gPodder feedback

[Keeper-of-the-Keys]

Welcome back

1. No
2. No, though I have also considered adding such a feature.
3. Due to the inconsistent way that speedup works that would not work.

Both 2 and 3 would likely not work in 100% of cases due to the MediaPlayer internals.

[sunburnedpenguin]

Thanks for the quick reply, and it’s awesome you’re still maintaining it.

[vishcompany]

Hello, thanks for gpodder, I like it a lot. Import of my Antennapod database worked without a hitch.

I did read this thread, maybe I still missed the info, plus I am a newcomer;

My question: Where / how can I view / edit the queue?

I can add items to the queue, it also does work (play the items) and I can clear the whole queue, but am I missing anything here?

[ljo]

If you put items in the queue you can swipe from right to get to player where the queue items are available inbetween playback speed and shownotes. You can select to play now and long press for removal. Other editing, like re-order or persist, is not available.

[vishcompany]

Thanks for the hint.

I did spot the ‘Queue’ word next to the player, but thought I could tap on it to open a queue list. Well, it was right there and I did not realize / recognize it.

Another question: While I do appreciate the integration of ambience into the UI - it does look beautiful - I find it difficult to read the titles in some environments. Is the a possibility fo switch to a simple UI with a solid background and contrasting font colour?

For now I switch to Kamoos black which comes close to that, but it would be nice to be able to set background / font independently of the current ambience.

[lpr]

for the speedup issue it would be great to have a grip-like approach:

make the use of internal MediaPlayer (qtmultimedia)optional in your settings and allow to call an external player with customizable (in gpodder settings) command-line options like:

ffplay -af “atempo=1.5” %url

or (no pause/resume/seek possible)

gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=test.ogg ! decodebin ! audioconvert ! speed speed=1.5 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! autoaudiosink

or (pause/resume/seek/equalizer possible)

mpg123 --pitch 0.5 %url

or if gstsdlplay | OpenRepos.net — Community Repository System is installed

python3 /usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/gstsdlplay/gstsdlplay.py %url

[ohnonot]

@lpr

ffplay -af “atempo=1.5” %url

This would allow for different methods of slowing down (yes, I often slow down, not speed up) that sound better than the default.

But the default works well enough and I would prefer @Keeper-of-the-Keys to focus their no doubt limited time on more essential things!

[n900n]

@Keeper-of-the-Keys

Due to the way the sandbox works when migrating from inside the sandbox everything gets copied instead of simply renamed this means that if you have a large collection you could run into space issues and regardless of the size you have a potentially large amount of unneeded writes to your phones storage happening shortening its’ life.

Not sure what migration is all about.
But I appreciate your forward thinking that my XA2 Ultra with 16GB may potential be prematurely terminated due to migration of my SD Card with 388GB, over 72 podcasts
Startup time 5 minutes (at least it gets there)

Recently though I moved to Podcini X & A.

Main reason
-Structured and sensible naming of downloaded podcasts! (like Downcast on Apple)

Secondary reasons to stick around on Podcini:

Quick resume after crash on exact listening spot
Keeping of the queue after crash / restart
Multiple queues and playlist driven refresh
Plenty of flexible option (one may say too many but we can handle it)
Options aside if far away from perfect (Android, crappy interface and Sailfish integration)

@Keeper-of-the-Keys

Wow that is impressive, most of my episodes are not downloaded.

Reading that sounds as if there is a possible miscommunication with the gPodder user/audience base..

Being pushed into everything streaming means we are now nearing the point where everything offline will soon catch up for self explanatory reasons.

Some of the better Podcast applications already know how to structure and name the downloads nicely for archival reasons to external media (not SD card on phone).

It involves focus on hard drive folder structure and clean file naming with regard to possibility to use file manager search and external “music/media player” al while still reading titles of episodes.

[Keeper-of-the-Keys]

@n900n

Podcini

@n900n

-Structured and sensible naming of downloaded podcasts! (like Downcast on Apple)

Can you explain more? The way gPodder stores it is Podcast/EpisodeName (which is controlled by the podcast)

@n900n

Reading that sounds as if there is a possible miscommunication with the gPodder user/audience base..(…)

I think you are misreading the intent, in my country there is a healthy cell market and thus I have a cheap plan with practically unlimited data, the vast majority of podcasts I listen to I listen to once and never again so to me storing them does not make sense, that said there are podcasts I have downloaded pre-emptively because I was worried about them getting deleted and when I travel abroad I also pre download episodes (the majority of downloaded episodes I have are from when I flew/was abroad).

