encaf1

I tried using “strict category podcasting”, but it made no difference, so I started looking a bit closer at the code. We also have shows that have the potential for multiple categories, although I did some tests on posts that were in only one category, and that also had no effect.

It’s actually an unnecessary solution for this context. This is a category archive page — it only has one category anyway, and limits the posts displayed to those of the category (although does not require it to be exclusively that category).

So, the plugin can easily identify that a) this is a category page, b) category podcasting is turned on for this category, and c) I know which category it is. Therefore: display the plugin.

Strict category podcasting doesn’t really do anything here.

“Podcast only feeds” are also not a solution, because a show should be free to add additional information and other posts in the feed without them being neglected by the viewer. After all, this is about a *subscription* plugin, which means they may not yet have subscribed, or they want further information. Why would I segregate the extra posts from the podcast posts, when I want them to subscribe?

If the posts appear in only one category, the information posts will not appear in the same place in the website as the podcast posts, which again defeats the purpose.

Also, since categories can be nested, I see no reason to restrict podcast episodes to a single category. If they are not restricted, you can offer a “super-category” of podcasts, or of a particular type like “spoken word” or “baseball”. It’s much more flexible, and doesn’t actually add any further difficulty to use (so far as I’ve been able to see), although it conflicts directly with your “strict category podcasting” notion.

Now, where the Strict Category etc stuff does come into use is when displaying a list of posts that are from different podcasts. However, since you already have the notion of a “Primary Category” in WordPress, why would you not use that here too? In any case, Strict Category and Podcast-only Categories have no effect on the problem I’m trying to solve: to put a subscription button on a category page.

Fair points, all, and I totally agree. I’d much rather use standards, but since nothing has emerged and there is a significant install base already, we do what we must in the meantime.

There isn’t a way to use your subscribe plugin for IOS devices unless it is in iTunes. So, a significant part of the market is inaccessible. The podcast:// schema has indeed been around for a long time (as has pcast://, itunes://, itpc:// etc), and while it’s not a standard, it actually *works*.

Podcasting has, unfortunately, been underrepresented in standards organizations and much of its history is one of large companies (e.g. Apple) usurping it and all but claiming to control it, yet refusing to actually do anything to promote any sort of standards or advancement. (This has been a pain for me for a while.. ?? )

You include mechanisms to use the iTunes store, Google Podcasts and an Android scheme — none of which are particularly “standard”. I think including an IOS hook — especially when it is as simple as it is, a very few lines — seems in keeping with currently practices.

Thanks for your support! I truly appreciate the Powerpress plugin and all your efforts.

I can try it out.

Sure! (I’ll also start shifting my attention to debugging the Powerpress subscribe widget; it’s not working properly, perhaps for similar reasons.)

Plugins:

Akismet Anti-Spam
Awesome Weather Widget
BackWPup
Blubrry PowerPress
CategoryTinymce
Crowdsignal Polls & Ratings
CryptX
Google Analytics
hitcounter
Jetpack by WordPress.com
Page Links To
Post Types Order
Radio Forge Free
Ultimate Category Excluder
Wordfence Security
WP Missed Schedule
WP-PageNavi
Yoast SEO

Theme:
(customized) iFeature Pro 5

After quite a bit of chasing, I’ve found at least one code error which is leading to the problem.

In powerpress.php, the internal configuration structure powerpress_feed is empty at the wrong time. Rather than being filled in with category-related information by powerpress_load_general_feed_settings(), it appears to be filled in with general post-type podcasting information (as if the first set of conditions checking for category had failed).

It is my conjecture that the powerpress_feed structure is being filled at the wrong time, perhaps even before the page parameters are being parsed. Thus, the category ID is not available when the condition is checked. The fields are clearly available later, and can be shown to be sufficient to satisfy the category conditions. For example, when they are checked within powerpress_rss2_head(), powerpress_feed is set up for post-type, but there are correct conditions for category type when you check is_category(), cat_ID, etc.

To test this, I simply reset the powerpress_feed to null before the (usually redundant) call to powerpress_is_podcast_feed() in powerpress_rss2_head(), and voila! The feed now contains the custom information for the category, whereas before it picked up minimal information (title only) from the category.

So, it *is* a code problem, and while I haven’t entirely solved it for you (the timing here is crude), it is somewhere around the first few calls of powerpress_is_podcast_feed().

I did notice that powerpress_is_custom_podcast_feed() also populates powerpress_feed, so there may be more than one occurrence of this timing issue.

No other podcasting plugins. There may have been others before, but they were long since deactivated and deleted.

Changed that setting; no change.

Already selected.

This is the feed for a specific category. The description, copyright, description, album art and everything else should be different. (Only the title is different.)

https://chsrfm.ca/blog/cat/current-shows/spoken/hitg/feed

This is the master “podcast-only” feed.

https://chsrfm.ca/blog/feed/podcast

Yep. It doesn’t seem to matter what I put into each individual category podcast feed setting (aside from the feed title), it seems to be pulling the rest from the general feed. It’s immediately noticeable — the main feed has a logo for the entire radio station, while the category feed has logo artwork for the specific show.

I’ve been trying to get this work as well, but noticed that no matter what I set for artwork and description (and other options), iTunes Connect (and other feed validators) only reported the default information for the feeds, not the specific Category Podcasting values — with the exception of the feed title.