django-podcast - Project Hosting on Google Code

Code license:	New BSD License
Labels:	python, django, podcast, rss, feed, itunes, media, feedburner, sitemap

Links:	Rich's website Jeff's website
Feeds:	Project feeds

People details

Project owners:
	richardcornish, jeff.triplett

django-podcast is a Django application that allows you to easily publish podcasts that conform to the RSS 2.0 and iTunes RSS podcast specifications.

Update 2009/02/16: Google released a point version update of the video sitemap, so I updated the models, admin.py and templates to reflect it. Note the model changes or it might screw up whatever you're working on. There are a couple of new sitemap tags that are best suited to be completed by your specific application, like <video:rating> and <video:view_count>, which are probably user-generated and beyond the scope of django-podcast.

Django and Python version

django-podcast requires at least Django 0.97 revision 7967. This revision incorporated the newforms-admin branch into trunk and makes the most notable use of it in the categories class of the application's models. However, I heavily encourage you to develop with the Django development version (known as "trunk"), which is Django 1.0.x at the time of this writing. At the least, please use Django 1.0.

If you're developing on a web host, Python is probably already installed. To check, type python from the command line after logging in via SSH. If Python isn't installed, download and install Python. At least Python version 2.3 is recommended.

ssh user@domain.com

python

Installation

After connecting to your server via SSH, typically you download Django and other packages into a source directory. You would then symlink the django directory to a location that resides on your Python path. Likewise, download django-podcast from the Google Code Subversion repository and symlink the podcast directory.

If you work with WebFaction (like I do), and assuming one location on your Python path is $HOME/webapps/django/lib/python2.5, it might go like:

mkdir ~/source

svn co http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/ $HOME/source/django-trunk/

ln -s $HOME/source/django-trunk/django/ $HOME/webapps/django/lib/python2.5/django

svn co http://django-podcast.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ $HOME/source/django-podcast-read-only/

ln -s $HOME/source/django-podcast-read-only/podcast/ $HOME/webapps/django/lib/python2.5/podcast

Add podcast as a tuple item to your INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py:

    INSTALLED_APPS = (
      ...
      'podcast',
      ...
    )

Add these lines to your URL configuration, urls.py:

    urlpatterns += patterns('', 
        (r'^podcasts/', include('podcast.urls')),
    )

Run the syncdb command from the directory in which your settings.py resides, most probably your applications' project directory. Again, if you're on WebFaction like I am, where example-project is your project name:

cd ~/webapps/django/example-project/

python manage.py syncdb

Alternatively if the Django binary directory is on your Python path, run the syncdb command from any directory to install the database tables.

django-admin.py syncdb

If you installed the Django admin application, you should be able to see the podcast application's show and episode areas:

http://www.example.com/admin/podcast/

You might need to restart the server for changes to take effect, especially if you are running Django on mod_python.

Dependencies

None. However, consider a thumbnail creation utility, such as sorl-thumbnail, if you are not in control of creating your podcast show artwork. iTunes suggests show artwork should be a width and height of 600 pixels, but you might want to reduce the size of artwork on your website.

Web site URLs

The default, out-of-the-box Web site URLs should look something like:

http://www.example.com/podcasts/

http://www.example.com/podcasts/title-of-show/

http://www.example.com/podcasts/title-of-show/title-of-episode/

The /podcasts/ portion of the URL is hard coded into the URL configuration. Beautifully designed default templates are included, so feel free to show off your URLs after saving a show and an episode! Note that the templates were not stress tested in Internet Explorer 6 or 7, but work on Web standards browsers.

FeedBurner and iTunes URLs

After saving at least one show and one episode, consider submitting your feed URL to FeedBurner for keeping track of podcast subscriber statistics. Your feed URL should be something like, where title-of-show is the slug of your show:

http://www.example.com/podcasts/title-of-show/feed/

Remember to check the checkbox for "I'm a podcaster!" Your new FeedBurner URL should be something like:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TitleOfShow

You can now return to your website's admin and paste this URL into your Show's FeedBurner textbox. For bonus points, submit your FeedBurner URL to the iTunes Store. Your iTunes podcast URL should then be something like:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=000000000

The advantage of submitting your FeedBurner URL to the iTunes Store allows you to track show statistics while also giving users the advantage of using the friendly iTunes interface. Return to the admin again and paste the iTunes show URL into the Show's iTunes URL textbox. Promote either the FeedBurner URL or the iTunes URL using each respective template tag on your website (in the simplest example):

{{ show.feedburner }}

{{ show.itunes }}

Ping iTunes for new content

The iTunes Store checks new content daily but you might want to make a new episode available immediately in the iTunes Store. Visit your show's ping URL to make that episode available, which would be something like:

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast?id=000000000

Alternatively, if you're a savvy developer, you could set up a cron job to handle this, but note that pinging too often could result in a removal from the iTunes Store.

Yahoo! Media RSS feed submission

Likewise, considering submitting your podcast to Yahoo! Search, which specifically accepts any kind of regularly published media-based (audio, video, image, document, etc.) RSS 2.0 feed or Media RSS feed.

Your Media RSS feed should be something like:

http://www.example.com/podcasts/title-of-show/media/

Google video sitemaps

If you're creating a video podcast, you can submit a video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. The video sitemap will help Google index videos in Google Video.

After a successful installation, the video sitemap URL should be something like:

http://www.example.com/podcasts/title-of-show/sitemap.xml

Additionally, you can add the video sitemap URL to your robots.txt file.

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/podcasts/title-of-show/sitemap.xml

Google allows the submission of a media RSS feed instead of the sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools if you prefer.

Relevant links

Some URLs that helped me and could help you:

Specifications

Tutorials, Validators, Software

Feed Validator
MetaX, Macintosh meta-data tagger (for saving episode-specific artwork and other meta data)

For the curious, django-podcast is compatible with enhanced podcasts and HD podcasts; both depend on the respective file's preparation and not on the feeds.

Licensing

This software is licensed under the new BSD license.

Support

Please file a ticket if you find a problem with this application, and if you're feeling generous a patch to go with it. Help me help you!

If you used this Django application, I'd love to see it in action, and if you have suggestions or feature requests, drop me a line at rich (at) richardcornish (dot) com and let me know.