Subscribe links missing on some audio players

So digging into this, it seems as though I’m unable to have subscribe links using categories for custom post type posts. The following code from Line 277 in powerpress-subscribe.php seems to cause issues. The subscribe_type is set to ‘post_type’ at this point

	if( 'post' != get_post_type() && empty($ExtraData['subscribe_type']) )
	{
		$post_type = get_post_type();
		$ExtraData['subscribe_type'] = 'post_type';
	}
	else if( 'post' == get_post_type() && !empty($ExtraData['category']) ) { // If strict category selected
		$ExtraData['cat_id'] = $ExtraData['category'];
		//$ExtraData['subscribe_type'] = 'category'; // Let the get settings function below figure this out
		$detect_category = false;
	}

Since subscribe type gets set to post_type, the powerpresssubscribe_get_settings() function won’t do further digging for a possible category podcast, as seen on line 79, as $ExtraData[‘subscribe_type’] needs to be empty to do this search:

if( false != $detect_category && empty($category_id) && !empty($GeneralSettings['cat_casting']) && $feed_slug == 'podcast' && empty($ExtraData['subscribe_type']) )

For our particular case, I modified this line to be the following and it works:

if( false != $detect_category && empty($category_id) && !empty($GeneralSettings['cat_casting']) && $feed_slug == 'podcast' && (empty($ExtraData['subscribe_type']) OR $ExtraData['subscribe_type']=='post_type' ) )

We’ve been successfully using the plugin for feeds since 2010 but this is the first time I’ve been trying to use the built-in player in powerpress (previously we inserted it ourselves inside the articles).

Thank you!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by johnmontfx.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by johnmontfx.

Hello John,

Category podcasting can work with post types, that is not the issue. The challenge with category podcasting is that it is not strict, it is possible that a podcaster could pick 2+ podcast categories, which then lies the issue which subscribe links do we present to the user when the page loads.

We solved this 2 years ago with the new feature called “Strict category podcasting”. If you go into PowerPress > Category podcasting, this option is at the bottom. Simply check the box and click save. Once this is enabled, you will need to edit each blog post, modify the podcast content to expose a new field which maps the specific podcast episode to a specific podcast category feed. Simply select the strict category for that episode, then save/update the post. Once you save the posts with each post mapped to a specific category, PowerPress will know which subscribe links to associate to that podcast episode.

Only challenge will be if you have a lot of podcast episodes, you then have to edit a lot of them one by one. If you are starting from a new podcast, you should be all set, just make sure moving forward each new episode you select the category within the podcast episode box and you’re all set.

I hope this makes sense, if not please let me know I can try to explain differently.

Thanks,
Angelo

Understood — thank you so much for that…I understand the complexity and appreciate the response. I’ll search through the code because I need to code up a function to do this as we have about 1000 episodes over various podcasts we’ve done. ??

We used to host our podcasts on Blubrry (sending money your way) but have been self-hosted for years. In trying to find a solution, I noticed you had a Patreon program set up. I made a contribution today (which I’ll cancel after a month) as a thanks for your work in contributing this to the community. It’s hard to find plugins that have been around as long as our sites and yours is one of these. Thank you so much for the effort.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by johnmontfx.

Thanks for the contribution to our Patreon!