FileField Podcaster (FFPC)
Last modified: November 13, 2008 - 23:43
**This documentation applies to the 6.x-0.7 release of FFPC (and beyond) which is still in a development phase.
Filefield Podcaster is a Views 2 plugin that allows you to output a podcast compatible feed, including a CCK filefield file as an RSS enclosure. It also inserts any of that file's ID3 data into the feed as well, formatted for use in iTunes or other software that serves up podcasts.
Setting up a View that outputs a FFPC feed is simple:
- Make sure you have all required modules installed and that you've created a CCK Content Type with a filefield for your podcast file.
- Now, go to the Views interface and create a new node type View.
- On the left Views sidebar, create a new View type of "Feed"
- For the style of your view, choose "Podcast Feed" and for your row style choose "Podcast Episode"
- Add your filefield which is where you uploaded your audio or video podcast file as a Views field. Add no other fields. All other content should be added by styling the feed itself.
- Set the 'path' in the view to the URL that you want to use as your podcast feed
- Add any other filters you want to use such as content type, published, promoted to front page, etc (although none of this is required)
- Save your view. That's it. You can now visit the URL you set in your Views path to see your podcast which will include your filefield file as an enclosure.
If you wish to add your podcast to the iTunes store, you can do so on Apple's site.
See the links below for detailed instructions on how to setup an entire podcast which includes using FFPC for creating your feed.
Add a Title
It doesn't hurt to add a Title to your view also. This will help your podcast feed be valid and also help people to know what the feed is about. :-)
This arrangement doesn't
This arrangement doesn't appear to work with Private Files. Perhaps there is a workaround to make all pod-cast files public.
Customising the output
This is great as a pattern for creating podcast feeds.
I wanted more control over the output of the feed. For instance, ffpc has no capacity for including an <itunes:image> tag and doesn't allow you category or explicit tags either or the <itunes:summary> tag at the channel level.
I simply copied the module, renamed it - so it sits alongside the original module which I've now disabled, hacked it to death and used it to give me the feed I wanted. [For instance, building the item description (given in the <itunes:subtitle> tag) from several of my node fields]. It's very easy to customise in this way (as long as you know php and drupal a bit).
On the other hand, for a new incarnation of the module (given that I guess most people will use it as is) what about allowing the creation of a podcast image, author and description in the module administration pages?
25 Nov 09 - I'd been asked to describe how I did this, with code examples - it is posted to http://drupal.org/node/540820#comment-2304678