-ikiwiki's simple podcasting, while elegant and minimal, doesn't (as
-mentioned in [[todo/blogging]]) produce full-featured feeds. In
-fancy podcasts, episodes are accompanied by text content. The feeds
-also have lots more metadata.
-
-[[!toc]]
-
## Status
[[!template id=gitbranch branch=schmonz/fancypodcast author="[[schmonz]]"]]
[[!tag patch]]
-In summary, the branch preserves ikiwiki's existing podcast behavior,
-adds more featureful behavior, and has been tested to work well in
-some common podcatchers. I believe it is ready for integration.
---[[schmonz]]
+Nothing new since 2013/07/21 [[merge|done]] to `master`.
## Features
Episode enclosure |(./) |(./) |(./) |(./)
"""]]
-## Design
-
-7. For each fancy podcast episode, write a blog post containing
- `\[[!meta enclosure="WikiLink/to/media.mp3"]]`. (Don't specify
- more than one enclosure -- but if you do, last one wins.)
-7. When rendering to HTML (single-page or inlined), append a link
- to the media file.
-7. When rendering to RSS/Atom, the text is the entry's content and
- the media file is its enclosure.
-7. Don't break simple podcasts in pursuit of fancy podcasts.
-
-## Implementation
-
-### Completed
-
-* Cover the existing simple podcast behavior with tests.
-* Add an `enclosure` field to [[plugins/meta]] that expands the
- given [[ikiwiki/WikiLink]] to an absolute URL (feed enclosures
- pretty much need to be, and the reference feeds I've looked at
- all do this).
-* Write failing tests for the desired single-page and inlined
- HTML behavior, then make them pass by adding enclosure stanzas
- to `{,inline}page.tmpl`.
-* Write failing tests for the desired RSS/Atom behavior, then make
- them pass via changes to `{atom,rss}item.tmpl` and [[plugins/inline]].
-* Match feature-for-feature with
- [tru_podcast](http://www.rainskit.com/blog/542/tru_podcast-a-podcasting-plugin-for-textpattern)
- (what [[schmonz]] will be migrating from).
-* Enrich [feed metadata](http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html)
- by catching up `rsspage.tmpl` to `atompage.tmpl`.
-* Verify that [[plugins/more]] plays well with fancy podcasts.
-* Verify that the feeds validate.
-* Subscribe to a fancy feed in some common podcatchers and verify
- display details against a reference podcast.
-* Verify smooth transitions for two common use cases (see testing
- details below).
-* Code review: don't add enclosure divs unless we have enclosures.
-* Code review: genericize download link for more use cases.
-* Code review: don't confuse old readers with Atom names in RSS.
-* Code review: instead of hacking back to `$link`, just provide it.
-* Code review: show author in addition to feedname, if different.
-
-### Must-have (for [[schmonz]], anyway)
-
-* Think carefully about UTF-8.
-* Verify that _all_ the tests pass (not just my new ones).
-
-## Migration
-
-### Upgrading within ikiwiki: from simple to fancy
-
-#### My test podcast
-
-For this test, I chose a podcast that tries to work around ikiwiki's
-current limitations by issuing two separate `inline`s:
-
-* One with `feedonly=yes` that includes `.mdwn`, `.pdf`, and `.mp3`
-* One with `feeds=no` that includes only `.mdwn` (and makes a trail)
-
-This has the following effects:
-
-* Browser: sees just the articles (each of which has a manually
- created link to its corresponding media file)
-* Feedreader: sees all the articles and media in one flat stream
-* Podcatcher: sees just the media (sans articles)
-
-I want instead to write one `inline` with these effects:
-
-* Browser: sees just the articles (each of which automatically links
- to its enclosure)
-* Feedreader: sees just the articles (each of which specifies its
- enclosure)
-* Podcatcher: sees just the enclosures (each of which has an enclosing
- article, rendered as the media's "description")
-
-#### Upgrade steps
-
-7. Set up a non-production copy of the podcast.
- 7. Visually diff RSS and Atom feeds against production.
- 7. Subscribe to the copy (both feeds) in `r2e`, iTunes, Downcast.
-7. Apply fancypodcast patch to the installed ikiwiki:
- 7. `cd ~/Documents/trees/ikiwiki && git checkout fancypodcast`
- 7. `git diff --no-prefix master > ~/Documents/trees/localpatches/www/ikiwiki/fancypodcast.diff`
- 7. `cd ~/Documents/trees/pkgsrc-current/www/ikiwiki && make deinstall && make install clean`
-7. Verify that simple podcasts are unaffected:
- 7. Rerun `ikiwiki --setup`.
- 7. `diff -uB simple-before.rss simple-after.rss`
- * A few new elements and attributes, as expected.
- 7. `diff -uB simple-before.atom simple-after.atom`
- * No change.
-7. Remove the feed-only `inline` and enable feeds on the remaining one.
-7. Convert articles' manual download links to `\[[!meta enclosure=""]]`.
-7. I want existing and future podcatchers to get my new fancy
- episodes, and I know my podcast isn't in any planets, so I'm
- going to skip [[tips/howto avoid flooding aggregators]].
