Podcast module development

Podcast 1.32 beta is available for download and testing. As this is a beta, only crazy people should install it on their production sites. Changes include:

* Add support for JW Player (installed separately), which allows inline playing of audio and video files via HTML 5 and Flash (thanks to Will, Sato-San and Fiammybe for their input).

* You can also upload a 'poster image', which will be the initial view on the player before it starts (on an audio file, this will be static). If there is no image, the player will automatically minimise for audio files.

* Fix bug where files marked offline were still be included in RSS feeds.

* Updated the manual and language files, to reflect that it has moved beyond audio.

I will maintain this thread for future releases / development / support, so if you have any ideas or feedback please post them here.

I pushed this as a news item as well.

Updated the beta to include more efficient search (link updated).

Podcast V 1.32 final is available for download.

Podcast V1.33 beta is available for download.

In this version I have removed i) the rights object and ii) Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting Service from the module. Podcast now draws these services from the Sprockets module (Podcast was written before Sprockets).

This basically lightens the module a bit and gets rid of duplicate code, which will make my life easier in maintaining both Podcast and Sprockets. However, please note that if you use Podcast without the Sprockets module installed you will not have access to rights management.

I have also added the back end for tagging support to Podcast, tags will probably be implemented in the next version of the module.

Podcast 1.33 final is now available for download. No changes from above. Changes:

* Fix format of URLs in <dc:relation> field of the OAIPMH service.
* Adopt the Sprockets OAIPMH service (deprecate OAIPMH code in Podcast module).
* Remove paragraph tags from template description field, should be entered in description itself.
* Fix bug in search function that was crashing profile views.
* Fix date format in search function.

Just a short note to ask for some feedback - I'm thinking about removing support for JW Player from an upcoming update to the Podcast module for several reasons:

i) All mainstream browsers now support the HTML5 audio and video tags.

ii) It has to be installed separately, which is an extra hassle for people, and in principle I don't like to use external libraries etc. unless there is a good reason to do so.

iii) Adobe Flash can export directly to HTML 5 now.

As far as I can tell the only sticking point may be a loss of support for Flash, which is only really relevant to PCs as the main mobile platforms don't support it.

If there's anyone out there that still cares about Flash please let me know.

Given that Flash is no longer supported on current mobile devices, I don't think your audience will suffer from this removal.

This said, in ImpressCMS 2.0 the installation of dependencies should be handled by composer, so the 'manual install' reason should no longer be there.