QCast Documentation

# overview

Welcome to QCast, an accessible, full-featured podcast player and manager for your desktop. With QCast, you can subscribe to individual podcasts or import a list of subscriptions from any other pod-catching software you use. Stream episodes directly, or download them and listen at your leisure. Rewind or fast forward incrementally, jump to specific time markers, and adjust your playback speed to get the most out of your listening experience. QCast is intelligent. It remembers where you left off in each episode, and resumes playback from that point the next time you play it. This ReadMe covers everything you will need to know about QCast.

## the main window

When you open QCast, you begin in a window with two lists and an edit field. At first, you will be focused on the list of podcasts. The list shows the title of each podcast and the date the podcast was last updated. Pressing tab will move you to the list of episodes for the selected podcast. The episode list shows the episode title, the date it was published, and the status of the episode, including whether the episode was downloaded and how much of the episode has been played. Pressing tab again will bring you to the episode's description field, where you can read any show notes for the episode currently focused in the episode list.

In the menu bar, the podcast menu contains options for managing the podcast list, while the episode menu contains actions you can take on the selected episode.

## Managing the Podcast List

### Adding or Deleting a podcast

To add a podcast, press ctrl+p or select "add podcast" from the podcast menu. You will be focused on an edit box where you can type or paste the address of the podcast's rss feed. This address should be listed on the website for the podcast. Press the "check URL" button to have QCast check the feed. This insures that the address is correct, and displays some information about the podcast. Read the podcast title and description that are displayed to insure you entered the correct URL. If everything looks good, press the "Add!" button. You will be returned to the main window with your newly-added podcast at the bottom of the list of feeds.

To remove a podcast from the list, simply select the podcast in the main window and press the delete key or choose "delete podcast" from the podcast menu.

### Searching for a podcast

From within QCast you can search the iTunes podcast directory to find new podcasts you might enjoy. Select the Search for Podcasts item from the Podcast menu, fill in a search term, click search, wait for the list of results to populate, select one, and tab to and press the Add button. When you are done searching for podcasts, press the Close button to be returned to the main window.

### getting information about podcasts and episodes

You can view some information about the selected podcast by pressing ctrl+d or choosing "podcast details" from the podcast menu. This shows the podcast title, the description, and the URL of the RSS feed. Press the close button to return to the main window. For even more information about the selected podcast,QCast can take you directly to the podcast's web site in your default browser. press ctrl+w or select "browse podcast website" from the podcast menu.

If you want to get information on a specific episode before playing it, select the episode from the list and type CTRL Shift D. This will bring up a dialog giving the title, description and length of the episode, as well as "play" and "close" buttons.

### Checking for new episodes

To update the list of episodes in the current podcast, press ctrl+n, or select "check for new episodes" from the podcast menu. This will add any newly released episodes to the episode list. Note that by default QCast checks for updates every 15 minutes.

## Importing and exporting podcast lists

QCast can import a list of podcast subscriptions from other podcast software. It can also export your current list into a file format that other podcast clients can recognize for importing. The standard format used by most podcast subscription lists is OPML. Any client that can read or write this format can work with QCast. This includes desktop software like iTunes or Juice Receiver, along with mobile applications such as iCatcher or Downcast. The following sections describe how to get an opml file from some common applications, and how to bring your subscriptions from QCast into those applications.

To import an OPML file, select "import" from the podcast menu, and select the desired OPML file. To export your list, select "export" from the podcast menu and choose where to place the newly generated file.

### iTunes

To export your podcast list from iTunes, follow these steps:

1. If you are using iTunes version 11, select "Show sidebar" from the view menu.
2. Press tab until you reach the sources treeview.
3. If the podcasts option is not in the sources list, select options from the edit menu, select the general tab and check the podcasts checkbox.
4. select podcasts from the sources list
5. Press the applications key or shift+f10 and select export from the context menu.
6. In the save dialog, tab to the "save as type" combo box and select "Podcast subscription files (*.opml)." Give the file any name you like and choose where to save it.
7. Now you can import this subscription into QCast as described above.

To import a list from QCast into iTunes, do the following:

1. Export an opml subscription file from QCast as described above.
2. In iTunes, go to the file menu, library submenu, and select import playlist.
3. In the import dialog, browse to the file you exported and press enter.

### Juice Receiver

To export your podcast list from Juice Receiver, select "Export feeds as opml" from the file menu, and select where to save the file. You can then import it to QCast as described earlier.

To import a list from QCast to Juice Receiver, select "import feeds from opml" from the file menu, and select the file that you exported from QCast as previously described.

### Downcast

To export your podcast list from downcast, do the following:

1. From the main screen of the app, select the "more" tab.
2. Select tools, and then select "export feeds to opml."
3. You will be given 3 options. The option to share with your computer involves the use of iTunes, so we recommend either of the other 2 options.
   - Selecting "send via email" will open a new email message with the opml file as an attachment. Fill in your own email address and send the message. When you receive it, you can save the attachment to your computer and import it into QCast as described above.
   - If you have an account with Dropbox and the dropbox app is installed on your device, you can select the "send to application" option and select dropbox from the list of apps. Dropbox will open, prompting you to select a folder. Just select the save button to save it in your main dropbox folder. Then you can follow the above steps for importing to QCast, and select the file that you saved to your dropbox.

