potcasse/README.md

# Introduction

potcasse is meant to help people to publish and self host a podcast easily without using a third service.

# Dependencies

* rsync (could use cp but avoid recopying audio files locally)
* a posix compatible OS (Linux, *BSD, Solaris)

# How to use

The idea is to regroup audio files with their metadata in a directory and generate the structure that you will publish on a web server.

A simple `index.html` file is also generated in the process to give an easy list without using the RSS file.

## First time

```
potcasse init
```

This will create a file `metadata.sh` that you need to edit accordingly to your setup.

It has the following variables:

+ `TITLE`: this is the podcast title
+ `AUTHOR`: this is the podcast author (doesn't support multiples authors yet)
+ `SITE`: base HTTP URL where your podcast will be available (for example `https://tilde.example/myname/podcast/`
+ `RSSLINK`: name of the RSS feed
+ `IMAGE`: if value is not empty, potcasse will use the file `logo.png`
+ `LANGUAGE`: language code (such as `fr` or `en-us`) that can be potentially used by some players

You will share the link `$SITE/index.html` or `$SITE/$RSSLINK` to your listeners.

## New episode

```
potcasse episode "Episode XX: trying something weird" /path/to/audio/file
```

This will create a directory episodes/YYYYMMDDhh so you can't publish more than a podcast every hour using this command.  The audio file inherits the directory name.

You can force a directory name with a parameter after the audio file.

```
potcasse episode "Episode XX: trying something weird" /path/to/audio/file this_is_my_podcast_episode_i_want_to_name
```

## Publishing

```
potcasse gen
```

this will create or update the `output_html` directory with your audio files, the RSS file, an index.html file listing all the episodes and the logo file if any.

# Real world example

My podcast feed is available at `https://perso.pw/lambda/feed.xml` which is on server `perso.pw` in `/var/www/htdocs/lambda/`.

I add new episodes with `potcasse episode "A made something nice" ~/Podcast/episodeXX/file.ogg` then I use `potcasse gen` that will refresh the directory `public_html` with metadata and episodes, finally I put it online with `rsync -av public_html/ perso.pw:/var/www/htdocs/lamda/`.

My `metadata.sh` looks like this:

```
TITLE="Lambda Solene"
AUTHOR=Solene
SITE=https://perso.pw/lambda/
RSSLINK=feed.xml
IMAGE=YES
```