AmiPodder Version 1.7

A Podcast Receiver for AmigaOS and Compatibles
By Robert Williams

AmiPodder is Freeware, you use it at your own risk.

AmiPodder's main window.

Introduction

AmiPodder is a utility that enables you to download podcasts to your Amiga. Once a podcast has been downloaded AmiPodder can play it using player utility on your Amiga and, optionally, copy it onto a portable music and/or video player for listening or viewing anywhere.

So, What is a Podcast?

A podcast is a series of audio or video programmes published on the Internet in a specific way (for the technically minded, using an RSS feed with enclosures) enabling viewers and listeners to automatically receive new episodes when they are published.

In practice this means you can subscribe to a podcast by entering its feed address into a podcast client like AmiPodder and then receive new episodes of that podcast as they are published. Subscribing to a podcast is almost always free and you can unsubscribe easily whenever you like.

Once you've found a few podcasts you enjoy, AmiPodder will always have something new and interesting for you to listen to or view.

Find out more about podcasting at:

 

NOTE: AmiPodder is not a way to connect an Apple iPod® music player to your Amiga. AmiPodder's sync function only works with music players that can play music copied on to their internal storage using Workbench.

Features

With AmiPodder, subscribing and listening to podcasts on your Amiga is easy. Just paste in the address of a podcast feed and AmiPodder will list all the available episodes. Choose when ones you want to download and then listen to them in your favourite music player (like AmigaAmp or TuneNet). If you want it to, AmiPodder can check your feeds regularly for new podcasts and download them so there's always something new to listen to or watch! Here are some of AmiPodder's main features:

History

1.7 - 15/09/2007
Enhancements
ADDED: Support for podcast feeds and episode downloads that require authentication.
ADDED: Support for Amplifier as a player (requested by Jeff Kavelaars).
CHANGE: Built-in HTTP sniffer now uses the filename suggested in the Content-disposition http header.
CHANGE: AmiPodder now specifies the filename WGet should use when downloading (suggested by Chris Young).
CHANGE: Now checks MUI and the required custom classes (MCCs) are installed.
Bug fixes
FIXED: missing localisation of Refresh button in File Management pane.
FIXED: Localisation changed so that adding new strings should not invalidate existing catalogs (suggested by Samir Hawamdeh).
FIXED: Fixed requirements checking which got broken in version 1.6.
FIXED: an error when the selection size display was enabled on MorphOS (reported by Jarle Eidet).

1.6 - 24/06/2007
User interface enhancements
ADDED: Icons in the channel list to show a channel's status (smart, active or inactive).
ADDED: The new "Manage files" smart channel which allows you to search for podcasts over a certain age and choose to delete some or all of them.
ADDED: Double clicking on an item now starts to play it (suggested by Mick Sutton).
ADDED: A download option when playing a podcast that is not available.
ADDED: Localisation support, thanks to Bernd Gollesch for his assistance with optimising my implementation.
CHANGE: The status of each item is now represented by an icon.
CHANGE: The main window now opens more quickly and a progress bar is shown while the channels load.
CHANGE: AmiPodder now automatically checks for completed downloads when the "Downloaded" smart channel is selected.
CHANGE: The main window is now refreshed while files are synced.
CHANGE: The Items list should now scroll to show selection after it is refreshed.
CHANGE: The busy pointer is now displayed during save channels and check downloads operations.
CHANGE: The "Downloaded" smart channel now shows items of downloaded and played status.
Other improvements
ADDED: Support for downloading and sniffing RSS feeds using http-handler if available (thanks to Chris Young).
CHANGE: Podcasts are now recognised as downloaded if they are up to 100KB smaller than expected.
CHANGE: The RSS parser is now a little faster (roughly 5-10%).
Bug fixes
FIXED: The URL could be lost while sniffing leading to 404 error messages.
FIXED: "Editing Items" remained in the status bar after the window was canceled.
FIXED: The download file name was not truncated if the download URL was redirected.
FIXED: Redirected file names were not decoded (e.gl. %hh entities were not removed).
FIXED: Filenames containing brackets "()" or other AmigaDOS wildcard characters were not being synced.
FIXED: "" problems which occured with newer versions of SFS (reported by Chris Young).
FIXED: The option "Remove old entries..." might not be obeyed depending on how the list was refreshed (reported by deakmann).
FIXED: Smart channels did not refresh properly after changing the status of an item.
FIXED: The video sync directory was checked even if sync video podcasts was not selected.
FIXED: A length limitation in the Add Channel URL field.
FIXED: Broken video syncing once and for all (hopefully!)
FIXED: A bug where the selection was not retained after downloading selected items.
FIXED: a fatal error when a podcast file had a very long file extension.

1.5 - 19/08/2006
User interface enhancements
ADDED: Groups to the channels list (suggested by Paul Mellor).
ADDED: Progress bar for update channels and syncing.
ADDED: "Add Channel" window, you can now add a new channel into a group in one operation.
ADDED: The ability to change the status of multiple selected episodes using the "Edit" button.
CHANGE: Newly added channels are now called "-New Channel-" rather than "Update channel to get name." seeing as you don't need to any more.
ADDED: Busy pointer when removing a channel and selecting a new channel.
CHANGE: Selected items are now retained after a download operation.
ADDED: The path and filename are displayed in the message when you try to play a podcast that does not exist.
CHANGE: Moved "download video podcasts automatically" option to the "Automation" page in prefs.
Podcast compatibility enhancements
ADDED: Support for & and other entities in URLs (reported by Shane Ward).
ADDED: Support for Filenames/URLs containing character entities (%20 etc.). (reported by R-TEAM).
ADDED: Support for enclosure URLs that redirect to a different filename.
CHANGE: AmiPodder now recognises x-audio and x-video MIME types.
Other improvements
ADDED: HTTP proxy server support for RSS download (requested by Thomas Wiard).
Bug fixes
FIXED: A fatal error that occured when an HTTPS feed was added. Note: AmiPodder does not currently support channels with an HTTPS URL but at least it doesn't crash now!
FIXED: The "Sync video podcasts" preferences option which had never been implemented!
FIXED: Various bugs which caused fatal errors when working with items without a / in the mime type field.
FIXED: a problem with downloading using Charon when the URL contained an "=" sign.
FIXED: Error window status when it is opened due to an error.
FIXED: "LF" appearing instead of a line feed in some error requesters.

