[HN Gopher] Modernizing the AntennaPod Code Structure
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       Modernizing the AntennaPod Code Structure
        
       Author : moasda
       Score  : 136 points
       Date   : 2024-05-19 06:57 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (antennapod.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (antennapod.org)
        
       | wildrhythms wrote:
       | Glad to have a FOSS podcast app. I switched to Antennapod after
       | Google Podcasts shut down. I have about a dozen podcasts I listen
       | to, half of them from Patreon RSS feeds. Works great!
        
         | mdaniel wrote:
         | I spotted Podcini <https://github.com/XilinJia/Podcini#readme>
         | on f-droid <https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ac.mdiq.podcini/>
         | over the weekend and it is the first contender to remove
         | Podcast Addict from my phone. I just need to fix a few UX bugs
         | (for my workflow) but I'm stoked about it
        
         | onislandtime wrote:
         | I had to use an iPhone for a month when I lost my Android phone
         | so I tried Spotify for podcasts. I can't describe how bad it
         | is, impossible to control what you want to play, complete
         | garbage. AntennaPod is an example of what software can be when
         | you remove greed from the equation.
        
           | hedora wrote:
           | I miss AntennaPod from Android. It's on a list of about 5
           | things.
           | 
           | Having said that, Overcast for iOS is great. The main missing
           | feature vs. AntennaPod is that I can't browse + select
           | podcast episodes using the job wheel / touchscreen on my non-
           | CarPlay car.
           | 
           | That feature barely works with Apple Music (and not at all
           | for other first-party or third-party apps), so I suspect it's
           | an iOS issue more than an Overcast issue.
        
           | idle_zealot wrote:
           | If you're on an iPhone then Apple's own Podcasts app is what
           | you want. It's basically identical to AntennaPod in normal
           | usage, and that's a good thing.
        
       | hiddencost wrote:
       | I've encountered this kind of poor encapsulation in other open
       | source projects quite frequently. It's often one of the main
       | blockers to contributing, for me.
       | 
       | Congratulations to AntennaPod for spending three years to clean
       | this up.
        
       | brunoqc wrote:
       | Semi related. I wonder if they are planning to use the open
       | podcast API
       | https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3390-intr...
        
         | parineum wrote:
         | From your link...
         | 
         | > Over at AntennaPod, we often get requests and comments about
         | synchronization of listening data. The existing gPodder API has
         | some fundamental flaws and misses capabilities. So we took the
         | initiative together with Funkwhale to develop a new standard to
         | sync your listening data. What do we do differently & why,
         | where are we at, and what calls are in the planning?
        
       | planede wrote:
       | Love the data driven approach through graph clustering, instead
       | of jumping into opinionated refactoring.
        
       | imglorp wrote:
       | Daily user of this wonderful app. Thank you to all the
       | contributors.
        
       | freedomben wrote:
       | This is great! Major refactors like this are always such a
       | difficult prospect for a number of reasons, and take real
       | dedication and love. For people doing this for open source like
       | Antenna Pod, my gratitude for you is immense!
       | 
       | Interestingly though, depending on your perspective can be good
       | or bad. For example, the improvement for _new_ contributors and
       | for the people doing the refactor will be huge and lovely. So
       | much easier to work in!
       | 
       | For the people who were familiar with the tangled mess before
       | though, it can be a real set back. I've been in that boat before,
       | and it basically wipes away all your prior knowledge and puts you
       | at least back at square 1, sometimes at like -15 because you have
       | to _unlearn_ all the old stuff and that can be really hard to do.
       | If all the older contributors were gone then this is not really a
       | problem, but if I were one of them I probably wouldn 't
       | contribute anymore, not out of irritiation or spite or anything
       | like that, just that it's too much of an uphill battle and there
       | are other projects where I could contribute more efficiently.
       | Definitely not a reason not to do the refactor, but it is
       | something I had never considered before until I was on that side
       | of it.
       | 
       | So if the only contributors are older contributors, and they are
       | still around, it can be difficult. If the older contributors have
       | moved on or are the ones doing the refactoring, or if most
       | contributions are from newer members, then it's a huge win.
        
