Code / Appnel Solutions 

On Podcasting and Enclosures in MT4

Todd Cochrane posted a missive on Geek News Central slamming Six Apart and its podcasting support that doesn’t have its facts straight and sparked a thread on the ProNet mailing list discussing MT’s podcasting and enclosures support.

Here are the three points you need to take away from this post:

• The Enclosures plugin is reported to work in MT4; however, I personally recommend caution in using it because it could contribute to sudden and severe delays in rebuild time with its current implementation. Details are below. The title of Cochrane’s post is not correct.

• The podcasting support Cochrane claims is native to WordPress is in fact a single plugin called PodPress. (The Geek News post criticizes MT and Six Apart for relying on a “single plugin.”)

• The Podcasting features in MT are still developing and Six Apart’s claims may be a bit “overzealous” at this point. They were discussed with users on the ProNet mailing list with those requesting such features.

If you don’t need to know more then that you can stop here. If not, my observations, peppered with some comments from other ProNet members, is as follows.

I’ve grown so tired of these types of posts where users goes off half-cocked (excused the pun) and starts shooting first before working entirely through the issue before making the original threat to defect to WordPress.

While Cochrane has a good point about about externally hosted assets, the post makes him comes off as a person I don’t want to help. Still it sparked a conversation about this area of functionality in the ProNet community that I thought I would highlight here.

Su noted that the post refers to the native support of podcasting in WordPress is actually one plugin, PodPress, that is developed independently of WordPress. (Note this is “one plugin” — the same thing he criticizes Six Apart and MT of.)

I’d also mention that Six Apart participated in a fairly detailed thread with ProNet memebers (far more then the “5 minutes” Cochrane claims Six Apart did not take) requesting pocasting features before making the announcement. Whether that group who took the time to participate in a constructive dialog with Six Apart was representative of most podcasters, I’m not sure. Like all new features there is always room or improvement. Su also noted the post does not list what features constitute pocast support other then the reference to PodPress.

In all fairness I must agree with Chad Everett when he said:

Now it is true that you can’t use assets with [MT’s podcasting capabilities], and I also have some issues with “native podcasting support” being a bit, shall we say, overzealous.

This is a good point and one that I’ve seen Six Apart fall into from time-to-time. In my experience, I find these type of things hurt more then help in the long-term really. Someone like Geek News Central buys into the statement and are annoyed as hell when it doesn’t meet their expectations. Rather then a mild groan of its absence (if they notice at all) they start screaming and getting hysterical about it.

Chad also adds:

But if the issue is getting Enclosures to work, it really shouldn’t be a problem.

Chad reports deploying that plugin for a few clients without issue.

The problem I have seen is that Enclosures issues a HTTP HEAD to get the file size of the enclosure each time a template is rebuilt. Said differently, that file size is not cached or stored anywhere that it needs to do that HEAD every time the template is generated.

The plugin also uses the default LWP timeout which is quite long — like 120 seconds I think. In the event the server hosting the enclosure slows or goes down completely that responses take away if they come back at all, rebuilds times can suddenly go through the roof. Couple that with a site that gets lots of comments and an index template or two using that and you now have a first class headache that could eventually crash your server.

That has been my experience where Enclosures is “broken,” but that isn’t specific to MT4. I’ve recommended my clients avoid use that plugin very cautiously especially when relying on an externally hosted resource.

UPDATE: Byrne Reese, MT’s product manager and a plugin developer himself, posted today that he has developed a new podcast plugin for MT4. Its similar to the Enclosures plugin, but its integrated with the Assets Manager and ads a few extra features such as a Flash audio player.

Wordpress does not require a plugin to generate an enclosure in the RSS feed as you state in your post. Podpress adds support for iTunes but you can have a podcast feed without the plugin.

If that is all that post was looking for I'm puzzled to what the big deal is. You can create an enclosure tag in MT without a plugin also.

Definitely good to be wary of the Enclosures plugin - it does a good job, but it has some potential pitfalls. My main concern was that they weren't unique to MT4, and the idea that the plugin doesn't work with MT4 is simply not true (an idea spread mostly by FUD, and apparently coming from Six Apart Support Staff, if the information posted by Todd is true, and I have no reason to believe that it is not).

That said, I tried to correct the information there, and for whatever reason, my comment never showed (still hasn't as of this writing). Ah well...

I have person using MT. Where do I find the podcasting/enclousre plugin for MT? I googled and didn't find much. I'm pretty much a MT virgin. Also WP has at least two plugins for audio (enclosures). Podpress and 1 pixle. Podpress is preferred by most for its iTunes support, and its ability to play the podcast in a pop up player.

Dave Jackson
www.davidjackson.org

Welcome to the fold Dave. Most have used MT Enclosures that I linked to above. Todd Cochrane and Six Apart claimed that plugin does not work with MT4 while Chad Everett verified it does.

Whatever the case, Byrne Reese has put together a new podcast plugin that he released today. It can be found here: http://www.majordojo.com/projects/podcasting.php

Hope that helps.

Tim - thanks so much for your analysis. You had asked me how the Podcasting plugin works and I wanted to let you know that in response to your concerns about the Enclosures plugin, the HTTP HEAD request to determine the necessary meta data about a podcast is done at the time the asset is created, and never done again - thereby mitigating your concerns about the performance impacts during publishing.

Now it is clear for me to better understand what "iTunes" support means. No doubt, adding some additional elements to the feed that will better allow iTunes to list the podcast in their directory...

1st Wordpress has Native Podcast Support built in.

2nd PodPress only ads support for iTunes and the utilization of some third party statistics services

3rd MovableType does not support external media enclosures. What this means is that you cannot host media offsite. Like the high majority of podcasters do.

The originaly Plugin author is very frustrated with MT for going the route they did and largely ignored him when it came to accepting suggestions on how to implement podcasting support in MT4

Here we are going four years into the new media publishing evolution and MT does not natively support podcast publishing was not only a insult to those of us that have been loyal users.

Not all of us are part of the exclusive pronet and proves that while sixapart works with those making developers they largely ignore the user base.

People like SU are not helping that perception. Proof lays in the way he responded in the MT forums over this issue.

MT needs a USER advisory panel that gives them feedback from users perspective. I am not a developer dont claim to be one and expect stuff just to work.

Once SixApart figures this out they will start to gain users that they have lost to the simplicity of Wordpress.

You are still ranting and that doesn't help your argument at all.

Su is a really passionate and respected member of the community who, like many of us, get tired of people like yourself shooting first and discussing it (if at all) later. (Heaven forbid we discuss it in a civil manner because then that wouldn't be blogging.) Su is often more vocal about it.

ProNet is not that exclusive. Yes, you have to sign up, but anyone who thinks of their work with MT is professional in nature can join. There are a lot people on the list who are not developers.

I can't speak for Brandon Fuller's frustration with Six Apart or what happened to his feedback. I don't recall seeing him offer any in the public forums, mailing list or conference calls. Six Apart has been pretty good about taking in feedback from developers and users.

Have you even bothered to look at the podcast plugin Byrne put together in less then a day for you? You are still complaining like nothing is being done yet Byrne directly addressed your points and developed that plugin in record time. That's a lot more then I would have done given your poor attitude.