Still a glaring hole in MM 3.2. Need a way to group/select podcasts so can delete all at once. I wish to delete about 60 podcasts. I've already deleted the associated mp3; that was easy, select all and delete. Deleting the podcast subscriptions in MM is very tedious. I'll have to delete one at a time.

[quote="jimr"]Would it be possible to put some sort of folder structure into the view pane for podcasts? Heavy podcast subscribers (like myself) would find it a lot easier to manage podcasts if there was some way we could group the podcasts (for example, I'd have a bunch of folders - 'news', 'educational', 'inactive', etc, that i'd group my podcasts into). Ideally, this would also allow the option to sync certain groups of podcasts, rather than having to sync podcasts individually or all at once.

Thanks.[/quote]

I -completely- agree with this. I was just thinking about dealing with this by creating custom genre tags but if there was some sort of built in method of organizing podcast subscriptions into folders on the left hand side of the screen that would be fantastic. one of the few complaints I have with MM thus far.

Would it be possible to put some sort of folder structure into the view pane for podcasts? Heavy podcast subscribers (like myself) would find it a lot easier to manage podcasts if there was some way we could group the podcasts (for example, I'd have a bunch of folders - 'news', 'educational', 'inactive', etc, that i'd group my podcasts into). Ideally, this would also allow the option to sync certain groups of podcasts, rather than having to sync podcasts individually or all at once.

Thanks.

If media monkey is going to be a true replacement for iTunes podcasting it really needs to be able to download video files such as .m4v for syncing to portable devices, I know this has been discussed in another thread but as video podcasting is part of the podcasting abilities of iTunes I thought it would be good to include it here.

Just started testing 1155 but my number 1 item, parallel podcast updates/downloads can be considered cleared.

I have 8 test feeds in MM and it just happens that the first feed I added is ALWAYS slow to update.

Just tested Update All Subscriptions, and, the other 7 feeds managed to complete their update process before the first feed completed it's update.

I have one minor uncertainty re. Ticket 3394. iTunes (and Juice and Miro and ...) has separate feed scan and episode download queues. MM seems to have single Update queue. I managed to have all 3 tasks "stall" with even the small sample set I was using. 3X might need to be raised to 4X, or possibly exposed as a Podcast Option with default to 3. But, that is fine tuning. The major problem seems to be resolved.

Found the Wiki

[url]http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page[/url]

Rusty,
Missed your last response. I posted my last reply without refreshing first.

Re: Item 2
Two parts to the puzzle.

1)I was not aware, but, was starting to suspect, that MM was overriding the ID3 tags for podcast episodes.
2)There was a my bad in my testing. I was using a destination mask of:
"J:\Podcasts\<Artist> - <Album>\<Track#> <Title>"
and I thought I was using
"J:\Podcasts\<Album> - <Artist>\<Track#> <Title>"

after your explanation I have changed the mask to:
"J:\Podcasts\<Album>\<Title>"

I removed <Track#> from the mask as it was not working and I am not sure it adds anything to the iTunes model.

And so, both you and Ludek are correct. <podcast> is not required. Consider item 2 closed.

This is however, a good example of the sort of information that should be made visible in a Wiki.

------
Re: Item 3
Bulk import is useful for users moving from another podcatching client. e.g. I used the opml bulk import in iTunes to quickly move all my subscriptions from Juice (which I used at one point).

-------
Re: Item 8
You could prime the Wiki by copying and updating the Online Help for MM2.5 (which I just found).

1148 nicely "Populates Podcast Subscriptions Node". That clears item 4 for me.

However, there may be a new 1148 specific problem. Not sure. See
[url]http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27649[/url]

As I review item 2 at:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=139286#139286




Re. Item 2, I'm still confused.

