DoggCatcher - User Guide

Backup/Restore

eric — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 23:12:50 +0000

DoggCatcher's Backup/Restore feature will copy all the information necessary to restore from another device (or a device that has been reset) by placing a backup of the feeds database and configuration onto your SD card.

This will have no effect on your downloaded media, since it is already on the SD card.

Here is a list of the files that compose a backup:

\DoggCatcher\Export\databases\rss
\DoggCatcher\Export\shared_prefs\DOGG_CATCHER_PREFERENCES.XML
\DoggCatcher\Export\shared_prefs\_preferences.xml

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Virtual feeds

eric — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 02:51:12 +0000

A virtual feed uses a folder on the SD card as content for a feed. E.g., you can place audio files from an audio book in a folder and play them like a regular feed.

Steps to creating a virtual feed:

Create a feed using the 'add feed' action in the DoggCatcher menu
Select 'virtual feed'
At this point you have two options
Option 1 - "Choose an existing directory"
- Press Choose an existing directory
- Locate folder (using a file manager) on local SD card or Exrernal SD Card E.g. /sdcard/DoggCatcher or /mnt/sdcard/external_sd/audiobook
- Press the 'Select current directory' button
- On DoggCatcher's feeds screen, scroll down to the new virtual feed, long press & Update the feed.
  Flag all the items as new (this will make them appear in the playlist)
Option 2 - "Let DoggCatcher creat a directory"
- Press 'Let DoggCatcher create a directory' a dialog box will appear indicating which directory was created
- Place your media files in the created directory
Return to the feeds screen
Update the feed
Flag all the items as new (this will make them appear in the playlist).
When you are playing files in a virtual feed, it is often useful to change
the active playlist to be virtual by doing the following:
Open the audio playlist (select Audio from the Feeds screen), tap the Playlist button, and select "Virtual
Feeds."

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Custom feed images

eric — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 03:43:39 +0000

You can configure a feed thumbnail image that will override the one used by the publisher.

To do this, place a jpg image named "custom.jpg" on your storage card following these steps.

Long press on a feed and press feed options
Scroll down to "Custom thumbnail filename".
Place a file at the location specified
Long press on the feed and press "Force update.." and it should display your new thumbnail

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Force download

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:57:41 +0000

Normally, pressing on an item adds it to the queue, where it will obey any download 'only on' restrictions such as 'only on wifi'.

Force download will bypass any 'only on' restrictions for this item only. The item will be added it to the queue and the download will start immediately. You must move the item to the top of the list if there are other non-forced items in the queue.

A dialog is displayed the first time you do a 'force download' that explains that the force will bypass the onlies.

You can also do a force download from the download queue by long-pressing on an item.

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SD Card

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:56:53 +0000

TODO: It's use and configuration

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Next Button (on media player)

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:56:26 +0000

The next button is generally used to flag the currently playing media file as done and then start playing the next media file in the audio playlist.

The behavior can vary though depending on some other conditions.

Auto-play ON
If no item is loaded into the media player, the first item in the audio playlist will start to play.
If an item is loaded into the media player, the currently loaded item will be flagged as done and the next item in the audio playlist will start to play.

Auto-play OFF
If the currently loaded item is in progress, if will flag it as done. The next item will be loaded into the media player but it will NOT start. You can press play at this point to play it.

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Headsets (Bluetooth/Wired)

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:55:58 +0000

Overview

DoggCatcher supports play, pause, fast forward, and rewind for Android connected headsets, however not all functions are supported on all devices.

Bluetooth Troubleshooting

Prior to troubleshooting any DoggCatcher issues, please ensure that your Android bluetooth settings say your device is "Connected to phone and media audio".

Bluetooth connectivity works well most of the time, but it gets a little flaky at times.

Many users (including myself) have reported that every few minutes there's the bluetooth audio is muted for a second or two while it is playing. Some users have reported that disabling wifi resolve this issue. It didn't work for me, but it might for you.

Bluetooth Phone Specific Issues

G1 - Bluetooth headset needs to be powered on before bluetooth is enabled on the phone
Hero - the Hero version of Android includes a music player that intercepts all button presses. At this time I'm not aware of anyone that has been able to get any third party applications to respond to button presses.

Bluetooth Profiles

A2DP - streaming audio (audio playback)
AVRCP - media controls (play/pause/ff/rew)

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Settings

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:53:48 +0000

Feed Updates

Feed Update Time

This preference works in conjunction with the Feed Update Interval (below).

