IcePodder

I haven’t had as much time to work on the project as I’d like, but packaging is still my highest priority. I have an OS X application bundle that builds and runs, but there are too many quirks for it to be ready for release. I don’t really want to hold up Linux packages in the name of supporting OS X as well, so I’ll push out .deb and .rpm as soon as I can, with OS X following with release candidates. I have my development box up and running again, so I’ll be able to run out of the box tests with the major distros we support. Thanks to the rest of the Icepodder team for constant bugfixes, and check out this post if you need PCLinuxOS or Mandriva packages.

Keep submitting feedback and bug reports if you have them (just make sure you’re running from the SVN!) Thanks everyone!

Or: I should probably make some kind of roadmap.

My thoughts on what Icepodder should be, and what it can reasonably be expected to do have changed quite a bit since I first started this project.  BitTorrent functionality was one of my first priorities when I took this project, and I failed in doing that because I was unfamiliar with the code base, and the legacy code from ipodder.  Then, iPod syncing became a focus, which I implemented hackishly via post-download scripts, which current functionality allows, but that’s not really an elegant solution.

One common thread unites the two, however: the more feature specific Icepodder is, the more code there is to update and fix when things change or break.  The bittorrent libraries included in the initial CastPodder import were outdated when Icepodder was first released, and they’ve been updated again since then.  I went from using an iPod shuffle to one of the newer Nanos, to an older Nano, and now an iPod Classic, all of which have different utilities that require syncing.  New nano syncing hadn’t been implemented when I was first looking at Gnupod, and even though it was quickly added, I just don’t have the time or resources to incorporate the latest changes from those projects into Icepodder.

Moreover, a lot of you probably have an app you already use for syncing (Amarok, iTunes, bash scripts), and a feature-filled BitTorrent client that lets you use whatever listening ports and filtering sidestepping and smart bandwidth throttling you need, so half-implementing BitTorrent downloads through Icepodder doesn’t seem like a good deal for anyone.

What I propose is making Icepodder better integrate with external applications by fixing any play functionality that’s broken, and expanding it so that it will work with video and document podcasts rather than just mp3.  Similarly, adding connections to BitTorrent apps on OS X and Linux will also be a priority.  Here are the features I’m looking to add personally, in order of importance:

• iTunes player support in OS X.  This should be easy, because the code should already exist in Juice.
• Better player functionality for playing video and other non-audio podcasts.
• Automatic sending of torrent podcasts to the user’s preferred bittorrent client

I’m currently working on some patches to eyeD3, which will allow tagging of mp3s as podcasts for the newer versions of iTunes (so podcasts show up in the podcasts section of iTunes and iPods), but after that, I’ll turn my attention to these changes.  As always, any volunteers of help on these or other features you’d like to see would be greatly appreciated.  And if you can’t code, you can still help us out by running the latest SVN checkout on your box, and report any problems you find via the “Contribute” link at the top.

I’m in the process of drawing together a new development system for Linux, but until then, packaging is unfortunately on the back burner. I’m not without any good news, though, because thanks to the recently contributed wxGTK fixes, Icepodder works on OS X! This should come as no surprise, since iPodder/Juice worked fine on the platform. Just grab the wx libraries for OS X, and that should be that.  First on my list of things to work on will be backporting the iTunes player code from Juice, and getting py2app working so Icepodder can be launched like any other OS X .app. I do have an Ubuntu dev system, but it’s on PPC, so I won’t be able to do the Fedora/SuSE/etc. virtualization testing I wanted, but I consider a .app and .deb the bare minimum for releases. Since Icepodder is far more compatible and stable than it was, I’m interested in moving to more normal releases instead of having everything revolve around the latest SVN. If any of you have specific recommendations about how you use Icepodder, or how you’d like it packaged/installed, leave a comment.

Screenshots of Icepodder on OS X:

Still no packages, but there will be an Icepodder package for OS X very soon thanks to py2app.  The Linux build scripts are also in progress.  In the meantime, both Linux and OS X users should just pull from the Subversion repository as described on the download page.

There are also some fixes in SVN so Icepodder should now work for everyone having wxGTK 2.8 problems, and a bug regarding playing episodes should be fixed as well.

I know the last update was a while ago, and I said automated packaging (and hopefully nightly builds) were going to be a priority, and they still are. The only thing I have to show for my procrastination is a bunch of virtual test systems courtesy of VirtualBox, a really cool open source virtualization tool. I have virtual machines for several major distros, and these will be the ones that Icepodder gets tested against regularly:

• Ubuntu 7.10
• Gentoo
• Opensuse 10.3
• Fedora Core 7
• Mandriva 2008

Between a .deb, and .rpm and an ebuild, I think the major distros should be covered.

I’ve had some offers of help recently, and I’d like to thank everyone who’s testing and has submitted patches. There’s still plenty to do, so if you have some time you’d like to put towards making Icepodder better, just drop me a line. In particular, I’d like someone who could help set up a few test cases, and someone to help fix some bugs.

Hey everyone, it’s been a while since I last updated, but don’t take that to mean no progress has been made. I effected some more name and icon changes, and some bugs have been fixed. Most notably, the configuration directory for Icepodder is now .icepodder rather than iPodderData. Anyone who’s running the latest from Subversion should update and make sure it works for them. Just do a “cp -r ~/iPodderData/* ~/.icepodder/” to transfer all your settings. I tested it briefly with a fresh feed list, as well as copying the contents of the old iPodderData to it, and it seemed to work fine, but contact me immediately if it doesn’t.

Here’s what I need from you guys:

1. Help working on bugs or code cleanups
2. People with simple scripting experience to automate some of the common tasks with packaging
3. Someone to help maintain the Gentoo ebuild

If you’re not too familiar with Python, don’t worry, a lot of the bugs and cleanups are bite-sized and a great place to start. If any of you are acquainted with creating ebuilds or debian packages, your assistance would also be appreciated. A lot of people expressed interest in helping out, but so far only a handful have volunteered for anything specific. If you have some time to spend working to make Icepodder better for everyone, please contact me at admin@icepodder.com. This is very much a project where we’re all learning, so don’t hesitate because you don’t think you have the skills or experience; I know I can find something for you to help with. Thanks!

edit: changed contact email

Icepodder’s official site is now http://www.icepodder.com and I’ve finished moving over everything I think I’ll need.  Some download links were broken, but they should be fixed now.  Thanks for your feedback, and please post to the forums or bugzilla if you have specific issues.

This change has been a long time coming, but I added it to the Subversion a few days ago.  Now, instead of a picklist with a few media players in it (XMMS, etc.), there’s a place where you can enter the path to your media player of choice (for example, “/usr/bin/amarok”).

There’s now a rudimentary uninstall script in the SVN.  I’ve tested it and it seems to work at deleting the icepodder install directory and removing the symlinks.  Coming shortly will be automatic entry into the menus for KDE and Gnome, along with an icon.

For anyone who wants to contribute, please just leave a comment or email me with your sourceforge username so I can give you commit access to the code.  If you don’t want to go that far, but still have features or cool things you want to share, please add them on sourceforge via the “Contribute” link at the top.  Any user can add Features or Bugs, as well as post patches and code to those entries.  Also, please only post features or tweaks there if you’ve implemented them, or are planning on doing so, feature requests should still go in the forums.  I wanted to make sure everyone knew the page wasn’t just for bugs!  Sorry if this caused any confusion.