Add internal podcast player

[bubelov]

[DanielSiepmann]

I discovered that the app saves downloaded episodes. I've added the folder to VLC, which works like a charm.

Would be cool to just document the folder and "expose" it, so people can integrate into their existing apps and flows :)

I really appreciate I can see and download new episodes. But would not use the player, in addition to an existing general player. Of course other might want to :)

[bubelov]

@DanielSiepmann you've found a hidden feature =)

I like "cache transparency", although the app doesn't currently offer any cache management interface. As you can see, the cache structure is already human readable and every kind of content has it's own folder. File names are a bit of a mess though and it's all subject to changes. It's all in the works and I'll announce those features once they're ready.

Interoperability is crucial and many apps allow users to export feeds and import them to other readers. I believe it's more important and once I do that, I'll happily deal with audio data interop. In the meantime, any suggestions are welcome.

Regarding built-in player: I have no plans to force anyone to use it, it will be optional. I want this app to be both "self-contained" and interoperable. Personally, I use AIMP to listen to podcasts and, for some reason, it never worked with VLC. I will try the method you described, hopefully it will fork. I don't really like to incentivize people to install some random players from Google Play just to listen to podcasts. Those apps might do some shady stuff and that's why I want to add a built-in audio player.

[DanielSiepmann]

I really love your ideas and opinions.

I guess I've installed VLC from f droid. At least it's available there as well. But nevertheless it's a good idea to provide both ways. Everyone should be free to use his own way.

I'll be happy to see "official" cache structure once it's done. Changing the folder within VLC is pretty easy, so no big deal for my personal setup.

[a-0-dev]

I have been using the app for a few months now to listen to podcasts, and would really like to see an integrated podcast player! There would be two main benefits imho:

• Integrated management of downloaded audio files. Currently they are just downloaded and e.g. fill the list of audio files in VLC (where I don't really want them), plus they eat storage space.
• Continuing listening to some podcast at the point I stopped. This probably cannot be synced with Nextcloud (would be even cooler, but not definitely necessary), but currently players like VLC just forget the timestamp once they stop playing (which can happen by accident or technical failure). Having an integrated player would enable saving the timestamp and continuing from there if required.

Sadly I am not able to contribute to app projects by total lack of experience, but I really love this app already and would greatly appreciate if someone had the time to improve it in this sense :)