PodBlast is a simple podcast feed tracker written in Python using a GTK/Glade front-end interface. It was designed to be lightweight and simple, allowing users to subscribe and listen to their favorite feeds.
PodBlast was developed on Gentoo and requires the following system packages:
- Python v.3 (python-3.4) - Everybody's favorite scripting language
- GTK+ v.3 (gtk+-3.12.2) - The Gnome Toolkit (a GUI library)
- GStreamer v.1 (gstreamer-1.2.4-r2) - A robust media handling library
- PyGObject v.3 (pygobject-3.12.2) - GTK+ bindings for Python
- GStreamer v.1 (gst-python-1.2.1) - Gstreamer bindings for Python
PodBlast requires the following python libraries:
- GObject (gi) to fetch 'Gst' and 'Gtk' libraries in Python 3,
- System (sys) to close the program,
- Regex (re) to parse and verify URLs,
- Time (time) to prase and convert time and zone information,
- FeedParser (feedparser) to fetch and parse remote RSS feeds, and
- JSON (json) to save and load user data.
PodBlast was primarily developed using Gentoo GNU/Linux for use on an up-to-date linux platform. So long as its dependencies are met, it can be started using the bash script in the root directory of the program:
#!bash
$ ./podblast
Because PodBlast is still in an early development state, its terminal output is quite verbose. It is reccomended to run the program with an open terminal so you can see what is happening on the back-end in case anything goes wrong.
The easiest way to run the PodBlast back-end is to instantiate an object in a
Python 3 shell started from the /src/ directory, and manipulate the
streamer via command line:
#!python
>>> from podblast import PodBlast
>>> feed_url = https://feeds.feedburner.com/mbmbam
>>> blaster = PodBlast() # Instantiate PodBlast
>>> blaster.register_feed(feed_url) # Fetch the feed data
>>> blaster.set(0, 0) # Feed and episode PKIDs
>>> blaster.play_pause() # Begin playback
>>> blaster.stop() # Stop playback