Monday, November 23, 2009

Amarok Podcasting - Progress

Here is what a day off from work can mean for Amarok:


VERSION 2.2.2
FEATURES
* Make it possible to change a podcast channel's URL. (BR 195204)
* Also support feed:// urls for subscribing to podcasts.
* Limiting the number of simultaneous podcast updates and downloads to 4. Can be
configured separately in the rc-file.
* Import podcast subscriptions from OPML.
* Show HTML info for podcast channels that support this. Patches by Mathias Panzenböck.
(BR 193357)
CHANGES:
* Podcast auto-update interval is now configurable in the rc-file. Default is 30
minutes. (BR 212467)
BUGFIXES:
* Made dragging from podcast list to external program work. (BR 212343)


That is 2 branch merges (one from me and one from Mathias) and about 20 commits. Energy that would otherwise be spend commuting and beating an embedded system into shape. I would call that a well spend day off :).

Podcast configuration options
There now 3 hidden configuration options added to amarokrc:

[Podcasts]
AutoUpdate Interval=30
Maximum Simultaneous Downloads=4
Maximum Simultaneous Updates=4


The interval is in minutes and updates also includes adding a new subscription.

OPML import
You can also import subscriptions from an OPML file. And it's pretty fast already.
Proof in the form of a screencast: I'm importing 50 feeds from the Digital Podcast directory.
Uploaded to vimeo, ogg version also downloadable there.



Bart

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Please, please add possibility to transfer downloaded episodes to media devices. Thanks a lot for your work! :)

Johan said...

I agree with Serzh. It's really weird that you can't do that already.

Unknown said...

I'm really missing "Associate With Local File" option in the right click menu. Any chance of that turning up again soon>

Unknown said...

do you also plan to add an export of the podcasts to the opml format? i'd like to have that for backup reasons. or is it possible to create a amarok 2 script that creates the ompl file ?

Stecchino said...

@kickmetoandy:
Yes, we plan to add OPML export as well. Might not be possible before feature freeze next Tuesday though.
If you really need it soon you can indeed implement it in script by using Amarok.Collection.query() for direct access to the 'podcastchannels' table. Look in SqlPodcastProvider.cpp function createTables() for the schema.

Scott Mumford said...

The feature I've been missing *forever* is the ability to display the "extra" or "extended" information for a podcast! It helps me decide if I want to download it or not...

I'll be one happy dude when that returns!

Keep up the good work!

Stecchino said...

@Peter Buldge:
Starting 2.2.2, when downloading an episode, it first checks if that file doesn't already exist. So if you have those files, with the correct filename and in the folder you configured, just try to download them again. They will be associated with the episode again.