1PODBOAT(1)                                                          PODBOAT(1)
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NAME

6       podboat - a podcast download manager for text terminals
7

SYNOPSIS

9       podboat [-C configfile] [-q queuefile] [-a] [-h]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       Podboat is a podcast manager for text terminals. It is a helper program
13       to Newsboat which queues podcast downloads into a file. These queued
14       downloads can then be download with Podboat.
15

OPTIONS

17       -h, --help
18           Display help
19
20       -C configfile, --config-file=configfile
21           Use an alternative configuration file
22
23       -q queuefile, --queue-file=queuefile
24           Use an alternative queue file
25
26       -a, --autodownload
27           Start automatic download of all queued files on startup
28
29       -l loglevel, --log-level=loglevel
30           Generate a logfile with a certain loglevel. Valid loglevels are 1
31           to 6. An actual logfile will only be written when you provide a
32           logfile name.
33
34       -d logfile, --log-file=logfile
35           Use this logfile as output when logging debug messages. Please note
36           that this only works when providing a loglevel.
37

PODCAST SUPPORT

39       A podcast is a media file distributed over the internet using
40       syndication feeds such as RSS, for later playback on portable players
41       or computers. Newsboat supports downloading, saving and streaming
42       podcasts, though an external media player is needed for playback. This
43       support differs a bit from other podcast aggregators or "podcatchers"
44       in how it is done.
45
46       Podcast content is transported in RSS feeds via special tags called
47       "enclosures". Newsboat recognizes these enclosures and stores the
48       relevant information for every podcast item it finds in an RSS feed.
49       Since version 2.0, it also recognizes and handles the Yahoo Media RSS
50       extensions.
51
52       Remote APIs don’t always list those "enclosures", so podcasts might be
53       missing from Newsboat. Such APIs are marked in the relevant section of
54       our docs. If a note is missing but you still don’t see enclosures in
55       Newsboat, please file an issue and we’ll get to the bottom of it!
56

MANAGING AUDIO FILES WITH PODBOAT

58       What the user can do is to add the podcast download URL to a download
59       queue. Alternatively, Newsboat can be configured to automatically do
60       that. This queue is stored in the queue file next to the cache.db file.
61
62       The user can then use the download manager podboat to download these
63       files to a directory on the local filesystem. Podboat comes with the
64       Newsboat package, and features a look and feel very close to the one of
65       Newsboat. It also shares the same configuration file.
66
67       Podcasts that have been downloaded but haven’t been played yet remain
68       in the queue but are marked as downloaded. You can remove them by
69       purging them from the queue with the Shift + P key. After you’ve played
70       a file and close Podboat, it will be removed from the queue. The
71       downloaded file remains on the filesystem unless "delete-played-files"
72       is enabled.
73
74       A common "use case" is to configure Newsboat to automatically enqueue
75       newly found podcast download URLs. Then, the user reloads the podcast
76       RSS feeds in Newsboat, and after that, uses Podboat to view the current
77       queue, and either selectively download certain files or automatically
78       download them all together by pressing A within Podboat.
79

CONFIGURATION COMMANDS

81       delete-played-files (parameters: [yes/no]; default value: no)
82           If set to yes, Podboat will delete files when their corresponding
83           queue entry is removed (this includes "finished" and "deleted"
84           entries as well). (example: delete-played-files yes)
85
86       download-path (parameters: <path>; default value: ~/)
87           Specifies the directory where Podboat shall download the files to.
88           Optionally, placeholders can be used to place downloads in a
89           directory structure. See "Format Strings" section of Newsboat
90           manual for details on available formats. This setting is applied at
91           enqueueing time; changing it won’t affect download paths of the
92           podcasts that were already added to the queue. (example:
93           download-path "~/Downloads/%h/%n")
94
95       download-filename-format (parameters: <string>; default value:
96       "%?u?%u&%Y-%b-%d-%H%M%S.unknown?")
97           Specifies how Podboat would name the files it downloads (see also
98           download-path). See "Format Strings" section of Newsboat manual for
99           details on available formats. (example: download-filename-format
100           "%F-%t.%e")
101
102       max-downloads (parameters: <number>; default value: 1)
103           Specifies the maximum number of parallel downloads when automatic
104           download is enabled. (example: max-downloads 3)
105
106       player (parameters: <player command>; default value: "")
107           Specifies the player that shall be used for playback of downloaded
108           files. (example: player "mp3blaster")
109
110       podlist-format (parameters: <format>; default value: "%4i [%6dMB/%6tMB]
111       [%5p %%] [%12K] %-20S %u  %F")
112           This variable defines the format of entries in Podboat’s download
113           list. See the respective section in the documentation for more
114           information on format strings. (example: podlist-format "%i %u
115           %-20S %F")
116

