Continuous playback if initiated from podcast screen (+ reversed)

[keunes]

I sometimes like to listen to a bunch episodes from one show, just to catch up with the feed after holidays. Currently, this is possible by manually sorting the queue, but I find it quite a hassle to do so. Quite some other users seem to want to be able to play the episodes just from one feed, because they're listening to an audio play, lectures, or alike.

Therefore I'd like to propose:

• to make AP play the next episode in the feed list when the currently playing episode is finished, when playback is initiated from the feed list rather than from the queue
• to introduce a new feed-setting to reverse the order in the feed screen so that the newest episode of the feed would be shown at the bottom of the list (and new episodes would be added to the bottom). If enabled, I can then listen to that episode in sequential order by tapping on the highest listed (and thus the oldest) episode, after which AP will continue playback down the list (to more recent episodes).

Feed screen as dedicated queue, change of perspective (?)
I have the feeling often we as (wannabe-)developers* see the feed screen as a way to manage episodes of that particular feed, and a way to reach information and settings of that feed. Given the large amount of talk about multiple playlists and stuff, however, I believe many people could easily or already see/perceive the feed overview as a special playlst or dedicated queue for one show, and I think we should adapt our perspective accordingly. When doing so, the proposed makes more sense than current behaviour, regardless the use case. Rather than jumping from one queue to the other (dedicated to general) without any feedback to the user, AP sticks to the queue from which the user initiated playback.

 * I consider myself to be one of the wannabe-developers

[keunes]

PS. Actually I think this was proposed by someone else already as part of another discussion, but I couldn't find it

[mfietz]

#1519 (comment)

[keunes]

(I thought there was another discussion somewhere, but maybe I'm wrong and my memory just is terribly bad)

[mfietz]

#1077 then

[TheNitek]

I think this would be great! Would be highly appreciated!

[paoloianes]

I'm looking forward to this feature!
Some other podcast players alredy have it.
Thank you very much!

[frederickjh]

+1 to playback of next podcast episode from the same feed if there are more unlisten to episodes.

[athoti]

+1 I would really like to see this feature added as well. Very convenient for history, lecture type of podcasts. It's the only thing missing in antennapod for me :( Thank you!!

[girstn]

+1 This would be great for audio dramas or or podcasts that use episodes to tell a story, such as Serial.

[patrickheney]

Current work around is to select all episodes from the feed view, add the episodes to the queue, sort the queue by episode title or date, then by feed title. Then scroll to the feed you want.

[Dunc0]

Please implement this. This is the feature that is preventing me from using antenna pod as a daily which I want to do as its open source. Love so much about this app, and I don't mean to be rude, but the devs seem to be very hung up on the queue being the be-all/end-all of this app and its creating a bit of a mental block for them. New users (myself included) expect the queue to be a secondary method of playback. when I browse to a podcast and see all the episodes there, in my mental model, that is the current playlist, and I am surprised and annoyed when the first episode finishes and then playback just stops because there is something called a queue in the background that I am not familiar with and have no wish to use. I will donate AU$50 to this app the day this is implemented.

[ueen]

+1

[keunes]

@ueen the best method for a simple indication of support is a simple thumbs-up :-) (It's possible to sort issues based on it, and it's a bit more indicative of popularity than the number of comments.)

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/headset-buttons-multiple-push/935/7

[ueen]

How does the queue work? What is it's current purpose?

I think the reversed order isn't necessary, always continue with newer episodes if available and then reverse direction to older ones (in one feed or episodes fragment) makes the most sense. Then the queue could be more like a playlist that one can manually add episodes to.

[ByteHamster]

always continue with newer episodes if available

You can achieve that by sorting and keeping the queue sorted automatically.

How does the queue work? What is it's current purpose?

Newly released episodes are displayed on the "new" screen. There you decide wether you are interested in it or not. If not, you swipe it away. If you are interested, you add it to the queue. Playback then follows the queue from top to bottom (might be sorted manually or automatically).

[ueen]

Ah I see, but how should one learn this? It's completely undiscoverable in my opinion...

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/play-folder-as-audiobook/1196/5

[keunes]

Requested in review:

1

Excellent! Clear and intuitive to use. However, it would be nice if there was another way to automatically start more episodes of the same podcast as soon as the episode you are listening to ends. Binge listening to a podcast is a bit inconvenient when you have to manually queue every single episode of the podcast. While you can add multiple episodes at once, this is not a good solution for podcasts with 500+ episodes. Still great app!.

