Podcatcher FS plugin

[ctiberg]

Hello!

I've been using Juice for receiving podcasts, but I'm increasingly unhappy with it. I've been pondering the prospect of rolling my own, but that's quite a bit of work what with the UI and all. So I'm seriously considering making it into an FS plugin for Total Commander. My question is this - is there anyone out there listening to podcasts and with an interest to try this plugin out if I do it?

The layout would be something like:

PodcastsFS (root)
- New episodes (with spaces before, so it appears first)
- Adam Currys Daily Source Code (a show)
- DSC 321.mp3 (a file)
- Another episode.mp3 (also a file, repeated as needed)
- Geek News Central (another show)
- Any new episodes for this show (also as files)
- Other shows (as directories) with episodes (as files)
- Adam Currys Daily Source Code (a show)
- DSC 321.mp3 (a file)
- All other episodes for this show (as files)
- Geek News Central (another show)
- Any new episodes for this show (also as files)
- Other shows, as needed, with all their episodes as files

[ctiberg]

The forum mangled my post - You'll have to think the last part into a tree with branches, not the distorted thing that came through

[djorge]

I am not a podcast user yet, but the podcasts community seem to be growing everyday. I think it will be a great addition to the FS library of TC.

[djk]

Yes, maybe it will be a reson for using podcasts.
Let's wait for any beta version.

[sybariten]

I laugh hysterically at "blogs", and i hate macintosh. Can someone please try and convince me that the idea behind podcasts is clever.

[jdmarch]

Christian, I would definitely test it and use it. I think it's a natural as a FS plugin.

> please convince me that the idea behind podcasts is clever.

Sybariten, there are several radio shows which I listen to regularly, which are now available as podcast, basically just an MP3 download, which is convenient because I can listen on my own schedule. From my perspective, the only advantage of the podcasting standard over just downloading the MP3 from the web is that it reduces the number of steps required, and that there's a quickly available summary of the content.

Jonathan

[ctiberg]

Sadly, I have more or less scrapped the idea. I began to do this, but then realized that I want a podcatcher to sit in the background and download, just like Juice (which I use now). This is of course not fitting for a FS plugin.

The advantage to using a podcatcher rather than downloading mp3's yourself is twofold:
1) It can do its thing during the day, and you have a bunch to listen to in the end
2) It never forgets to check a feed for downloads, which you would if you had some 40+ to check

I might go ahead with this as an application at some point, but I'm not sure - it's a nontrivial task, to be sure... Especially since I want torrent support in there, and I can't find Delphi code for that part...

[jdmarch]

Ah well, pity. Juice is not reliable for me. Often I need to quit and restart before it will begin to download a new episode, even when Juice knows it's there. And it's got a very big footprint. And I've always got TC open anyway.

Anyway, it was an appealing idea. About "sit in the background and download"... are you sure that a TC background thread could not do this?

[ctiberg]

I'm not entirely sure about the background thing, but 95%. Plugins do their work when told to by TC, not on their own...
Showing messages and/or progress would be fairly strange whjen you weren't even in the FS plugin...

Any input on this from the author would be immensely helpful!

[jdmarch]

TC's background transfer manager handles messages and progress quite nicely, I think, and what would this be if not background transfer?

[ctiberg]

Well, I went with writing a separate program in the end - http://podbreeze.wordpress.com for a beta version.