Plans for future releases

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  The bittorrent libraries included in the initial CastPodder import were outdated when Icepodder was first released, and they’ve been updated again since then.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.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can feed this entry. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses

  1. I agree that bittorrent functionality doesn’t need to be integrated as long as IcePodder passes that responsibility to another client. I briefly used a Bash script to find all the torrent files in a directory and download them with the btlaunchmany command.

    Chad - March 13th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

  2. I think this is good idea. There is a lot of cruft in the icepodder code that should be cleaned out.

    You are never going to be able to meet everyone’s needs, but if we make icepodder play nice with other apps then it will benefit everyone in the long run.

    We should be able to wrap the “play” options into a script that passes it of to the correct player app, this would also work for for torrents -we just “play” them into the bit torrent app.

    Stu - March 21st, 2008 at 5:50 pm

  3. just moved to ubuntu hardy and icepodder won’t install anymore ;( but it would be nice to get the gnomad/mtp functionality so new podcasts could sync sraight from icepodder to my mtp device, anyway thanks for the work and i hope a hardy compatible deb package gets online soon.

    ivago - March 22nd, 2008 at 1:26 pm

  4. I use icepodder exclusively to download podcasts for my iAudio U3, to which I listen in the car. Like Chad, I use a BASH script to sync with my U3. (BTW, Amarok is buggy as can be in this area.) While my script works fine, syncing with a generic USB device would be good. My U3 looks just like a thumb drive to linux.

    Getting icepodder on the debian stable repositories would be great, too. (I’ve posted on this in the forum.)

    occam - April 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am

  5. I recieved the following error when using icepodder in hardy heron:

    CastPodderGui.py:48: DeprecationWarning: The wxPython compatibility package is no longer automatically generated or actively maintained. Please switch to the wx package as soon as possible.
    from wxPython.wx import *
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File “CastPodderGui.py”, line 48, in
    from wxPython.wx import *
    File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/wx-2.8-gtk2-unicode/wxPython/__init__.py”, line 15, in
    import _wx
    File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/wx-2.8-gtk2-unicode/wxPython/_wx.py”, line 8, in
    from _misc import *
    File “/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/wx-2.8-gtk2-unicode/wxPython/_misc.py”, line 456, in
    wxDateTime_GetNumberOfDaysinYear = wx._misc.DateTime_GetNumberOfDaysinYear
    AttributeError: ‘module’ object has no attribute ‘DateTime_GetNumberOfDaysinYear

    –Looks like you need to update a library or two.

    Joseph Kern - April 29th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

  6. Icepodder is great as a podcast application. Syncronisation with devices would be good. But overall the is all I use it for.

    Now as distros are moving away from WXGTK 2.6 progression to later releases need to be considered or a complete rewrite and use QT as a base to build on.

    Rodger Dean - June 18th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

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