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Podcast Now Available

Author: Ben <benk@tilde.team>

Thu Mar 23 05:53:57 PM +05 2023

Since it's Ramadan, I downloaded an MP3 copy of the Qur'an and set it up to play in Rhythmbox, a program that I never use but seemes suited for this kind of task. Normally I would use mpv for this kind of task, but I was wondering how to put the entire playlist on loop in mpv and ended up just loading it in Rhythmbox instead.

While I was there, I noticed that Rhythmbox can subscribe to podcasts. I had used it for that before, but I don't actually subscribe to any podcasts, so I sort of forgot about it. While I noticed it, I thought, "What would it take to get the gemcast to show in Rhythmbox?"

Well, I already had most of the tools lying around. My HTTPS proxy was already functioning, and I had a script for generating atom feeds. What if I just edited the script, pointed it to the gemcast over the other protocol, and it didn't work.

The main issue was that my original atom feed was made just for Antenna, and it pointed to Gemini pages, as entries in a gemlog. What Rhythmbox needed was entries that point to just the ogg files, so I rewrote a signifcant portion of the script to read the OGG's directly. It was interesting because in the end I was able to do this while ignoring the GMI files and reading the OGG files only, which means the podcast could in theory exist without Gemini.

While it would be easier to host it solely over HTTPS, the added complication of keeping Gemini support is necessary because that was the entire point of the program "Gemini Radio"--to be served over Gemini. With the proxying configuration I've got now, even Rhythmbox technically can't fetch the files without them being sent over Gemini. Great success!

In any case, it's convenient enough, so I thought I would put this out there for the convenience of whoever uses podcast applications.

PLEASE report problems if you test it with your app and it doesn't work. I've only tested it to work with Rhythmbox and nothing else. I have no idea what I'm doing, so if the feed file format is wrong or missing something (for one thing, it's Atom, not RSS), then I will do my best to fix it in the coming revisions. (Hey, at least it works with FOSS.) I realize that I'm probably messing with a monstrously complex ecosystem, which I hope I don't regret since my original choice of using Gemini was because it was so simple.

Anyway, the link for the feed file is here:

https://proxy.kwiecien.us/gemcast/podcast.xml

Enjoy! All feedback is welcome.