NewsRiver 0.40 is a podcasting client

NewsRiver 0.40 has a podcasting client built-in, or a podcatcher. As it's scanning for changes, NewsRiver saves information about RSS 2.0 enclosures so it can download them later.

How to update

This update requires that you update both newsRiver.root and opml.root.

1. Choose Get Latest Code from the NewsRiver sub-menu of the Tools menu.

2. Choose Update opml.root from the File menu.

The fresh download has been updated to 0.40 as well.

How to use

To begin, enable the podcatcher. Choose Preferences from the NewsRiver sub-menu of the Tools menu, and visit the Podcasting page. Screen shot.

By default it's configured to start downloading at 1AM, and stop downloading no later than 5AM, local time. You can change those times if there are other times you'd prefer to have the downloading begin and end.

Subscribe to feeds that have enclosures the same way you'd subscribe to any RSS feed, choose the Subscribe command from the NewsRiver sub-menu of the Tools menu, or use the Subscriptions page.

Once you have enabled the podcatcher, and have subscribed to one or more podcast feeds, when NewsRiver finds a news item with an enclosure, it adds it to a queue to be downloaded overnight.

After the downloads are complete, an outline appears, showing the new podcasts. You can listen to them immediately (no waiting to download, or when you're offline) by clicking on the lines with the uparrows. Screen shot.

If you don't want to wait

If you want to download all queued enclosures immediately, choose the Download Enclosures command from the NewsRiver sub-menu of the Tools menu.

You can view the Enclosures folder using the Open Enclosures Folder command.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 1/19/06; 10:46:43 AM - --