gPodder 2.10 for Maemo 4 and Maemo 5 released

As promised last week, a new release of gPodder is out. The package for Maemo 5 is already in Extras-Testing, so test it and vote for it. The package for Maemo 4 has already been uploaded to the autobuilder and should be available shortly.

This new release brings yet another round of UI improvements, and it also incorporates the feedback that I got at the MeeGo Conference:

• Expose "Pause subscription" in UI
• Multi-delete in episode lists (Maemo bug 5182)
• Setting for episode auto-delete on startup
• Custom episode list model (faster loading)

You can find a detailed ChangeLog at gpodder.org/changelog/2.10.

If you are not yet a user of gPodder, why not take the opportunity to try it out? You could subscribe to the MeeGo Conference 2010 Video Podcast (Yahoo Pipe) and (re-)watch the sessions on your device. Of course, audio and video podcasts are supported as well, as are YouTube user channels and Soundcloud users.

gPodder 2.6 for Maemo 5: A visual tour

gPodder 2.6 (an app for Maemo that can subscribe to and download podcasts, YouTube videos and tracks from Soundcloud) has been released today. The package is in Extras-Testing, so please test it and vote for it! A package for Diablo (Maemo 4, N8x0) is also available already, and includes some Diablo-specific fixes (the "New episodes available" selection was broken, but works correctly now).

I've prepared some screenshots to compare the UI of gPodder 2.5 for Fremantle with the UI of gPodder 2.6. Here are a few examples:

The episode actions dialog now has a dedicated "Delete" button for downloaded episodes

The settings dialog has proper "Save" semantics now (close the dialog to discard changes, click on "Save" to apply changes) - this has been suggested during UX-Week 1

The progress bar for the episode list has rounded corners (useless, but looks better)

Another feature that isn't visible at first: If you get "New episodes available", and you can't decide from the title of an episode if it's worth downloading, just long-tap the episode and choose "Shownotes" from the context menu to display the complete shownotes in a window.

This release includes improved gpodder.net support (easier configuration, restoring of subscriptions now works on first run), and will feature more fine-grained episode playback status synchronization with the (yet-to-be-released) new version of Panucci.

Maemopad+ 0.36 for Diablo and some Extras-Testing QA requests

I've written enough about MaePad in the last few weeks, so today I'm announcing something for all the Maemo 4 fans out there: Maemopad+ 0.36 has been released, and with it comes a nice search function (the code for which has been written in 2008) and updated translations. We also added a Git repository and the updated website to the mix.

Here's a request for all the Maemo 5 lovers: Please don't forget to give some Extras-Testing QA love to the following packages: gPodder 2.2-2, Panucci 0.3.9-2 and headphoned 1.7. These packages already have passed their 10-day quarantine (or will do so during the coming days), and are just waiting for enough votes to be allowed to go into the Extras repository, so all end users can profit from the updates. Thanks for you help!

gPodder on Maemo 4 gets a facelift

I finally got around to redesign parts of the dialogs in gPodder for Maemo 4, because some dialogs were still not really finger-friendly and usable. It's still a work-in-progress, but it looks really slick already and the whole UI is completely finger-friendly.

Let me show you some highlights (gPodder 0.17.0 is the current version available in Maemo Extras and "some old version" is from April 2008):

Pretty icons and slicker UI for the main window (compared to the same window in gPodder 0.17.0 and some old version).

The updated podcast directory dialog allows easy discovery of new content (compared to the same dialog in gPodder 0.17.0 and some old version).

The new episodes dialog shows more text and has finger-friendly rows (compared to the same dialog in gPodder 0.17.0 and some old version).

You will be able to filter the episode view and only show downloaded or unplayed episodes (a new feature!).

The complete set of screenshots can be found on Flickr.

gPodder 0.17.0 for Maemo 4 and Fremantle progress

The podcast client gPodder has had its 0.17.0 release some days ago, and after some testing in Extras-Devel (thanks to Dan Ramos) we fixed some last bugs. Most notable changes are an improved feed update logic and UI wording fixes (thanks to timeless for reporting these). Now it's time to hit the street, so gPodder 0.17.0-2 should appear in Maemo Extras on your tablets running Chinook and Diablo today. Please report any problems you find. Still have not got gPodder? Go to the downloads page.

gPodder for Fremantle has also seen some fixes lately, related to changed (fixed?) API behaviour in the beta 2 SDK. Downloads are now stored in the user's $HOME, as this is the location where user-specific data goes on the new devices. Please test the latest version (0.16.1-8fremantleui) and report back if it's ready for Extras-Testing in your opinion.

For Fremantle, one thing that probably does not work yet (except if xdg-open is available and works) is starting the playback of files with the built-in media player. As this is not included in the SDK, testing it is impossible for me here. Future versions will probably use MAFW to create podcast playlists, which is now available in PyMaemo thanks to the PyMaemo team and Andrea Grandi. As soon as alternative media players (Panucci?) become available for Fremantle, these will be selectable for playing back episodes, soo.