Textpattern CMS

#1 2012-10-05 15:20:20

jdueck

Plugin Author

From: Minneapolis, MN

Registered: 2004-02-27

Posts: 147

Website

Howell Creek Radio podcast

Just finished a site using the latest version of textpattern: Howell Creek Radio

I’ve been running this podcast on Textpattern on my personal site for several years now, but when the need arose to move it to its own space, I took the chance to get it something fresh. You’ll recognize the theme as the new stock TXP theme with a raft of judicious changes. I had been planning to code my own design from scratch using a responsive framework like Skeleton, but TXP’s stock theme was so well-coded that I felt it could serve very well. It’s also a great way to get educated in the new HTML5 semantics.

Other features:

• The audio is playable within the browser even on non-Flash devices (iOS and Android, etc). I do this using a method that is the reverse of what you normally see advised. Ordinarily the approach offered is “supply the audio in mp3 and Ogg, and if the browser doesn’t support the new audio tag then fall back to a flash player.” My approach is “Serve the flash player to all Flash-capable browsers and if it doesn’t support Flash, fall back to MP3 audio supplied via the audio tag.” This means Firefox works fine without my having to transcode everything to OGG. The code is also far simpler. To do this I’m using the latest WP Audio Player and a hand-modified version of jnm_audio.
• I’m using mg_setheader and these instructions (along with Apple’s recently-updated podcast RSS specs) to serve an iTunes-friendly podcast feed. This is really great because I can easily update the feed format myself if I need to, and I’m no longer relying on FeedBurner (whose rumoured shutdown was what precipitated the new site in the first place). I feel that this solution is even better than the PowerPress plugin often used by podcasters who run WordPress.
• Caching enabled using the latest asy_jpcache 0.9.8 w/fixes by netcarver. (The three plugins above are the only ones I’m using at this point.)
• The URIs for all audio files are linked at howellcreekradio.com and I’m using RewriteRules in .htaccess to redirect requests for those files to Libsyn where they are actually hosted. This way the URIs are permanent and I can switch my MP3 hosting without disruption if needed.
• Using this method to automatically serve double-resolution graphics to Retina displays.

Let me know if you find anything amiss!

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The Local Yarn | Podcast | Book

#2 2012-10-07 09:17:28

JeremyCherfas

Member

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 18

Re: Howell Creek Radio podcast

Site looks great, and works well. Congratulations. I plan to split my podcasts off in the near future, and may come to you for advice.