Ubuntu Manpage: podboat - a podcast download manager for text terminals

NAME

       podboat - a podcast download manager for text terminals

SYNOPSIS

       podboat [-C configfile] [-q queuefile] [-a] [-h]

DESCRIPTION

       podboat is a podcast manager for text terminals. It is a helper program to newsboat which
       queues podcast downloads into a file. These queued downloads can then be download with
       podboat.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
           Display help

       -C configfile, --config-file=configfile
           Use an alternative configuration file

       -q queuefile, --queue-file=queuefile
           Use an alternative queue file

       -a, --autodownload
           Start automatic download of all queued files on startup

       -l loglevel, --log-level=loglevel
           Generate a logfile with a certain loglevel. Valid loglevels are 1 to 6. An actual
           logfile will only be written when you provide a logfile name.

       -d logfile, --log-file=logfile
           Use this logfile as output when logging debug messages. Please note that this only
           works when providing a loglevel.

PODCAST SUPPORT

A podcast is a media file distributed over the internet using syndication feeds such as
RSS, for later playback on portable players or computers. Newsboat contains support for
downloading and saving podcasts. This support differs a bit from other podcast aggregators
or "podcatchers" in how it is done.

Podcast content is transported in RSS feeds via special tags called "enclosures". Newsboat
recognizes these enclosures and stores the relevant information for every podcast item it
finds in an RSS feed. Since version 2.0, it also recognizes and handles the Yahoo Media
RSS extensions. What the user then can do is to add the podcast download URL to a download
queue. Alternatively, newsboat can be configured to automatically do that. This queue is
stored in the queue file next to the cache.db file.

The user can then use the download manager podboat to download these files to a directory
on the local filesystem. Podboat comes with the newsboat package, and features a look and
feel very close to the one of newsboat. It also shares the same configuration file.

Podcasts that have been downloaded but haven’t been played yet remain in the queue but are
marked as downloaded. You can remove them by purging them from the queue with the "P" key.
After you’ve played a file and close podboat, it will be removed from the queue. The
downloaded file remains on the filesystem unless "delete-played-files" is enabled.

CONFIGURATION COMMANDS

       delete-played-files (parameters: [yes/no]; default value: no)
           If set to yes, podboat will delete files when their corresponding queue entry is
           removed (this includes "finished" and "deleted" entries as well). (example:
           delete-played-files yes)

       download-path (parameters: <path>; default value: ~/)
           Specifies the directory where podboat shall download the files to. Optionally,
           placeholders can be used to place downloads in a directory structure. See "Format
           Strings" section of Newsboat manual for details on available formats. This setting is
           applied at enqueueing time; changing it won’t affect download paths of the podcasts
           that were already added to the queue. (example: download-path "~/Downloads/%h/%n")

       download-filename-format (parameters: <string>; default value:
       "%?u?%u&%Y-%b-%d-%H%M%S.unknown?")
           Specifies how podboat would name the files it downloads (see also download-path). See
           "Format Strings" section of Newsboat manual for details on available formats.
           (example: download-filename-format "%F-%t.%e")

       max-downloads (parameters: <number>; default value: 1)
           Specifies the maximum number of parallel downloads when automatic download is enabled.
           (example: max-downloads 3)

       player (parameters: <player command>; default value: "")
           Specifies the player that shall be used for playback of downloaded files. (example:
           player "mp3blaster")

       podlist-format (parameters: <format>; default value: "%4i [%6dMB/%6tMB] [%5p %%] [%12K]
       %-20S %u → %F")
           This variable defines the format of entries in podboat’s download list. See the
           respective section in the documentation for more information on format strings.
           (example: podlist-format "%i %u %-20S %F")

FILES

       By default, Newsboat stores all the files in a traditional Unix fashion, i.e. in the
       "dotdir" located at ~/.newsboat. However, it also supports a modern way, XDG Base
       Directory Specification
       <https://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html>, which splits
       the files between the following locations:

       •   ~/.local/share/newsboat/

       •   ~/.config/newsboat/

       If these directories exist or the environment variables $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and
       $XDG_DATA_HOME are set, newsboat will use these directories, otherwise it will default to
       ~/.newsboat as its configuration directory.

       If you’re currently using ~/.newsboat/ but wish to migrate to XDG directories, you should
       move the files as follows:

       config, urls
           to $HOME/.config/newsboat/

       cache.db, history.search, history.cmdline, queue
           to $HOME/.local/share/newsboat/

       dotfiles
           $HOME/.newsboat/config

           $HOME/.newsboat/queue

       XDG
           $HOME/.config/newsboat/config

           $HOME/.local/share/newsboat/queue

ENVIRONMENT

BROWSER
Tells Newsboat what browser to use if there is no browser setting in the config file.
If this variable doesn’t exist, a default of lynx(1) will be used.

CURL_CA_BUNDLE
Tells Newsboat to use the specified certificate file to verify the peer. The file may
contain multiple certificates. The certificate(s) must be in PEM format.

This option is useful if your libcurl is built without useful certificate information,
and you can’t rebuild the library yourself.

EDITOR
Tells Newsboat what fallback editor to use when editing the urls file via the
edit-urls operation and no VISUAL environment variable is set. If this variable
doesn’t exist either, a default of vi(1) will be used.

PAGER
Tells Newsboat what pager to use if the pager setting in the config file is explicitly
set to an empty string.

TMPDIR
Tells Newsboat to use the specified directory for storing temporary files. If this
variable doesn’t exist, a default of /tmp will be used.

VISUAL
Tells Newsboat what editor to use when editing the urls file via the edit-urls
operation. If this variable doesn’t exist, the EDITOR environment variable will be
used.

XDG_CONFIG_HOME
Tells Newsboat which base directory to use for the configuration files. See also the
section on files for more information.

XDG_DATA_HOME
Tells Newsboat which base directory to use for the data files. See also the section on
files for more information.

AUTHOR

       Alexander Batischev

                                            2020-10-15                                 PODBOAT(1)