Provided by: newsboat_2.32-3_amd64 
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 supports downloading,
saving and streaming podcasts, though an external media player is needed for playback.
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.
Remote APIs don’t always list those "enclosures", so podcasts might be missing from
Newsboat. Such APIs are marked in the relevant section of our docs. If a note is missing
but you still don’t see enclosures in Newsboat, please file an issue and we’ll get to the
bottom of it!
MANAGING AUDIO FILES WITH PODBOAT
What the user 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
Shift + 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.
A common "use case" is to configure Newsboat to automatically enqueue newly found podcast
download URLs. Then, the user reloads the podcast RSS feeds in Newsboat, and after that,
uses Podboat to view the current queue, and either selectively download certain files or
automatically download them all together by pressing A within Podboat.
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 a
"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:
1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/newsboat/ (XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config)
2. $XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/ (XDG_DATA_HOME defaults to ~/.local/share)
If the newsboat directory exists under XDG_CONFIG_HOME, then Newsboat will use XDG
directories (creating the data directory if necessary). Otherwise, Newsboat will default
to ~/.newsboat.
If you’re currently using ~/.newsboat/ but wish to migrate to XDG directories, you should
move the files as follows:
config, urls
to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/newsboat/
cache.db, history.search, history.cmdline, queue
to $XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/
Newsboat and Podboat also create "lock files". These prevent you from starting two
instances of the same program, and thus from corrupting your data. Newsboat and Podboat
remove these files when you quit the program, so there is no need to copy them anywhere —
just be aware of them in case you write scripts that work with cache.db or queue. By
default, lock files are located as follows:
┌─────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ │ │
│ │ dotdir │ XDG │
├─────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│Newsboat │ ~/.newsboat/cache.db.lock │ $XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/cache.db.lock │
├─────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │ │ │
│Podboat │ ~/.newsboat/pb-lock.pid │ $XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/.lock │
└─────────┴───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
Newsboat places the lock file next to the cache file, so if you specify cache-file setting
or pass —cache-file command-line argument, the path to the lock file will change too.
Podboat, on the other hand, always places its lock file as shown above.
dotfiles
~/.newsboat/config
~/.newsboat/queue
XDG
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/newsboat/config
$XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/queue
Note: if the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable is not set, Podboat behaves as if it
was set to ~/.config. Similarly, XDG_DATA_HOME defaults to ~/.local/share.
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.
NO_PROXY
Tells Newsboat to ignore proxy setting for certain sites.
This variable contains a comma-separated list of hostnames, domain names, and IP
addresses.
Domain names match subdomains, i.e. "example.com" also matches "foo.example.com".
Domain names that start with a dot only match subdomains, e.g. ".example.com" matches
"bar.example.com" but not "example.com" itself.
IPv6 addresses are written without square brackets, and are matched as strings. Thus
"::1" doesn’t match "::0:1" even though this is the same address.
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.
SEE ALSO
newsboat(1)
AUTHOR
Alexander Batischev
2023-07-30 PODBOAT(1)