2

It's basically the only podcast app that doesn't shove ads at you, or include any of its own ads at all. But it totally fails to be usable to listen to a complete podcast. The only way to play the next episode and then the next is to select and add each episode to the queue . . . And do it again . . . And again . . . And again. Forever. So lame. But no ads though..

3

I wish it would keep playing episodes in a single podcast. I don't want a deep meditation to follow comedy.

4

If possible please add sorting feature for the page/menu 'Episodes' so that people can listen to all subscribed podcasts' episodes chronologically. Other than that, this is a really great app. Thank you for the hardwork and have a nice day!

5

Would be 5 stars if it would auto play the next episode (or at least have the financially). I commonly listen to podcasts 5 to 10 min in length while driving, putting several episodes in a queue isn't something I'll do while driving.

6

trying to find a replacement for stitcher. all I want to do is just binge stream (not download) all old episodes of one podcast in order. but it seems like for some reason that's impossible on this app. instead, I have to manually start each one after the last one stops, or individually add all 100 episodes to queue? this seems like a really obvious feature to be missing and I find it pretty annoying. probably have to find another app if I can't do this.

7

I wish there was an feature to auto play podcasts without queueing them, but other than that, it's been a great alternative to Google Podcasts.

8

Amazing app. Simple, no bloat or nonesense, excellently built. Only thing it's missing is a feature to just auto play/stream through all episodes in a subscruption without having to download every episode you want into a queue and this would be perfect.

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/multiple-queues-impact-and-feature-mapping/2670/3

[ghost]

Why implement multiple queues instead of having the queue behave as it does in music players? You play a song (episode) and the player queues it and plays it immediately but also queues the rest of the album (subscription). You can also play an album (subscription) which queues up all of its songs (episodes) and plays. Every time you play something, it clears the queue first. If you want to modify the queue without clearing, you instead can manually enqueue or prepend things.

Currently if I want to listen to a podcast, I have to hold on an episode, tap "Multi select", hold on that episode again, tap "Select all below", tap the FAB, tap on "Add to Queue", then navigate to the queue (tap hamburger, tap "Queue"), then tap the stream button on the first episode. But after hours of listening, suddenly the next episode is an episode from an entirely different podcast, because I forgot to clear the queue before doing all this. So I have to clear the queue and redo the process.

I really wish this could simply be done with a tap of a "Play" button somewhere which would clear the queue, enqueue all episodes according to the subscription's filters and sort, and play the first in the queue. Just like in Spotify, VLC, ncmpcpp, MediaMonkey, BlackPlayer, Clementine, etc.

Let me explain where I'm coming from since people seem to listen to different podcasts differently. Almost everything I listen to is serial. They are either episodes with continuing plot or tied to current events. From what I understand, there are primarily 3 ways to play multiple episodes: Inbox, Episodes, and Queue. Inbox and Episodes mix podcasts together and sort them new to old. Obviously this can't be used for serial podcasts. I want my news to be played Monday-Wednesday not Wednesday-Monday, and in the same way that I don't watch episodes of multiple TV shows interleaved, I don't want mixing. The Queue is currently quite tedious to use for serials as described above.

Furthermore, I'm worried to see that the current approach to fixing this issue seems to be adding multiple queues. PodcastAddict kind of already has a multiple queues system, and it is incredibly confusing. It's hard to tell which queue is active for example since the currently playing episode will be highlighted in every queue. The few times I've tried it I could never tell which episode would play after the currently playing episode. In contrast AntennaPod is beautifully simple in its overall design and behavior. Maybe these are simply failings of myself or PA's implementation and not the concept itself, but looking at the linked forum post and the listing of all the implications and questions surrounding this feature, I fear multiple queues could possibly not only add confusion and complexity, but still ultimately fall short of fixing this issue of how difficult it is to simply play a podcast.

[keunes]

Why implement multiple queues instead of having the queue behave as it does in music players?

Because we're all volunteers and do what we prefer to work on.

Didn't read the rest of your post, sorry. A wall of text starting with such rhetorical question in combination isn't really motivating.

Locking the issue as the request is clear. It's separate from multiple queues and we would like both to be implemented. Of course, a PR for this very issue is most welcome.