FILES

118       By default, Newsboat stores all the files in a traditional Unix
119       fashion, i.e. in a "dotdir" located at ~/.newsboat. However, it also
120       supports a modern way, XDG Base Directory Specification
121       <https://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html>,
122       which splits the files between the following locations:
123
124        1. $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/newsboat/ (XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config)
125
126        2. $XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/ (XDG_DATA_HOME defaults to ~/.local/share)
127
128       If the newsboat directory exists under XDG_CONFIG_HOME, then Newsboat
129       will use XDG directories (creating the data directory if necessary).
130       Otherwise, Newsboat will default to ~/.newsboat.
131
132       If you’re currently using ~/.newsboat/ but wish to migrate to XDG
133       directories, you should move the files as follows:
134
135       config, urls
136           to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/newsboat/
137
138       cache.db, history.search, history.cmdline, queue
139           to $XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/
140
141       Newsboat and Podboat also create "lock files". These prevent you from
142       starting two instances of the same program, and thus from corrupting
143       your data. Newsboat and Podboat remove these files when you quit the
144       program, so there is no need to copy them anywhere — just be aware of
145       them in case you write scripts that work with cache.db or queue. By
146       default, lock files are located as follows:
147
148       ┌─────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
149       │         │                           │                                       │
150       │         │ dotdir                    │ XDG                                   │
151       ├─────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
152       │         │                           │                                       │
153       │Newsboat │ ~/.newsboat/cache.db.lock$XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/cache.db.lock
154       ├─────────┼───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
155       │         │                           │                                       │
156       │Podboat  │ ~/.newsboat/pb-lock.pid$XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/.lock
157       └─────────┴───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
158
159       Newsboat places the lock file next to the cache file, so if you specify
160       cache-file setting or pass —cache-file command-line argument, the path
161       to the lock file will change too. Podboat, on the other hand, always
162       places its lock file as shown above.
163
164       dotfiles
165           ~/.newsboat/config
166
167           ~/.newsboat/queue
168
169       XDG
170           $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/newsboat/config
171
172           $XDG_DATA_HOME/newsboat/queue
173
174           Note: if the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable is not set,
175           Podboat behaves as if it was set to ~/.config. Similarly,
176           XDG_DATA_HOME defaults to ~/.local/share.
177

ENVIRONMENT

179       BROWSER
180           Tells Newsboat what browser to use if there is no browser setting
181           in the config file. If this variable doesn’t exist, a default of
182           lynx(1) will be used.
183
184       CURL_CA_BUNDLE
185           Tells Newsboat to use the specified certificate file to verify the
186           peer. The file may contain multiple certificates. The
187           certificate(s) must be in PEM format.
188
189           This option is useful if your libcurl is built without useful
190           certificate information, and you can’t rebuild the library
191           yourself.
192
193       EDITOR
194           Tells Newsboat what fallback editor to use when editing the urls
195           file via the edit-urls operation and no VISUAL environment variable
196           is set. If this variable doesn’t exist either, a default of vi(1)
197           will be used.
198
199       NO_PROXY
200           Tells Newsboat to ignore proxy setting for certain sites.
201
202           This variable contains a comma-separated list of hostnames, domain
203           names, and IP addresses.
204
205           Domain names match subdomains, i.e. "example.com" also matches
206           "foo.example.com". Domain names that start with a dot only match
207           subdomains, e.g. ".example.com" matches "bar.example.com" but not
208           "example.com" itself.
209
210           IPv6 addresses are written without square brackets, and are matched
211           as strings. Thus "::1" doesn’t match "::0:1" even though this is
212           the same address.
213
214       PAGER
215           Tells Newsboat what pager to use if the pager setting in the config
216           file is explicitly set to an empty string.
217
218       TMPDIR
219           Tells Newsboat to use the specified directory for storing temporary
220           files. If this variable doesn’t exist, a default of /tmp will be
221           used.
222
223       VISUAL
224           Tells Newsboat what editor to use when editing the urls file via
225           the edit-urls operation. If this variable doesn’t exist, the EDITOR
226           environment variable will be used.
227
228       XDG_CONFIG_HOME
229           Tells Newsboat which base directory to use for the configuration
230           files. See also the section on files for more information.
231
232       XDG_DATA_HOME
233           Tells Newsboat which base directory to use for the data files. See
234           also the section on files for more information.
235

SEE ALSO

237       newsboat(1)
238

AUTHOR

240       Alexander Batischev
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244                                  2023-01-04                        PODBOAT(1)
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