I don’t try to push streaming and you are free to download episodes to your hearts content, gPodder supports that.

But you are correct that the way I use gPodder differs from the way you use it, there are paradigms in gPodder from before I took over that I have not changed even though I don’t use them because I assume that others do (the way file deletion is handled in podcast views) and if you see issues you that bother you and you would like to see resolved you can always submit code or at the very least an issue so that it can be resolved if/when possible.

HTH

(and I also have podcasts that were discontinued that some part of me would like to listen to again but then I remember I also have ~700 episodes backlog so why bother with an old and outdated podcast unless it contains information that is useful to me)

[vishcompany]

replying to myself about readability:

I just realized, that the episodes overview becomes much better legible, if I reduce the system font size to normal. If I go bigger, the larger letters become cramped into the same line height. This is, what makes it difficult to read.

so my request changes to: Is there a way to adapt the line height to the font size?

Apart from that, I use it daily and really like the app.

[ohnonot]

@vishcompany

if I reduce the system font size to normal. If I go bigger, the larger letters become cramped into the same line height. This is, what makes it difficult to read.

I face the same problem, but not only in gPodder. E.g. filemanager does the same. An option to forego design choices and simply extend the filename or any text to the next line would be much appreciated.

[Keeper-of-the-Keys]

I suspect that this is more of a platform level issue, if it was just me then I would say maybe I have a mistake in the way I implement silica concepts (still very possible) but if it is multiple apps it is more likely that the framework doesn’t handle the case you are creating well.

Maybe you can share some screenshots of these cases in a separate thread dedicated to accessibility and also link it here so I can see.

[ohnonot]

Done! Most Silica apps have no option to not shorten filenames or long strings

[vishcompany]

Interesting, although that’s not quite what I meant.

I do agree, that long file names can be an issue, but what bothers me is the fact, that the letters get bigger and therefore taller, but the space the text has to fit in does not grow accordingly.

In this example the distance between the two lines of each episode is preserved and stays the same, but the icon keeps its size and therefore the available space for both lines stays the same. Thus the bottom of the second (smaller) line and the top of the top line of the next episode almost touch each other. I really find it hard to read, when the size is “huge” or “gigantic”. For all other apps I need “huge”, but in this app, I tend to reduce to “normal”.

I’m not sure, if my example fits your thread, so I post it here first. I can repost them if needed.

[ohnonot]

The last one looks horrible indeed.

I have given up this fight; I simply cannot use my phone without glasses anymore.

[Keeper-of-the-Keys]

So gPodder just uses Theme.itemSizeX for these.

It could be that Episodes are configured with the wrong size from a look at the source, but it also seems to me that Theme.itemSizeX should be scaling with font sizes which would be a platform issue.

[maighstir]

For reference, I use the following to get a value for the line height scaled to the user’s font size.

    Item {
        id: fontMeasure
        property real lineHeight: fontSample.paintedHeight

        // Sample Text used only for measurement of line height,
        // because I use line height to set the size of list items.
        // Later Qt's have a built-in property for this, but Qt5.6
        // does not.
        Text {
            id: fontSample
            // The text needs only a couple characters, representing the
            // extreme highest ascender and lowest descender.
            text: "Åg"
            visible: false
            wrapMode: Text.NoWrap
            font.family: Theme.fontFamily
            // Despite the name "Theme.fontSizeMedium", this scales
            // to the user's specified text size.
            font.pixelSize: Theme.fontSizeMedium
        }
    }

[Keeper-of-the-Keys]

I tested on my phone and it looks to me that indeed the wrong itemSize is used for episode items, with the next size up spacing is better and even with a “Gigantic” text size letters don’t overlap.

[bababasti]

Hi, I found gPodder app after looking for a native podcast app. I downloaded the latest .rpm from OpenRepos (4.18.0). I installed it, but when I try to launch it, the AppCover just shows a spinning wheel for a while and then closes again. New Jolla Phone 2026. Any hints on what to do or what step I might be missing? Thanks for any help

[Keeper-of-the-Keys]

That sounds very strange, does it print anything under the spinner or just gets stuck immediately?

As an aside you can also install gPodder directly from the Jolla store.