Leanback Tweaks for a Better Android TV Experience
Introduction
If you’ve ever used apps like Netflix or Prime Video on Android TV, you’ve probably noticed how smooth and professional they feel. Navigation is effortless, focus never feels random, and the UI gently guides your attention without you realising it.
You don’t need a massive engineering team to get that level of polish. With a few smart tweaks to the Leanback library, you can deliver the same kind of premium experience.
In this post, we’ll walk through three simple Leanback customisations
- Rail Fade Effect – Rails above the focused row fade out when scrolling stops
- Infinite Rail Scrolling – Content loops endlessly without hitting the end
- Fixed Focus Position – Focus always stays at the same spot on the screen
Before going deep into implementation, let’s first look at a diagram to understand what we’re trying to achieve:
Diagram-The fixed focus star (★) stays pinned at 40% of the screen
Rail Fade Effect
What It Does
When scrolling stops, all rails above the current row fade to 0% opacity. This subtly shifts attention to the active row while still keeping context.
Why It Works
- Uses RecyclerView.OnScrollListener to detect when scrolling stops
- Animates only visible rows with ViewPropertyAnimator (GPU-accelerated, smooth, and memory-efficient)
Implementation
Rail Fade Effect
Fixed Focus Position (Consistent Navigation)
What It Does
Keeps focus locked at 40% from the top of the screen. Instead of bouncing around, the viewport scrolls while focus stays fixed.
Why It Works
- Leverages Leanback’s window alignment properties
- Focus always appears at a predictable position → feels more professional
- Works consistently across both vertical and horizontal rails
Implementation
Consistent Navigation
Infinite Rail Scrolling (Endless Content Loop)
What It Does
Rails loop endlessly. When users hit the last item, it seamlessly continues from the first
Why It Works
- Uses modular arithmetic (%) to wrap indices around
- RecyclerView only binds visible items → memory stays constant
- Works with Leanback’s ObjectAdapter out of the box
Implementation
Endless Content Loop
Let’s take 5 items in the real adapter for a clearer example.
realAdapter = [“A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, “E”]
realAdapter.size() = 5
We map the big index back into our 5 items:
get(0) -> realAdapter[0 % 5] = “A”
get(1) -> realAdapter[1 % 5] = “B”
get(2) -> realAdapter[2 % 5] = “C”
get(3) -> realAdapter[3 % 5] = “D”
get(4) -> realAdapter[4 % 5] = “E”
get(5) -> realAdapter[5 % 5] = “A”
get(6) -> realAdapter[6 % 5] = “B”
get(7) -> realAdapter[7 % 5] = “C”
get(8) -> realAdapter[8 % 5] = “D”
get(9) -> realAdapter[9 % 5] = “E”
…
So the user sees:
A → B → C → D → E → A → B → C → D → E → A → …
Conclusion
With just three tweaks—fading inactive rails, fixing the focus position, and adding infinite scroll—you can turn a basic TV app into a smooth, premium TV experience. Start with the fade effect, then layer on the rest as needed to achieve a polished, production-ready feel.