MM assigns tags to podcasts as follows:

Title = podcast title;
Artist = podcast author (or podcast name if podcast author is empty);
Album = podcast name;
Comment = podcast summary (or podcast description if episode summary doesn't exist);
Genre = 'Podcast';

In the case of http://feeds.feedburner.com/indiefeedblues/ , I see that, when I set a destination mask of <Artist> - <Title> the following results (as I would have expected):
Title=Lucky Peterson - Let The Chips Fall Where They May
Artist=IndieFeed.com Community
Album=IndieFeed: Blues Music
Genre=Podcast
Filename=IndieFeed.com Community-Lucky Peterson - Let The Chips Fall Where They May.mp3

What filename would you prefer to see? OR are you saying that you would like a way for the tags to show:
Artist=Lucky Peterson
Title=Let the Chips Fall Where They May

Please help me understand...

Re. Item 3 (Bulk import of OPML feeds):
I can see the utility of this in some cases, but I'm not convinced this this is a really valuable feature. Any other thoughts from other users? (my reluctance stems partially from the potentially major problems that this could cause such as accidental subscription to 500 podcasts in a directory, and then being forced to unsubscribe from them 1 by 1).

Re. Item 7, Enhanced AAC, we'll have to examine this in greater detail.

Re. Item 8, better help: I'll try to get something going on our wiki

Rusty:
Thanks for the feedback. I have just installed 1147 so have not extensively tested it's features other than opml import.

My feedback


[quote][quote]1. Parallel downloads with download limit. iTunes limit of 3 is reasonable. This will also need a "Podcast Subsrciptions\Downloads" tree node to replace the single download status info in the status bar.[/quote]
Good idea. We'll set a default of 3.[/quote]
Great. I have since noticed that the status bar can show multiple activities . A "...\Downloads" tree node will be closer to the way iTunes UI works but is not strictly necessary. I assume that a download queue length of greater than the concurrent active(parallel) download limit will still be supported. I frequently have 10+ new episodes showing up between hourly updates.

[quote][quote]2. New meta-tag for subscription title, e.g. <podcast>[/quote]
I'm not sure I understand this issue[/quote]
The tag would support using the Subscription Title as an element in the podcast download folder name. See my response to Ludek for an example.

[quote][quote]3. Bulk import of subscriptions from local opml file and/or support for dynamic opml directories.[/quote]
Added to 3.0.3--see the beta forum.[/quote]
Tested with 1147. Half there. I was able to create an "iTunes Subscribed Feeds" Podcast directory from the local opml file. But, I still have to individually subscribe to the imported feeds. That is fine for testing but not good enough for conversion. I have about 80 current podcast feeds.

I tested marking several feeds in the directory, but, only one feed from the collection (the one I happened to right-click on in the collection) actually subscribed.

Looking for a way to automatically import all, or a collection of feeds. Taking all defaults for each podcast would be fine, in fact, probably preferred for bulk import.

[quote][quote]4. Show all unplayed episodes of all podcasts at "Podcast Subscriptions" tree node.[/quote]
Makes sense, though my preference would be to show all Downloaded Subscriptions (rather than unplayed ones), and have a default sort that showed unplayed episodes first.[/quote]
That is basically what I am doing now via Location-<My podcast download folder>-*All. Your preference is more consistent with your UI.

[quote][quote]5. Auto-deletion of emptied podcast directories.[/quote]
We'll fix this.[/quote]
Thanks

[quote][quote]6. Allow deletion of un-downloaded episodes from subscription(podcast) episode list.[/quote]
I'm not sure about this--I don't think it makes much sense since this is based on a look up of what is available...[/quote]
Hmmm. This might require some heavy lifting in your code. Would require maintaining history for the feed. I do use it frequently in iTunes but could live without it.

[quote][quote]7. Support Chapters in enhanced AAC tracks.[/quote]
Can you give me an example of such a podcast?[/quote]
Coverville Enhanced AAC feed
[url]http://feeds.feedburner.com/CovervilleAAC[/url]

[quote][quote]8. Better podcast specific documentation[/quote]
Documentation is intentionally sparse to facilitate localization. That said, we can review the UI if there are any issues that aren't that obvious. My personal feeling is that the UI is pretty self explanatory except for:
a) The means of browsing existing directories and locating new podcasts and the level of integration between directories and MM
b) The fact that default settings don't cause podcasts to be deleted from portable devices
c) The fact that Podcast related commands aren't all available in one location and are spread among File > Edit, Podcast button, and context menus.
Is there anything else that comes to mind?[/quote]
Hmmm. I had not considered the impact of localization on your documentation. My feeling is that two items are needed.
a)More cross-links to related topics in your, intentionally sparse, primary help topics.
b)Focused quick-start guides outside of your F1 Help. Best solutions I have seen to date in other products usually involved uni-lingual english user supported Wikis.