-7. Rerun `ikiwiki --setup`.
-7. Verify browser shows the same stuff.
-7. `diff -uB simple-after.rss fancy-after.rss # and atom`
- * MP3s and PDFs are no longer naked enclosures, but belong to
- articles as they should.
- * Articles have updated modification times, as they should.
-7. `r2e run` (both RSS and Atom)
- * Nothing new with the default `trust-guid = True` (otherwise
- would expect updated articles).
-7. iTunes "Update Podcast" (both RSS and Atom)
- * Added one episode per article, with article text as the episode
- description.
- * Kept old naked-enclosure episodes around.
-7. Downcast refresh (RSS):
- * Added one episode per article, with article text as the episode
- description.
- * Kept old naked-enclosure episodes around.
-7. Downcast refresh (Atom):
- * Added one episode per article, with no episode description
- (expected, see feature table).
- * Kept old naked-enclosure episodes around.
-
-Different tradeoffs are possible. These seem okay to me.
-
-### Importing into ikiwiki: fancy (from another CMS)
-
-#### My test podcast
-
-For this test, I chose a podcast currently being published with
-Textpattern and tru_podcast, because I'd strongly prefer to publish
-it with ikiwiki instead.
-
-#### Upgrade steps
-
-7. Set up a non-production copy of the podcast.
- 7. Visually diff RSS and Atom feeds against production.
- 7. Subscribe to the copy (both feeds) in `r2e`, iTunes, Downcast.
-7. With a fancypodcast-enabled ikiwiki installed:
- 7. Copy content from Textpattern to ikiwiki:
- 7. Match article paths to preserve `/YYYY/MM/DD/post-title` permalinks.
- 7. Match enclosure paths (or redirect) to preserve Textpattern's URLs.
- 7. Match titles, post dates, and guids with `\[[!meta]]`.
- 7. Match feed paths with permanent redirects from `/atom/` to
- `/index.atom` (and same for RSS).
- 7. `\[[!inline]]` the articles.
- 7. Rerun `ikiwiki --setup`.
-7. Stop Textpattern, start ikiwiki.
-7. Verify that podcatchers see the feeds and don't redownload anything.
-7. Naively add two new blog posts, one with an enclosure.
-7. Verify that podcatchers download the new enclosures.
+## Future improvements
------
+### Embedded audio/video player in browsers
-## Future improvements
+* For a given enclosure, depending on autodetected MIME:
+ * `audio/*` -> `<audio>`
+ * `video/*` -> `<video>`
+* For a given template:
+ * `page.tmpl` -> eagerly fetch media
+ * `inlinepage.tmpl` -> fetch just enough to display durations
+* Only for HTML5 sites, or also okay for XHTML?
+* Does this work well enough in enough browsers, or do we need a
+ JavaScript player to fill in some gaps?
### iTunes fancy podcasting
* [iTunes-specific tags](https://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html)
appear to be RSS-only
- * If they work in Atom, teach `inline` to optionally iTunesify RSS/Atom.
- * Else, add `itunes` as a third kind of feed (RSS plus more stuff).
+ * Can we always include them in RSS feeds, or would that break
+ some feed readers?
+ * Is it even valid to include them in Atom feeds? If so, do
+ Atom podcasts look any better in podcatchers?
+ * Avoid adding a third kind of feed (`itunesrss`), or options
+ to the existing `rss` and `atom` feeds, unless we have to.
* Notable tags for feeds:
* `itunes:subtitle`
* `itunes:author`
* [ffprobe](http://ffmpeg.org/ffprobe.html) is reasonably fast
* [mediainfo](http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/) is way slower
* Cache computed durations as pagestate
+* [Podcast Feed Best
+ Practice](https://github.com/gpodder/podcast-feed-best-practice/blob/master/podcast-feed-best-practice.md)
+ from the gPodder folks
### Fancy podcast aggregating
### Other ideas
-* Don't render template text (e.g., "Use this template to insert a
- note into a page") in feeds.
* Optionally specify the enclosure's:
* MIME type, in case `File::MimeInfo` guesses wrong.
* Duration, in case `ffprobe` guesses wrong.
* Configurably generate additional subscription links (such as
iTunes) alongside the RSS/Atom ones in [[plugins/inline]].
* Support Apple's "enhanced podcasts" (if they're still relevant).
-
-### code review
-
- + # XXX better way to compute relative to srcdir?
- + my $file = $absurl;
- + $file =~ s|^$config{url}/||;
-
-I don't think ikiwiki offers a better way to do that, because there is
-normally no reason to do that. Why does it need an url of this form here?
---[[Joey]]
-
-> In all the popular, production-quality podcast feeds I've looked
-> at, enclosure URLs are always absolute (even when they could be
-> expressed concisely as relative). [Apple's
-> example](http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html#example)
-> does too. So I told \[[!meta]] to call `urlto()` with the third
-> parameter true, which means the \[[!inline]] code here gets an
-> absolute URL in `$pagestate{$p}{meta}{enclosure}`. To compute the
-> enclosure's metadata, though, we of course need it as a local path.
