FAQ for podbrowser.org

So what is it? podcastbrowser.org? Or podbrowser.org?

The longer one, podcastbrowser.org, was the initial domain. On a whim, I checked, and the shorter one was available, so I grabbed it. Interestingly, podindex.org was taken (although I haven't seen it with content yet).

What's the most common way to use it?

When you open the page, you're looking at the newest podcasts in the system. You can bring up the languages display, and click (make go pink) languages which aren't useful to you. Then click again to close the dialog. Same deal with categories, if available. Categories have an extra state beyond "pink", a crosshatch. Making a category pink means it won't show an episode because it matches that category--but it might still be displayed if the episode matches other "green" categories. When a category is crosshatched, it means the episode won't be displayed no matter what other categories are green.

At the bottom are page tabs, with just the "0" one plus "..." to to forward. You can thus move between tabs full. When "..." goes away, the DB has run out of podcasts (due to DB limitations, this might be well before you've looked at all the podcasts in the system).

When you find a podcast episode which is interesting, you can click the "play" icon and it'll start playing (the audio element at the top of the page will show this). You can then click the bold title for the podcast (i.e., the name for the overall show, not the description of one single podcast episode). This will take you to a page view of the podcasts available from this podcaster. Click the "X" by the name and you'll pop back out.

Finally, you can type into the "Filter Episodes" input box, then click "Go" (or hit enter, if you're on a keyboard). Now you'll be looking at podcasts which match your search text. Again, click "X" and you'll pop back out.

Where does podbrowser get its content?

Podbrowser is an application of the database maintained at podcastindex.org, and is primarily developed to help those good folks shake out their API's and database design.

Don't donate here. Donate over there.

How are preferences and bookmarks shared?

When you link a new device to an old one, the new device gets set to the same cookie as the old one. When your web session asks for profile information, it's keyed by that cookie.

Preference changes are recorded after you open the language or category display, change some buttons, and then dismiss the display. So if you change several category choices, it's only saved once, when you close the window.

When your page starts, it pulls the saved preferences. It does not do real-time refreshing across browsers, so if two devices are changing things concurrently, whoever saves last, wins.

I Have My Own RSS Reader / Podcatcher?

Podbrowser supports searching for podcasts, but then letting you grab the RSS feed to give to your own feed reader or podcast RSS app. Use the search input field, and then click into a podcast of interest. You can play a few episodes to make sure, then click on the upper right "hamburger menu" and scroll down to "RSS Feed". If your browser supports it, you can click on that and it'll be handed to your RSS reader. If not, right click and "Copy Link". Then switch over to your RSS app, tell it to create a new feed, and paste when it asks you for the feed's URL.

I found a bug!

Nice. Tell the author.