[quote="Ludek"]Re 2. I think that there is no need for <podcast> tag, because <album> tag contains subscription name although it is not too obvious.[/quote]

Well actually. There is. Many, but not all, podcasts set the ID3 album tag to the same value as the podcast name (<channel><title>).

e.g. The "IndieFeed: Blues Channel" podcast's album tags are "IndieFeed.com Community".
[url]http://feeds.feedburner.com/indiefeedblues/[/url]

Which is why I used "<album> - <artist>" as an analog for <podcast>.

Re 2. I think that there is no need for <podcast> tag, because <album> tag contains subscription name although it is not too obvious.

Owyn,

Thanks for the good suggestions. I'll try to answer each issue:

[quote]1. Parallel downloads with download limit. iTunes limit of 3 is reasonable. This will also need a "Podcast Subsrciptions\Downloads" tree node to replace the single download status info in the status bar.[/quote]
Good idea. We'll set a default of 3.

[quote]2. New meta-tag for subscription title, e.g. <podcast>[/quote]
I'm not sure I understand this issue

[quote]3. Bulk import of subscriptions from local opml file and/or support for dynamic opml directories.[/quote]
Added to 3.0.3--see the beta forum.

[quote]4. Show all unplayed episodes of all podcasts at "Podcast Subscriptions" tree node.[/quote]
Makes sense, though my preference would be to show all Downloaded Subscriptions (rather than unplayed ones), and have a default sort that showed unplayed episodes first.

[quote]5. Auto-deletion of emptied podcast directories.[/quote]
We'll fix this.

[quote]6. Allow deletion of un-downloaded episodes from subscription(podcast) episode list.[/quote]
I'm not sure about this--I don't think it makes much sense since this is based on a look up of what is available...

[quote]7. Support Chapters in enhanced AAC tracks.[/quote]
Can you give me an example of such a podcast?

[quote]8. Better podcast specific documentation[/quote]
Documentation is intentionally sparse to facilitate localization. That said, we can review the UI if there are any issues that aren't that obvious. My personal feeling is that the UI is pretty self explanatory except for:
a) The means of browsing existing directories and locating new podcasts and the level of integration between directories and MM
b) The fact that default settings don't cause podcasts to be deleted from portable devices
c) The fact that Podcast related commands aren't all available in one location and are spread among File > Edit, Podcast button, and context menus.
Is there anything else that comes to mind?

-Rusty

[quote="nohitter151"]It should be <Track#> if you're using the English version of MM.[/quote]

Ok. I see what is happening now, but, still have a problem.

"-string-" in a filename shows a bad "<string>" tag in the path format. e.g. "-Track #-" shows that "<Track #>" is bad.

However, using <Track#> (the valid version with no embedded space) results in nothing in the string for that tag.

That said, noticed some nice things about the process.
- tags in the pattern are automatically case propered, e.g "track#" is converted to "Track#"
- the derived filename is automatically left trimmed, i.e leading spaces are eliminated.

A reliable, fast feed which shows this problem is:
[url]http://feeds.feedburner.com/indiefeedperformancepoetry/[/url]

[quote="Owyn"]Looks like I was wrong on iTunes track filenames. Checking some recent downloads it appears to be ...\<Track #> <Title> instead of ...\<Filename>.

However, when I tried to implement that in MM I get the string "-Track #-" instead of the value from the tag in the filename. Bug, or am I doing something wrong.

FYI, I tried the tags "<Track #>" and "<Track#>" but neither worked.[/quote]

It should be <Track#> if you're using the English version of MM.