Important Upgrade Information for Seriously Simple Podcasting v1.8

by Posted on

On 13 January I will be releasing v1.8 of my podcasting plugin, Seriously Simple Podcasting. If you are an existing user of the plugin then please read this before upgrading. If you are not then this is a neat overview of some of the new features, so please take note of these important changes as well as some of the more significant features being introduced:

As always, make sure to test the update on a development server before updating on your live site.

1. Templates

Up until now, the plugin has included built-in templates for your podcast archives and episodes – these were always inherently flawed as I never really implemented the template system very well. You have always been able to choose whether to use these templates or not from a simple option in the podcast settings, but from v1.8 the built-in templates are going to be removed entirely. This means that, if you have been using the built-in templates, your podcast archives and episodes will revert to the standard templates that are being used for your normal blog posts.

2. URLs

Along with the template changes, I have also removed the option to specify the slug of the URL where you would like your podcast episode archive to be made available. Instead of that setting I am using the altogether more logical slug that is registered with the podcast post type. By default this is podcast, but you can either localise that for yourself or modify it using this snippet:


add_filter( 'ssp_archive_slug', 'ssp_modify_podcast_archive_slug' );
function ssp_modify_podcast_archive_slug ( $slug ) {
return 'new-slug';
}

view raw

functions.php

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Additionally, the feed is now being generated correctly using the core add_feed() function. This means that feed URLs have changed to be more readable and customisable – they now look like this: example.com/feed/podcast. Don’t worry though – the old feed URLs (example.com/?feed=podcast) will still work so your feed readers won’t suddenly break. You can modify the feed slug using this snippet:


add_filter( 'ssp_feed_slug', 'ssp_modify_podcast_feed_slug' );
function ssp_modify_podcast_feed_slug ( $slug ) {
return 'new-slug';
}

view raw

functions.php

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Note that after using either these snippets you will need to re-save your site’s permalinks.

3. Media player display

The location of the media player for podcast files has always been a bit tricky and inconsistent, so I am remedying that by giving two options for the media player location:

  • The episode excerpt
  • The full episode content

You can select one, none or both of these options. I believe this should eliminate the confusion and make the media player display much more logical and intuitive.

4. More post type support

One recurring feature request that I have come across is the ability to use any post type (usually the standard post post type) for podcast episodes. Well I’m pleased to say that from v1.8 this is possible with Seriously Simple Podcasting. There is a new option in the podcast settings that will allow you to specify which post type(s) you would like to use for your podcast episodes. Once you have done that, then the podcast options will be available on each post in those types and, if you add an audio file to any of the posts, they will become available in the podcast RSS feed. The audio player will also be visible on those posts. This will allow for much greater cohesion between your standard blog posts and your podcast episodes.

5. Complete file restructure

Aside from the performance and extensibility of the now improved settings page, the file restructure won’t really affect your usage of the plugin. That being said, it is worth noting as it makes the entire plugin more lightweight and manageable.

6. Widget

The pre-1.8 widget is being removed in favour of a more logical recent podcast episodes widget (that is modelled on the existing recent posts widget). In time I will create more effective and functional widgets and shortcodes because the existing ones just haven’t been up to scratch.

In addition to the above, there is a new ‘Recent Podcast Episodes’ widget that replaces the old (almost unusable) widget, a number of bug fixes, a work around for a WordPress core bug that would often prevent the audio file from being saved and many other miscellaneous improvements to make the entire podcasting experience more enjoyable.

If you would like to test the changes out before they go live on Tuesday you can grab the latest code from the 1.8 release branch on GitHub – feel free to log issues or submit pull requests to the repo with any fixes or improvements you may have.

6 Thoughts

  1. Great plugin,
    I wanted to know about the license on this. Can tweak and edit the code some for my liking? Also can I include it in a theme I am selling?

    Reply

    1. Hi Judah,

      This plugin is freely available from the WordPress plugin repo and is licensed under the GPL like every other plugin in the repo. This means you can use or modify it however you like, provided you always keep the original authorship info at the top of the theme’s index file (the text that indicates my authorship, etc.) along with the LICENSE file that is included with the plugin.

      This means that you are of course free to include the plugin in your theme (as long as you keep the correct info there).

      HOWEVER, I would strongly advise against that and, to be honest, I don’t know why you would even want to include the plugin in your theme in the first place. This plugin is 100% free (and will always remain that way), so it makes much more sense if your theme supports this plugin instead of bundling the it inside your theme. That way, when the plugin is updated, you don’t need to update your theme to accommodate it and there is far less bloat and wastage inside your theme.

      Coen Jacobs wrote a solid post explaining why bundling plugins in your themes is a spectacularly bad idea: http://coenjacobs.me/dont-buy-bundled-premium-plugins/ – he focussed on premium plugins there, but the same goes for free plugins.

      So yes – you can do what you like with this plugin (provided you stick to the terms of the GPL), but I can’t stress enough how bad of an idea it is to bundle any plugin in your theme.

      Reply

  2. What I would LOVE is a way to password protect the podcasts. On WordPress, when I use the password protect feature, the podcast is still available. The only thing hidden behind the password is any text or image content I may add.

    Reply

  3. Hi, is there anyway I can add the ‘recent episodes’ widget on the home or separate podcast page to highlight only one or two episodes?

    Reply

  4. Hello for SSP, I want to do this: For the Short Code to display on a page to list the Series: here are the things I want to be able to display: Description and the Image for the individual Series. Will i have to be able to use some backend coding to create the shortcodes (sorry i am a complete noob) or is there some form of short code available i can use to call those features? Will the newest update have the ability to upload a Logo for each series?

    Reply

Leave a Reply