To import a list from QCast to downcast, or most other iOS podcast apps, follow these steps:

1. Export your subscriptions from QCast as described above.
2. Either email the file to yourself, or place it in your dropbox account.
3. On your device, open your mail app or the dropbox app, and select the file you exported.
   - In mail, press the action button, and select the podcast app you want to receive the subscriptions.
   - In dropbox, press the export button and select your favorite podcast app.

## playing episodes

To view a list of episodes available in the current podcast, select a podcast and press tab to focus on the episode list. With QCast, you can either stream podcast episodes over the internet, or download them to play later. To download the selected episode, press ctrl+l, or select "download" from the episode menu. The episode status in the list will change to show that the download is in progress. To play the selected episode, press enter or select play from the episode menu. The episode will begin playing, and the playback window will open.

### The playback window

While playing a podcast, the playback window gives you several options, as follows. Each item in this window has a hotkey which will move you directly to that item.

- The volume control allows you to adjust the volume of the audio. The up and down arrows move by 1%, while the Page up and page down keys move by 10%. The hotkey for the volume slider is alt+v
- The podcast position slider allows you to jump through the episode audio. It changes in the same way as the volume. the hotkey is alt+o.
- The speed control allows you to play the file at a faster or slower speed than normal. There is one slower setting, and 4 speeds that are faster than normal. The hotkey is alt+e
- The episode title and a description of the episode are shown. The hotkeys are alt+t for the title and alt+d for the description.
- There is a play/pause button, as well as a button to stop audio. When stopped, the episode will start at the beginning the next time play is pressed. The hotkey for the play/pause button is alt+p, and the stop button is alt+s.
- The jump to time button allows you to quickly move to any point in the episode audio. When you press this button, your current position in the file will already be filled in. Enter the new time you want to jump to, and press enter. Playback will start at that point. The hotkey is alt+j.

### Sharing Episodes

If you particularly enjoy an episode you're listening to, you can easily share it with your friends! To share it on Twitter in a way that most accessible Twitter clients can play, click the Share button in the playback dialog. Select Twitter from the list which appears. A dialog will come up prefilled with some text. IF you're satisfied with the text, click the send button. If this is your first time posting to Twitter, you will be prompted to log in. Once you have done so, your tweet will be sent. To e-mail the episode to a friend, go into the Episode menu and select Email episode, or press ctrl+e (command+e on Mac), fill in their address, and your e-mail client will come up with the message preentered. Customize it if you like and press send to share the awesome thing you're currently listening to.

# Portable Mode

Portable mode allows you to run QCast from any folder on your computer: Dropbox, USB storage devices, and more. If you have purchased QCast, you will be required to perform a one-time product activation on every new computer you use the application on. Your settings and other information will be preserved between portable runs of the application and saved in the folder user_data inside the application's folder.

# Automatic Update

QCast has an automatic update feature. It will check for a newer version every time it is started, as well as every 2 hours. To disable the automatic update feature, add --disable-autoupdate to the application command line. Note: this flag does not work with beta versions of QCast.

# Change Log

## Version 1.9

- Updated certificate bundle enabling playback of TLS-protected Podcasts
- Improved audio playback stability
- System tray icon

## Version 1.81

- Fixed searching for podcasts with unicode symbols in their names
- Fixed posting to Twitter

## Version 1.8

- Added a way to share what you're listening to on Twitter
- Added an option for setting where podcasts are downloaded
- Added an option for setting how frequently QCast checks for podcasts
- Added an option for setting the output audio device
- Added language selection to the options dialog

## Version 1.71

- Fixed skipping/repeating audio playback
- Fixed jumping to a specific time
- Fixed the activate item in the help menu

## Version 1.7

- Improved audio player
- Built in support for reporting issues from the help menu
- Various OS X Improvements
- Added Finnish translation
- Added Bulgarian translation
- Added Georgian translation
- Added Turkish translation

## Version 1.6

- Added an Arabic translation
- Added a Russian translation
- Fixed last modified dates not updating correctly
- Bug fixes to the playback dialog, especially around how it opens and closes episodes.

## Version 1.55

- Fixed streaming especially long podcasts

## Version 1.5

- Fixed default sound output for Macs.
- Fixed an issue which caused downloading a large amount of episodes at once to slow down the GUI.

## Version 1.4

- Fixed downloading episodes with non-ascii file encodings
- Fixed an issue which prevented the UI from updating when an episode was downloaded.
- Fixed a minor issue in the import OPML dialog
- Improved podcast deletion to be faster and not leave behind anything.

## Version 1.39

- Added a way to e-mail your friends episodes of podcasts
- Significantly sped up QCast's handling of very large, multiple-hundred-episode podcasts.

## Version 1.36

- Fixed downloading of episodes from password-protected feeds, previously only playback was possible.

## Version 1.35

- Added an audible notification of when downloads complete
- Added the ability to download all episodes of a podcast
- Fixed an issue that could prevent newly added podcasts from search from appearing
- Fixed an issue that prevented deleting podcasts on OS X

## Version 1.3

- Added the ability to search the iTunes directory for podcasts
- Added support for password protected podcasts

## Version 1.2

- Fixed audio URL retrieval for some podcasts that previously wouldn't play or download
- Removed html tags from podcast details in the podcast description dialog
- Fixed opening the podcast folder on OS X
- Fixed the Podcast Updated sound

## Version 1.1

- Added some useful UI sounds by Andre Louis
- Added the episode description field to the main window