1.4 - 09/12/2005
CHANGE: Multiple item list selections are now retained after a check downloads operation.
ADDED: Update channels and download new items menu option.
CHANGE: Removed the Exit toolbar button as it was superfluous, either close the AmiPodder window or select Project/Quit instead.
ADDED: Added an editable MIME type field to the Edit Item window (useful for videocasts with the wrong MIME type).
CHANGE: Modified readonly string gadgets in the Edit Item window to the correct border (you can stil copy (RAmiga+C) from them).
CHANGE: References to "enclosure" in the interface now refer to "item" which hopefully will make things a bit clearer for beginners.
ADDED: Option to prompt for the sync directory (requested by Paul Mellor).
CHANGE: Adding a channel now automatically does an update, removing the "click update" step from the add process.
CHANGE: Updating a single channel now always downloads and processes the RSS even if the last-updated dates match.
ADDED: New status of "Played".
ADDED: File name length limitation.
ADDED: Video support:
CHANGE: Now only tries to download and sync audio/ or video/ MIME types.
ADDED: Video player option.
ADDED: Separate path for video syncing.
ADDED: Option not to download or sync video files.
FIXED: Extended the string gadgets in the status window to cope with long URLs and file names.
FIXED: Resolved a problem where spaces at the start of a URL caused an error on update.
FIXED: The formatting of the error log so lines are properly separated.
FIXED: bug where closing the Edit item window with the close gadget did not clear the busy pointer on the main window.

1.3 - 11/10/2005
ADDED: Multi-selection to the items list, currently downloads and sync supported (requested by Paul Mellor).
ADDED: Drag-sorting of the channel list.
ADDED: Total size of the current selection is now (optionally) displayed in the status bar.
ADDED: The available space on the volume containing the sync directory is displayed in the status bar while items are selected.
ADDED: Behind the status bar is a fuel gauge which shows graphically how much of the freespace on your player will be filled by the selected songs.
ADDED: "Errors" window for errors during long and automatic operations.
ADDED: Support for AmiNetRadio as a player (requested by Stefan Blixth).
ADDED: Support for Delitracker II as a player (requested by Mikko Koivunalho).
CHANGE: File sizes are now displayed in byte, megabyte, gigabyte notation to make them easier to read.
CHANGE: Removed menus from windows that should not have them.
FIXED: a bug where a bogus error description could be shown in the error log.
FIXED: a bug where the item list was not cleared after a channel had been removed.

1.2 - 27/08/2005
CHANGE: Now only downloads and processes RSS if Last-Modified HTTP header date is newer.

1.1 - 13/08/2005
ADDED: Installer.
ADDED: File and toolbar icons from Ken "Ken's Icons" Lester Jr.
ADDED: "Smart" channels for "Last Update", "New", "Queued" and "Downloaded" podcasts.
ADDED: Graphical toolbar using TheBar.mcc.
ADDED: Preferences to change toolbar options.
ADDED: full menus.
ADDED: Tabbed pages to the preferences window.
ADDED: Improved BitTorrent support:
ADDED: After the torrent file has been downloaded, AmiPodder now shows the proper file size.
ADDED: The completed download check now works properly for Torrent files.
ADDED: The amount downloaded is properly shown in the status requester.
ADDED: Refreshes during update and check downloads routines.
ADDED: Option to uniconify IBrowse before starting a download (Requested by Sam Byford).
ADDED: A new option allows you to set AmiPodder to save status automatically after download, check downloads, update and sync operations (Requested by Sam Byford).
ADDED: URL to TCP error messages for easier trouble shooting.
ADDED: Disk file details to the status window.
ADDED: Error trap which shows a requester for "unexpected" errors.
CHANGE: New list update method to reduce refreshes.
CHANGE: Now properly follows moved URLs (common on feedburner feeds).
CHANGE: Reduced refreshes when changing item status and updating channels.
CHANGE: Download check now assumes a download is complete if it is any amount larger than the expected size.
CHANGE: Bittorrent file size is now rounded.
CHANGE: The download button is now available for queued podcasts to enable easier resume.
CHANGE: AmiPodder now runs WGet with the -c option to support resuming incomplete downloads (suggested by Paul Mellor).
CHANGE: Internal index column is no longer shown for moment when the GUI opens.
CHANGE: Now requires version 40 of rxMUI. (reported by "Kneedeep")
CHANGE: Modified duplicate item check so it now works on the filename rather than the title.
FIXED: Maximum length of the channel URL in the edit channel to 256 characters (reported by Paul Mellor)
FIXED: A bug where downloaded podcasts could be reset to queued.
FIXED: A bug where opening prefs caused an error when an old prefs file was installed (reported by Paul Mellor).
FIXED: A bug where the busy pointer wasn't cleared if a sync failed.
FIXED: A bug were enclosures with empty attribute values caused the parser to barf.
FIXED: TCP/IP error message title.

1.0a - 12/06/2005
FIXED: A limitation on the length of feed URLs in the add window.

1.0 - 09/06/2005
CHANGE: Removed commented code sections and debug messaged for release.
CHANGE: Tidied up menus, added keyboard short cuts and renamed Feed menu to Channel.