-> I didn't see a less
-> [ongepotchket](http://www.jewish-languages.org/jewish-english-lexicon/words/1402)
-> way at the time. If you have a better idea, I'm happy to hear it;
-> if not, I'll add an explanatory comment. --[[schmonz]]
-
->> I would be more comfortable with this if two two different forms of url
->> you need were both generated by calling urlto. It'd be fine to call
->> it more than once. --[[Joey]]
-
->>> Heh, it was even easier than that! (Hooray for tests.) Done.
->>> --[[schmonz]]
-
- +<TMPL_IF HTML5><section id="inlineenclosure"><TMPL_ELSE><div id="inlineenclosure"></TMPL_IF>
- +<TMPL_IF ENCLOSURE>
-
-Can't we avoid adding this div when there's no enclosure? --[[Joey]]
-
-> Sure, I've moved the `<TMPL_IF ENCLOSURE>` check to outside the
-> section-and-div block for `{,inline}page.tmpl`. --[[schmonz]]
-
- +<a href="<TMPL_VAR ENCLOSURE>">Download this episode</a>
-
-"Download this episode" is pretty specific to particular use cases.
-Can this be made more generic, perhaps just "Download"? --[[Joey]]
-
-> Yep, I got a little carried away. Done. --[[schmonz]]
-
- -<TMPL_IF AUTHOR>
- - <title><TMPL_VAR AUTHOR ESCAPE=HTML>: <TMPL_VAR TITLE></title>
- - <dcterms:creator><TMPL_VAR AUTHOR ESCAPE=HTML></dcterms:creator>
-
-This change removes the author name from the title of the rss feed, which
-does not seem necessary for fancy podcasts. And it is a change that
-could negatively impact eg, Planet style aggregators using ikiwiki. --[[Joey]]
-
-> While comparing how feeds render in podcatchers, I noticed that
-> RSS and Atom were inconsistent in a couple ways, of which this was
-> one. The way I noticed it: with RSS, valuable title space was being
-> spent to display the author. I figured Atom's display was the one
-> worth matching. You're right, of course, that planets using the
-> default template and somehow relying on the current author-in-the-title
-> rendering for RSS feeds (but not Atom feeds!) would be broken by
-> this change. I'm having trouble imagining exactly what would break,
-> though, since guids and timestamps are unaffected. Would it suffice
-> to provide a note in the changelog warning people to be careful
-> upgrading their planets, and to customize `rssitem.tmpl` if they
-> really prefer the old behavior (or don't want to take any chances)?
-> --[[schmonz]]
-
->> A specific example I know of is updo.debian.net, when used with
->> rss2email. Without the author name there, one cannot see who posted
->> an item. It's worth noting that planet.debian.org does the same thing
->> with its rss feed. (That's probably what I copied.) Atom feeds may
->> not have this problem, don't know. --[[Joey]]
-
->>> Okay, that's easy to reproduce. It looks like this _might_ be
->>> a simple matter of getting \[[!aggregate]] to populate author in
->>> `add_page()`. I'll see what I can figure out. --[[schmonz]]
-
->>>> Yep, that was mostly it. If the feed entry defines an author,
->>>> and the author is distinct from the feed name, we now show `NAME:
->>>> AUTHOR`, else just show `NAME` (same as always). In addition,
->>>> the W3 feed validator says `<dcterms:creator>` is invalid, so
->>>> I replaced it with `<dc:creator>`, and all of a sudden `r2e`
->>>> gives me better `From:` headers. With the latest on my branch,
->>>> when I generate the same planet as updo and run `r2e` over it,
->>>> the names I get in `From:` look like so:
-
-* `"updo: Junio C Hamano"`
-* `"updo: Greg Kroah-Hartman"`
-* `"updo: Eric Raymond: esr"` (article author != feed name, so we get both)
-* `"updo: Jannis Pohlman: Jannis Pohlmann"` (oops! I tweaked the real updo)
-
->>>> --[[schmonz]]
-
- +++ b/templates/rsspage.tmpl
- + xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
- +<atom:link href="<TMPL_VAR FEEDURL>" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
-
-Why is it using atom namespace inside an rss feed? What are the chances
-every crummy rss reader on earth is going to understand this? I'd put it at
-about 0%; I doubt ikiwiki's own rss reader understands such a mashup.
---[[Joey]]
-
-> The validator I used (<http://validator.w3.org/feed/>) told me to.
-> Pretty sure it doesn't make anything work better in the podcatchers
-> I tried. Hadn't considered that it might break some readers.
-> Removed. --[[schmonz]]
-
- +<generator>ikiwiki</generator>
-
-Does this added tag provide any benefits? --[[Joey]]
-
-> Consistency with the Atom feed, and of course it trumpets ikiwiki
-> to software and/or curious humans who inspect their feeds. The tag
-> arrived only in RSS 2.0, but that's already the version we're
-> claiming to be, and it's over a decade old. Seems much less risky
-> than the atom namespace bits. --[[schmonz]]
-
->> Sounds ok then. --[[Joey]]