I've been working on my latest site (http://www.savingcivilization.org, which was originally posted here in the site showcase as http://www.earthrebellion.org), and I think I have figured out Leblanc's Podcast Suite (v1.1 stable) and how to get things syndicated to a desktop podcatcher and iTunes, as well as displaying in your site content pages.
I know a number of folks (besides me!) have been interested in podcasting from Joomla sites and have had some trouble getting started, so I thought I'd try to do a little tutorial on LeBlanc's podcast component to help give a little back to the Joomla community.
For those who might be intimidated by the fairly lengthy notes here, please keep in mind that aside from adding new clips, most of this - all the configuration stuff (and setting up your podcast for iTunes) - you only have to do ONCE. So it may look like a lot at first, but after you first get things set up it's pretty easy!
Step 1:
Download the latest version of Leblanc's Podcast Suite (this tutorial uses v1.1 stable) here: http://extensions.joomla.org/component/ ... 255/Itemid ,35/
Note: I've also attached an updated podcast mambot that (hopefully!) will play MP3 with Dewplayer (included in the attachment) and MOV video files with Quicktime, so you should be able to mix your podcasts with audio & video chapters.
Step 2:
Install the component, module, and mambot. Make sure the module and mambot are published. For the module, also make sure that it is in a module position visible on your site template, and that you have entered any text you want to appear in the module in the module's "Text" parameter. For example, on my site it's "Join our Podcast and see how YOU can help save civilization!" - right above the little podcast image. You can put HTML in this field, so if you want to make a link or something (say to your favorite podcatcher software download), you can.
The module is very important, as it contains the "subscription service" code, for lack of a better term, for podcatchers to "see" your podcast episodes. So if someone has a podcatcher and they want to subscribe to your podcast (rather than just manually clicking on audio file links in your site's content items), they would click on the image/link in this module. This will then feed the necessary subscription information to their podcatcher. So when their podcatcher goes to check on any new podcasts you've done, it will automatically know where to look and "see" the new 'casts without them having to come visit your site - it'll just download straight to their podcatcher software.
Step 3:
DOUBLE-CHECK that the "cache" directory under your root is writeable (it should be from your Joomla installation), but *also* check to make sure that the file podrss20.xml exists and is writeable. This is very important!
I was having some trouble testing my podcasts - neither the podcatcher nor iTunes could find any episodes. In this case it was because the podrss20.xml file wasn't writeable, and the Podcast Suite component couldn't update it to show the episodes that had been created.
Step 4:
In the administrator backend, go to Components->Podcast->Settings, as there are some parameters you need to set.
Path for Uploaded Media
The first setting that you have to check on is the "Path for uploaded media". You can set this to whatever you want (the default is images/stories), but keep in mind that it assumes the first folder in the path you specify will be under the root directory. So, for example, on my site I created a directory "podcasts" under the site root, so in the path field here it would just be "podcasts".
Also, if you change it from the default "images/stories" folder, make sure you create your podcast folder! I don't think the suite does this for you automatically.
Player Setting
The next setting to set is the player setting. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SYNDICATED PODCASTING (that is, podcasts going to a person's podcatcher or iTunes), only with how the files play directly from your site's content pages.
The way the component is set up, you have four choices: Links, Flash PLayer, HTML Code, or Quicktime player. Let's look at each one:
Links - This is basically just a text or image link (you put what you want the link to be in the Enclosure Link Title box, below). When clicked, it calls up a very rudimentary Quicktime player that's basically just the play bar and start/stop controls. Kind of ugly.
Flash Player - the included player (music.swf) I thought was kind of nasty-looking (my apologies to the developer!), and I couldn't figure out how to get it to *not* autoplay! So I had a couple audio files starting to play at the same time when I loaded the home page! D'oh! However, I figured out how to change the player to dewplayer.swf, which both looks a lot better (my opinion) and also doesn't autoplay! I've attached a zip file that you can use to replace the existing podcast bot if you want, and it includes dewplayer.swf and a modified podcast.php bot file - note that I haven't tested the installation, but I believe it should work (if not, please let me know!). If you want to use the Dewplayer option, just click the Flash Player button in the component settings
HTML code: if you want to enter the code for your own embedded player, you'd check this and then put the code in the Enclosure Code box.
Quicktime Player: When the link to the 'cast is clicked, it calls up a 320x240 pixel quicktime player.
Enclosure Link Title
The "Enclosure Link Title" is just the text or image that you want to appear for the link in your web pages to the audio file. For example, you could put "Play It Now, Dude!", and that's the link that would appear in your content items for links to the audio files.
Or you could I put in the HTML for an image link in the Enclosure Link Title field for a button, rather than plain text, like this:
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<img src="http://www.savingcivilization.org/images/play-button.png" border="0">For the number of items to syndicate, I'm not sure but I assume that's the number of items that will be maintained in the podrss20.xml file that podcatchers and iTunes can look at to "see" your episodes. So if you plan on having lots of podcast episodes available for quite a while, I'd probably put this number up higher than 10.
Other Details/iTunes Information
I think most of the rest of this is fairly self-explanatory. HOWEVER, for the iTunes section, the things you enter are information that iTunes automatically pulls up from your site's podrss20.xml file when you go to add your podcast to iTunes. But the Podcast Suite component does *not* automatically plug your Podcast feed into iTunes! You have to do that manually. But it's no sweat, and I'll cover how to do that in a bit.
iTunes Image
If you want to publish to iTunes, you'll want to make up a 300px x 300px graphic (I used a JPG) and put the full URL path into the iTunes image text box.
