Option to automatically add new episodes to queue WITHOUT downloading

[e-t-l]

Checklist

• I have used the search function for open and closed issues to see if someone else has already submitted the same feature request.
• I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.
• This request contains only one single feature, not a list of multiple (related) features.

App version

2.7.1

Where did you get the app from

F-Droid

Problem you may be having, or feature you want

As wireless technology becomes exponentially cheaper and more accessible, unlimited-data mobile plans are becoming more widespread, and high-speed mobile connectivity becomes more ubiquitous. As a result, users are increasingly motivated to stream podcasts rather than download the episodes in advance, which would take up valuable storage space on their phones.

Suggested solution

In addition to the "include in auto downloads" option for podcasts, there should be an "autoqueue new episodes" option.

Screenshots / Drawings / Technical details

No response

[e-t-l]

@ByteHamster I just noticed #5332 (comment):

adding more than 100-200 episodes to the queue will likely make AntennaPod pretty laggy because the queue is not meant for all episodes

While the intention of my FR is not to add hundreds of episodes to the queue, I could imagine a user with a LOT of podcast subscriptions who would end up in that scenario.

As discussed in places like #1077, many users want to listen to a single podcast in sequential order, and often start that listening session by navigating to that podcast and selecting an episode from the list. In order to have continuous playback, the following episodes need to be queued already, but as this FR describes, users may not want to have to download all new episodes in order to queue them.

So here's my question now: Is there any refactoring being explored to increase the queue size without significantly decreasing performance? Because short of introducing completely new continuous playback behavior, that's the only way I see users being able to start playing an arbitrary episode from a podcast and continue to listen to that podcast continuously, without things like episode download status being a consideration.

(And to make sure I'm understanding this correctly: Is the main reason that users don't generally have hundreds of episodes queued just the fact that queuing typically goes hand-in-hand with downloading, and most users don't keep hundreds of episodes downloaded to their device at one time?)

[ByteHamster]

Duplicate of #5246

Is there any refactoring being explored to increase the queue size without significantly decreasing performance?

No, I rather think we should add a warning message when users have insanely long queues.

Is the main reason that users don't generally have hundreds of episodes queued just the fact that queuing typically goes hand-in-hand with downloading

The idea of the queue is that you plan to listen to the episodes soon. With more than 50-100 episodes, it's quite unlikely that you will actually listen to them, and just build up an endless backlog.

[e-t-l]

No, I rather think we should add a warning message when users have insanely long queues.

Understandable

The idea of the queue is that you plan to listen to the episodes soon

I do understand that this is the intention of the queue feature. I was just thinking, in terms of actual technical limitations, for users who do like to listen to podcasts episodes serially—so if they start listening to episode 14 of Podcast A, it will continue to play ep.15, ep.16, etc., even if Podcasts B and C are also in the queue—without having necessarily downloaded every single episode of every single podcast... What would be your suggestion? Use a different podcast app?

[ByteHamster]

What would be your suggestion?

Wait for #1533