The real site, inside the frame: scroll it to explore.
Vinyle Stack files a playlist the way you file vinyl: a line of sleeves packed edge to edge along a single path, seen three-quarters on. The cursor pulls one out, the wheel scrolls the line endlessly, a click plays thirty seconds. How the crate is sorted changes with one key: playlist order, sleeve colour, artist, year.
- 01
A parametric queue, an endless scroll
Every case sits on a path parameterised by arc length: its slot times the step, plus the scroll, modulo the loop length. One case per album, so the first comes back after the last with no duplicate and no gap, and both ends of the path fall out of frame. Scrolling only translates the queue: the step stays at 34 px at rest and at full speed alike.
- 02
The cursor is projected onto the line, and the segment is re-read
No per-element hover, which flickers on overlapping cases: the cursor is projected onto the stack, and the whole segment travelled since the previous frame is re-read, sampled every 7 px. Measured on a full-speed sweep: 37 covers lifted out of 37, against 13 out of 37 before, for 0.17 ms a frame on a 16.7 ms budget.
- 03
A spring, not an easing
A case coming out is a damped oscillator: 0.28 s to reach 90 %, 6.4 % overshoot on the way out and back, settled in 0.78 s. Its neighbours follow by 10 % then 5 %, sideways, without ever touching the spacing of the queue.
- 04
The colour is read off the sleeve
No API gives an album's dominant hue: it is computed in the browser by a weighted vote over 36 hue sectors, with greys, blacks and whites discarded. That is what makes sorting by colour possible, and it depends on no one.
- 05
Frozen data, refreshed previews
A Node script freezes the Deezer playlist before publication: one case per album, 500 x 500 artwork, the 50-requests-per-5-seconds cap respected. The preview URLs, however, are signed and expire in a quarter of an hour: they are requested again at playback time through a ten-line relay, with a JSONP fallback if the site is served without one.
- 06
On touch, the mechanism changes hands
With no hover the whole device would fall flat, so the stack switches to centre mode, where the sleeve nearest the middle is permanently out. A gesture under 10 px counts as a tap, otherwise every drag would start a preview, and below 640 px the stack scales to 70 %.
Do I need an account to listen?
No. The thirty-second previews are public: no account, no sign-in, no subscription.
Can the playlist be changed?
Yes, with one command: the studio freezes another Deezer playlist, downloads the sleeves, and the site runs on it. Nothing else to touch.
Why are some albums silent?
Preview availability depends on territory. Those albums keep their place and their sleeve in the crate; only the caption says the preview cannot be played here.
Is the preview on this page the real site?
Yes, it is the site itself, rendered live. In the catalogue tile it is shown without its text and runs on its own: the line scrolls and each sleeve slides out as it passes.
Hors saison
