...displayed inside gPodder. Not only the total time of a podcast episode, but (thanks to the MAFW integration that has been added in 2.8) also the position that you stopped listening to, so you know how much time is remaining. There are several possibilities how to display the progress: A circle sector image, a "position/total" text display and a "remaining" text display. Right now, I opted for the "position/total" display (with "total" in cases where you haven't started listening to an episode). Here's how it looks in the current development version of gPodder:
If I remember correctly, the idea for this came up during the Barcelona Long Weekend and was suggested by Tuomas while we were discussing gPodder's UX. Back then gPodder did not store any kind of time-based length information in its database - only the file size in bytes, which isn't that helpful for listening purposes. But since then the work on gpodder.net and the desire to synchronize episode status information between different devices has put everything in place that's needed to detect the duration of episodes (it's even provided as <itunes:duration> (spec) in some RSS feeds) and with the MAFW integration to detect the current playback position when playback is stopped.
If you are using gPodder 2.8 and the built-in Media Player, gPodder already collects this information, so when the next release comes out, you will immediately have some useful data there. This should also help you in deciding which episode to pick on your commute.
What do you think of this feature? Is the current representation the best one, or would something else be more useful to you?