Step 5:
Once you're done with the Settings part, make sure to save/close it. Then you should be at the Manage Clips page (if not, go to Components->Podcast->Manage Clips).
If you haven't added any audio clips yet, you'll need to upload them with a separate FTP client to the folder you specified as your podcast directory at the beginning of Step 4. You can't upload files through the component interface.
Once you FTP the file(s), they'll show up on this list (if they don't, you either don't have them in the right folder or your settings aren't pointing to the right folder).
NOTE: (updated 2/7/2007) I wasn't sure about the file types the podcast component will work with, but according to this post by the component's creator, Josephh LeBlanc - http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,94886.0.html - it should handle video, as well. While I haven't confirmed this myself, I think the main concern here would be the player that you choose in the settings (in other words, depending on your video file type, you may need to use a different player than the Quicktime player), and that the subscribers have a "video podcatcher" that can view the files. Will have to look into this more.
Step 6:
As the instructions on the Manage Clips page indicate, click on the name of the file in the left column to create/edit a content item for this audio file/episode. This will take you to a modified content item editor that only shows the INTRO TEXT for the podcast content item (you can add things to the optional Main Text part later). Make sure that the {enclose yourpodcastfilename} is in this file where you want the link to the audio file to show up.
At the bottom, you can add any keywords or other information you want to appear in iTunes for that episode.
When you click on Save (or Close if you want to close *without* saving), you should wind up back at the Manage Clips page. Make sure there are green checks under the Found in Article and Article Published columns. If there are red "x" marks, click on them to make them green checks.
Step 7:
If you want to add more text to the item (like I chose to add a full transcript of each podcast following the Intro Text), you can go and edit the Podcast content item you just created like you would any normal content item in the Content Items Manger. That's where you can enter text, images, etc. in the Main Text area like you normally would.
Just make sure you have your {enclose} tag in one of the text areas (it's probably best to leave it in the Intro Text). I'm not sure, but I believe the component really only is supposed to have only a single {enclose} tag per content item; if nothing else, having more than one apparently causes problems with IE (ref this post by alexbeer: http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,66415.0.html).
Presto!
Congratulations!!! At this point, visitors to your site should be able to subscribe to your podcast with their own podcatchers by clicking on the Podcast Suite module, as well as listen to the individual audio files through their browsers by clicking on the "enclosure" ("Play it now, dude!") links or embedded players in the content items. Now you just need to decide if you want to go to the next step: iTunes.
iTunes:
To publish your podcast to iTunes, the first thing you'll need is an iTunes Store account. So if you don't have iTunes installed already,download iTunes from http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/, then sign up through the iTunes interface for a store account (you don't have to buy anything, just sign up for the account). For those who may not want to install iTunes, I don't know of any other way to get a podcast into iTunes without going through their software and store.
Once you've loaded and started iTunes, click on the link for the iTunes Store (if you're not there already) in the left navigation pane. When the store is displayed click on the link in the top left nav window for Podcasts.
In the Podcast interface, scroll down until you see the "Submit a Podcast" link in the lower left nav window.
The next thing that should come up (if you're not already logged into the store, it will make you do that first), is the "Submit Podcasts to the iTunes Directory" window. It asks you for your Podcast Feed URL.
An easy way to see what your feed URL is is to go to your site, hover your mouse over the Podcast Suite module that has the link/image to subscribe to your podcast, then *right* click->Copy Shortcut, then paste it into the text field in iTunes.
The link you paste into the Podcast Feed URL box should look something like this:
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http://www.savingcivilization.org/index2.php?option=com_podcast&feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1Click on the "Continue" button in iTunes.
The next page that comes up should show all the information you entered for iTunes in the Podcast Suite component settings. Check it over to make sure everything looks okay.
If something isn't correct, go back to your Podcast Suite component settings, change them, and REMEMBER TO SAVE YOUR NEW SETTINGS. Then hit the back button in iTunes to go back to the previous window where you entered your feed URL. Reenter it (if necessary), click Continue, then check it out again to make sure things look okay.
If all looks well, the only manual setting you should have to enter in iTunes is the language (which ideally should be a parameter in the Podcast Suite component, but I'm not complaining!): just select the language, then click the Continue button.
That's it! iTunes should tell you that your podcast has been submitted to the store for review, and they will get back to you (to the email address you entered in your Podcast Suite settings) on whether your podcast is approved. Once it's approved, it will show up in the iTunes directory where folks can see it and subscribe to it through iTunes.
Wrapping Up
So, now people will have *three* ways of hearing your audio files: 1) while on your site, clicking on the audio links in the content items; 2) clicking on the link/image in the Podcast Suite module on your site, which will let their podcatching software on their computer subscribe to your site podcast and automatically snag new episodes; and 3) iTunes, which is kind of like a gigantic podcatcher where a really large audience can find and subscribe to your podcast!
The only thing you have to worry about from this point on is FTP'ing audio clips, then creating and publishing the content items from Components->Podcasts->Manage Clips manu. Your newly published podcasts will automatically be syndicated to podcatchers and iTunes, and the player you selected in the component settings will automatically appear in each new podcast item.
A final note on iTunes: as far as I know, they do *not* store your audio files, so don't expect any server or bandwidth savings. People who subscribe to your podcasts through iTunes will be downloading the audio files from your server just as if they were doing it through their own podcatcher. So if you have a really popular 'cast through iTunes, make sure your web account has lots of bandwidth!
If anyone has any suggestions, corrections, etc., please let me know!
Thanks and happy podcasting from http://www.savingcivilization.org!
Update (2 Dec 2007): I found a bug in the mambot that I corrected in the version attached here.
i do like the dewplayer the clean interface