       | thepill wrote:
       | Loving this
       | 
       | >AntennaPod doesn't need a lot of money. Our (annual) costs are
       | already covered by our existing donation funds. Therefore, we'd
       | much prefer it if you donate to your favorite podcast(er), orhelp
       | us with a non-monetary contribution.
        
       | threemux wrote:
       | Great article - it's always interesting to see refactoring tools
       | like that used in real life. I'm a daily user of AntennaPod and
       | it is the best podcast app I've ever used.
        
       | bastawhiz wrote:
       | I love this! My startup and I have been contributors to
       | Antennapod for a while now and I'm always eager to see them ship
       | improvements.
        
       | VWWHFSfQ wrote:
       | How is antenna pod? My experience with these kinds of open-source
       | apps aimed at end users is that unless there's any kind of actual
       | product or design direction saying yes/no to every little thing
       | someone in the community wants to add, it turns into a bloated
       | mess for everyone except for the community experts in open-source
       | podcast apps.
       | 
       | It's pretty much always developers that are the main contributors
       | in communities like this and they want everything to be
       | configurable. So you get things like a bunch of inputs and
       | sliders for configuring various buffer sizes and timeouts and
       | whatnot.
       | 
       | I use Pocket Casts and love it because it's simple and looks nice
       | and works great.
       | 
       | How is antenna pod?
        
         | jabroni_salad wrote:
         | Podcasts are just syndicated audio feeds and in that respect,
         | Antennapod is pretty serviceable. That said I've tried it a few
         | times and always bounce off for two issues:
         | 
         | 1. If you want to discover new podcasts, you will have to do
         | that somewhere else.
         | 
         | 2. Playlisting is not as good as others.
         | 
         | If you follow a few podcasts and aren't too opinionated about
         | it then AntennaPod is a perfectly good app. I also use
         | pocketcasts as I am married to my different filters and ability
         | to sync playback status to PC.
        
         | fluidcruft wrote:
         | For the most part I like it but there are some annoyances in
         | queue/download management and playlists. They're known issues
         | that they are working on. Currently there's just one queue
         | which can get extremely annoying when mixing episodic and news
         | podcasts. They're working on supporting multiple queues which
         | should be a great solution. I don't think that feature has been
         | released yet (but I could be wrong). Hopefully this
         | restructuring makes things easier.
        
         | crabmusket wrote:
         | I moved from Pocket Casts (which I really did like) to
         | AntennaPod sometime after the a question of the former. I've
         | experienced what you describe in some other apps, but not
         | AntennaPod. It is lighter on some features as other replies
         | have described, but the core experience is really solid and
         | straightforward.
        
         | newhotelowner wrote:
         | I like it except two issues.
         | 
         | One is that there is not a simple way to add an episode to the
         | queue. The main button is to start streaming. I wish I could
         | change the stream button to add to the queue.
         | 
         | On Android Auto, when it starts streaming the next item in the
         | queue, now playing screen changes to the the queue list. I wish
         | it always stays on Now Playing screen.
        
       | IAmLiterallyAB wrote:
       | AntennaPod is my favorite podcast app. I use it for all my
       | podcasts that have RSS feeds. Highly recommend
        
       | pmayrgundter wrote:
       | Thanks for the work guys! It's been growing in quality of the
       | years and is one of my regulars.
        
       | gnuvince wrote:
       | I absolutely _loved_ AntennaPod back when I had an Android phone
       | -- I actually never really  "attended" to it though: I installed
       | it, it worked, never gave me any issue. Now that I own an iPhone,
       | I really miss having a quality app like AntennaPod.
        
       | easyKL wrote:
       | Still waiting for them to catch up and join the revolution of sat
       | streaming, boostagrams , and other _Podcasting 2.0_ features.
       | Still my app of choice (due to F-Droid availability and many
       | years of playback history).
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-20 23:01 UTC)