Floating controls for audio player

Question

Is there any way, or any audio player software that has the feature, to play/pause an audio file without opening the player app, e.g. via a floating button (like softkey) or a hard button? I am learning to speak a language. The text is in a PDF file, the audio is in MP3 files. I need to read the PDF (in Adobe reader, ezPDF, etc) while playing the audio, and need to play/pause the audio without having to close the PDF viewer, open the player, then go back.

I'm using a tablet. Its headset doesn't have any button (play/pause, volume control). The tablet only has 2 volume buttons, 1 home button, and 1 power/sleep button.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The (Samsung modified) default Music Player app on the Galaxy S puts the player controls in the Notification Shade (the pull-down part of the Notification bar) while the Music Player is playing in the background. This lets you Play, Pause, Next Track, Previous Track while you're in another app. Doesn't the default Android player do this?

Screenshot of the player controls with the notification bar pulled down:

Answer 2

Root only solution: You can use an app called ButtonRemapper to remap any of your buttons to a number of functions. I used this to remap my camera button to be a Play/Pause button (but when I was in the camera app it still took pictures). Unfortunately you have to have a rooted device to use this.

Answer 3

I used the remapper app to play and pause my kindle books. We can also customise the volume buttons to only do this when using a specofoc app. My volume button now only pauses the kindle books, but works normally when using other apps. So happy..!!

Here is the link to the google playstore app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sumyapplications.button.remapper