Why Coverflow Carousel?

Unlike traditional flat carousels, this package is designed to create a premium, dimensional user experience:

True 3D Perspective: Utilizes projection matrices to skew and scale cards dynamically based on scroll distance.
Depth Overlap Layouts: Overlap cards elegantly to fit more content visually while maintaining focus on the center card.
Liquid Transitions: Seamless card scaling, blur offsets, drop shadows, and overlay fades animate dynamically as you scroll.
Zero Dependencies: Built entirely on top of the native Flutter SDK to guarantee performance, stability, and future compatibility.

🤝 Contributing & Support

We welcome contributions, bug reports, and suggestions to make Coverflow Carousel even better!

🐛 Found a Bug? Please open an issue on our GitHub Issues page and include your Flutter version, package version, steps to reproduce, and any relevant logs or screenshots.

💡 Have a Feature Request? We'd love to hear your ideas! Open an issue describing your use case and proposed solution.

🛠️ Want to Contribute? Pull requests are highly appreciated. Before submitting, please ensure your code follows Dart guidelines, all tests pass (flutter test), and static analysis is clean (flutter analyze).

Thank you for using Coverflow Carousel!