Feature questions - trialing podtrapper

[ehart]

Hi Folks,

I have been playing with Podtrapper. There are a few things I want it to do that I think maybe it DOES do, I just don't know how to do it:

1. I listen to some short podcasts, and when the most recent one is finished, I'd like it to automatically continue playing the next one (next most recent) on the list. My Sansa Fuze did this, and I'd like Podtrapper to do the same. is this possible? This sounds minor, but it's kind of a dealbreaker for me, as I can't easilly get to the device to cue up a different podcast while I am listening.

2. Is there a way to jump ahead of the line on downloading a particular podcast? In other words, I start Podtrapper and it starts downloading the various Podcasts on my list. But I want to listen to a particular one first, so I want to push that download to the front of the line. is there a way to do that?

3. Is there a way to jump right to playing a selected podcast? As it is, when I click on a particular episode, I get to a screen where I have to click "play" -- can I set it to play when I first select the Podcast. (This is obviously not a dealbreaker for me).

Thanks!

- Eric

[marwatk]

Hi Eric,

1. I listen to some short podcasts, and when the most recent one is finished, I'd like it to automatically continue playing the next one (next most recent) on the list. My Sansa Fuze did this, and I'd like Podtrapper to do the same. is this possible? This sounds minor, but it's kind of a dealbreaker for me, as I can't easilly get to the device to cue up a different podcast while I am listening.

Definitely. Check out playlists (http://www.versatilemonkey.com/wiki/Pod ... ist_Screen) they can do all of that and more.

2. Is there a way to jump ahead of the line on downloading a particular podcast? In other words, I start Podtrapper and it starts downloading the various Podcasts on my list. But I want to listen to a particular one first, so I want to push that download to the front of the line. is there a way to do that?

Yep, in the menu on the download screen there's a 'Move to Top' that will interrupt the current download and start the one you've chosen.

3. Is there a way to jump right to playing a selected podcast? As it is, when I click on a particular episode, I get to a screen where I have to click "play" -- can I set it to play when I first select the Podcast. (This is obviously not a dealbreaker for me).

Easiest way is to just click twice. The progress bar doubles as the 'play/pause' icon, so you don't have to navigate to play every time. Let me know if that doesn't work for you.


Hope that helps, let me know if I can answer anything else.

-Marcus

[ehart]

Thank you Marcus, those suggestions worked, and I registered last week. Now I have a few other questions for you:

1. Is there a way to eliminate the "beep" that sounds when a podcast is done downloading?

2. I'd like Podtrapper to download the 2 latest episodes of a podcast, and delete the 2 oldest episodes to make room, regardless of whether the older episodes have been listened to or not. Is this possible?

3. I'm not sure I understand the "playback priority" or the "view order" settings. I thought that by setting these values high (30) on a podcast, and by setting the podcast to "auto-add" to the playlist, that my favorite podcast would be pushed to the top of the line whenever a new download of that podcast comes in. But that doesn't seem to happen.

Thanks!

- Eri

[barljo]

As Marcus is taking a break (how rude - a whole weekend away from the VM website?!? haha!), I'll chip in.

1) You can change the notification under the blackberry menu - Options, Profiles (Ring Tones). Select the profile you are using, hit the blackberry key and select edit. The apps are listed in alpha order, so scroll down to find PT, and you can select the options in there. Bingo - no beep (unless you want it), no LED flash (unless you want it) etc.

2) I think that this is achievable - highlight your podcast, and hit the blackberry key to bring up the menu and select podcast settings. If you change both "Downloaded episodes to keep" and "Max to auto download" to 2, I think that should do what you're after.

I'm sorry I can't help with 3) as I haven't played with those settings. Maybe someone who knows could chip in here?

Cheers!

BarlJo

[marwatk]

Thanks, BarlJo!

3) You're almost there, but there's a third step. You need to set that playlist to sort by playback priority, and set it to resort itself when new things are added. if that doesn't work let me know...

-Marcus

[ehart]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the good info.

In case anyone else with OS 5.0 (I have a BB Bold 9700) is reading this, here's how you change notification of downloaded podcasts: Home menu | Sounds | Set Ring Tones / Alerts | Other | Podtrapper. This is slightly different than with older OSs.

I'll play with suggestions #2 and #3 and see where I get.

Thanks again.

- Eric

[ehart]

Hi, sorry to keep bothering, things are still not behaving quite the way I want. The program seems quite powerful, so I don't doubt that what I want is possible.

Here's the problem. I look at the default playlist, and today's episode of my favorite daily podcast is at the top. So far so good. Next is a month-old episode of the same podcast. Not good. So I delete it with ALT-DEL, and it downloads an even older (the day prior) episode of the same podcast and sticks it in the playlist below the current episode. Ugh.

Presumably it does this because it is smart enough to remember which episodes I have previously downloaded and deleted and doesn't download those episodes again -- so it finds really old episodes that haven't been previously downloaded.

So what I want is for it to only download episodes that are no older than, say, a week old, and if it can't find any of those that haven't been downloaded previously, then don't download anything, and wait until the next new episode comes out.

Is something like that possible?

Cordially,

Eric

[ehart]

OK, I think I figured this out.

Turning off "delete after listening" and/or "download more after delete" on the problem podcast fixes the issue. So would using <del> rather than <alt-del> to remove unwanted older episodes from the playlist.

I had mistakenly thought I needed to delete listened podcasts in order to get PT to download newer episodes of that podcast (to "make room" as it were). But that's not the case. Whenever PT checks for new podcasts, it will delete old ones to make room for the newer episodes. So you don't have to worry about deleting podcasts yourself. If you let PT handle the deleting, it does it the way I want.

Thanks for your patience.

[marwatk]

No problem, sorry I wasn't quicker to respond, I've been out of town. Glad you figured it out, though. Let me know if I can help with anything else.

-Marcus

[knd]

Hi. I have a similar question. I listen to an hourly podcast, set to download hourly , but I don't get a chance to listen to every episode. Every hour when it checks for download, I would like podtrapper to auto delete any stale episodes, even those I have not listened to, to make room for the newest episodes. I have it set to "new episodes, newest first" and Keep 2 downloaded episodes, but does it delete only the listened episodes, or all of them? It seems to be deleting only the listened ones.

thanks

[marwatk]

It prioritizes the listened ones, but will eventually delete any to keep under the limit. (So you'll see the listened ones get deleted first, but if you leave enough unlistened ones they'll eventually get deleted as well).

-Marcus

[knd]

That's good to know, thanks

[eniac]

When downloading hourly podcast, such as news, an issue I have is that I only want to download and listen to the newest item.
So, if I listen to a podcast that broadcast at 12 noon, podtrapper will delete and download the podcast from 11am.
I would prefer an option to only download episodes that are newer than the last deleted.

[marwatk]

I believe you can set it to 'New, newest first' for download order from the podcast settings screen to get that behavior, but there's a bug in it right now. It'll be fixed in the next release.

-Marcus