Podbird reignited

dobey

Is that because he has no current interest in the project and can't be bothered?

It's more that he hasn't the time to do feature development right now, but is happy to merge things and upload new releases (as he recently did, given the last update in the store is from a month ago).

geekvine

@dobey thanks for the info. I'm gonna try to get in touch with him since there seems to be some interest in helping out.

Giiba

I always figured the queue being lost was a feature that was missing. If it is a bug that can be resolved that would make Podbird complete as far as I am concerned.

theare27

@Giiba I've been poking around the code a bit this afternoon. I'm a web developer not an OS / native apps guy so I could be way off, but it certainly looked to me as if clearQueue (which deletes everything from the Queue table) is being called when the app exits

If that's the case, I wonder if that could be tweaked so that it could be controlled from the conf file

a clearQueueOnExit boolean flag

But like I said, I could be misunderstanding the code

Giiba

@theare27 better than I!

I once poked around the code and all of it meant nothing to me.

theare27

Podcasts.clearQueue() is called as part of Component.onDestruction which I'm assuming is on app closure

jezek

@theare27 try to comment it out, what happens (or not happens)

CiberSheep

@theare27 said in Podbird reignited:

Podcasts.clearQueue() is called as part of Component.onDestruction which I'm assuming is on app closure

Pretty sure that is to clear the queue of episodes that you can pile.

The position of the episode is stored in the db

Position (even if it looks to jump) is stored and retrieved, so I suspect that might be a change in the Media-hub. We started experimenting position lost when moved to Xenial
https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/4VqqDpG64c/

arubislander

@jezek
Commenting it out keeps the entries in the Queue database, but extra code is needed in the Component.onCompleted to populate the playlist with the entries:

        db.transaction(function(tx) {
            // Rebuild queue in order
            var rs = tx.executeSql("SELECT url FROM Queue ORDER BY ind ASC")

            for (var i=0; i<rs.rows.length; i++) {
                player.playlist.addItem(rs.rows.item(i).url)
            }
        })

TartanSpartan

@TartanSpartan said in Podbird reignited:

I believe the progression from the Vivid to the Xenial build introduced a regression wherein you used to be able to have your place in an episode automatically saved when the app closed, but now no longer. Shall test this theory on my new M10 (with Vivid) later.

Definitively confirmed.

theare27

@TartanSpartan
Not saying it's not a problem external to the application - could well be

But when the app exits the Queue table in the app's SQLite database is cleared - everything is deleted from that table

Data in other tables - like the Podcast one that holds the subscriptions persist so it would certainly seem like clearing out the queue on app exit is a deliberate action that's triggered somewhere

theare27

@arubislander And there's also no way to get back to the "now playing" screen after the app is restated without starting to play a file - which in itself would wipe the previous queue

Would it be possible to add a "Now Playing" entry to the hamburger menu so that one can get back to where they were

Like you say, stopping the queue from being wiped out is only half the problem

geekvine

I have uploaded my fork to gitlab as a private repo. If the original devs end up being cool with it, I'll mark it public and post a link.

theare27

@geekvine yes please, happy to test
I must admit this podcast business has me on the verge of going back to Android

Playback stopped randomly for me this morning in the middle of a podcast. Wouldn't play anything. So then I have to reboot & I've lost my queue and my position.. again

It probably wasn't podbird's fault that the sound system stopped & I really don't mind the occasional need to reboot, but loosing where I am continually is exasperating

arubislander

@theare27 There are two separate issues here:

The queue gets cleared when the app is closed
The position in the currently playing podcast is not preserved when the app is exited.

#1 is easily solved.
#2 needs more investigation.

danqo6

Hello guys, I recently implemented importing podcast with OPML file (I was migrating from android so needed that feature ). It was only one day effort, but I am willing to help more. Here are some issues for the next milestone. Main issue for me is still this, it can be really anoying.

theare27

I have a workaround!

I'm so thrilled

It's hacky as hell but it works
In the Music App I've created a "Podcasts" playlist

I have a bash script that:

Rsync's the downloaded podcasts that sit in
/home/phablet/.local/share/com.mikeasoft.podbird/podcasts/
to a "Podcasts" folder in
/home/phablet/Music/

This is set to delete in the destination any file that's removed from the origin

An sql script executed that reads the Podbird sqlite database to get the list of current downloaded files and their titles and pull it into a current_files table in a staging sqlite db

current_files only contains what's currently been downloaded by Podbird
Alongside that I have an all_files table

If a filename in current_files isn't in all_files, it is copied into all_files

all_files will eventually contain filename of all the files that have ever been seen. It also has a previously_inserted flag that defaults to 0 when a record is created

The script then inserts into the Music app db's track table adding every thing in current_files, but cross referencing with all_files so that it only inserts what hasn't been previously_inserted

Once written to Music app's track table the previously_inserted flag in all_files is updated to 1

It also deletes from the track table any entries that aren't in the staging db's current_files, so that entries aren't orphaned when Podbird auto deletes an old file

So all in all

Use Podbird to manage downloads / auto-downloads/ auto-removal of Podcasts files
Podcast files are synced to ~/Music/Podcasts/
The "Podcasts" playlist in the Music App is updated with current podcasts where they haven't been added before
I can re-arrange the playlist in the Music App whichever way I want it
I can remove things from the Music App playlist that I've listened to or I don't want to listen to
The script runs every 5 minutes on a cron so anything new Podbird downloads will auto populate into the playlist in the Music App within 5 minutes

I might still have to find where I was if I quit the Music app or have to reboot, and I'll have to manage the playlist in the Music App, but that's all doable

Hacky as hell like I said, but I think I can make it work for me like this

I'd need to polish it up a bit if I was going to share what I've come up with but I'd be happy to do that if it's of any use to anyone else

jezek

@theare27 +1 hell of a hack...

the next stage should be to take all the sql queries and logic (file copying, conditions, ...) and make it work inside Podbird (qml should be able to handle all these), so there is no need to use cron & shell scripts. Qml is easy, if you are on the level of writing shell scripts & sql queries.

theare27

@jezek Can these app interact with stuff outside their own directories though?
Initially I didn't have the Rsync part, I just created a soft link between com.mikeasoft.podbird/podcasts/ and the Music folder, but the Music app couldn't read those files at all, it just dropped the entries from the track table

Whether it was because it couldn't follow a soft link or because the soft link went to another app's scope I'm not sure

I'm not sure what sort of containment UT touch apps have & how they can interact with each other on that kind of level

I'm sure there's big scope to improve on it

jezek

@theare27 Ah, now I understand. I read everything again few times and now I see my mistake. You are talking about 2 apps. Podbird and Music app. I thought you were doing the hack only for Podbird. My fault, sorry.

Can these app interact with stuff outside their own directories though?

I think, you can specify some special directories (Downloads, Music) in clickable apparmor config. For example see, how Music App defines permissions.
Interactions between apps should be handled via Content Hub.

Initially I didn't have the Rsync part, I just created a soft link between com.mikeasoft.podbird/podcasts/ and the Music folder, but the Music app couldn't read those files at all, it just dropped the entries from the track table

If symlink for directory fails, mount --bind can sometime save the days. But in this case expanding Podbird's access privileges should do the trick, I think.