It is the time that the feed update interval starts.

For example:

If you want to have the feeds update every 6 hrs starting at 3pm, you would set this to 3pm and the Feed Update Interval (below) to every 6 hours.

If you want to have the feeds update once a day at 6am, you would set this to 6am and the Feed Update Interval (below) to every 1 day.

Feed Update Interval

Feeds will be updated at this configurable interval, starting at the Feed Update Time (above).

See Feed Updates for more details.

Update feeds on start

If enabled, when the application start, the feeds will be updated.

Global Feed Options

Feeds will use these options unless they are overridden by a feed.

Number of Items

Auto downloads

Auto Delete Policy

Begin downloads only when...

The conditions that must be met for Media downloads to start.

Note that this applies only to downloads of media, Feed updates ignore this preference.

On WiFi - requires that the phone is connection to WiFi
On Power - requires that the phone is connected to a power source (either AC or USB)

Media Player General

Headset connect screen

Launches a DC screen when a wired or bluetooth headset is connected.

The bluetooth aspect only works with Android 2.0 or greater

Share media

Allows media downloaded by application to be indexed in the Android content library and displayed in Android applications such as the gallery.

In order for a change to this preference to take effect, you need to update your feeds and then cause Android to re-scan the SD card. This can be accomplished by rebooting the phone or mounting the SD card as USB.

Audio Player

Bind to headset button

When selected, DoggCatcher will pause and play the integrated media player when the headset button is pressed. Deselect this option to permit the Android music player to respond to the headset button presses.

Button Sharing
Unfortunately, you have to choose which application you would like bind to the headset button. If you enable the preference in DC, then it will own the button. When it's disabled, DC will ignore the button.

At the moment, Android does not allow more than one application to elegantly share the button. We hope to improve this function as the Android API develops.

Start application

Pause headset disconnect

The media player will be paused when a wired or bluetooth headset is disconnected from the device.

Pause on power removal

The media player will be paused when power (AC/USB) is disconnected from the device.

Skip seconds

Number of seconds to skip when the FF/Rew buttons are pressed on the integrated Media Player

Seekbar behavior

Controls what type of press is required to trigger the seekbar to change the play position.

Video Player

Selects whether the integrated video player or the default Android video player is launched when playing videos

Action after external play

Determines the action taken after media is launched in an external player.

Notifications

Notification - Download Success

Enables notifications when downloads succeed

Notification - Download Failure

Enables notifications when downloads fail

Notification - Audio playing

Enables a notification when audio is playing

Misc

Enable swiping

Swiping right on any screen will move 'back' (same as pressing back button)

Start on boot

DoggCatcher will be started when the device boots

Keep Alive

Details

User Agent

Some cell carriers block traffic from certain user agents. If this value is set, it will override the default DoggCatcher user agent.

Users on French carriers have reported that this user agent fixes this problem.

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.5; en-us DoggCatcher Build/ CUPCAKE AppleWebKit/ 528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20

Super Advanced

Storage Directory

This is the directory where all the media (audio/video) and feed thumbnails images will be stored. Changing this value requires that any media stored in the previously configured location to be manually moved to the new location.

There are a few reason why you might want to change this.

Your device does not have a file system mounted to [/sdcard] (like the HTC Incredible without an SD card)
You have an internal SD mounted to [/sdcard] but want to store your media on an external SD card.

Here are the steps to migrate your media to a new location.

Exit DoggCatcher
Use a file manager to move your DoggCatcher directory to a new location. By default the DoggCatcher directory is at "/sdard"
Start DoggCatcher
Configure the storage directory preference to the new location. This will vary depending on your device.
- HTC Incredible - /emmc

If blank, the default value of /sdcard is used.

Enable item compression

Please don't use this unless you are working with support

Compresses items in memory to work in low memory conditions.

Downloader

The advanced downloader is a re-written module for downloading feeds and media files that resolves some problems in the basic downloader. Users experiencing problems with the basic downloader (mainly 'too many redirects') can switch to the advanced downloader.

In the future, the advanced downloader will become the default and then will eventually replace the basic downloader completely.

Watchdog

This is a background thread that looks for feed updates that are taking longer than they should and aborts them. There is a rare bug that causes feed updates to hang up that this is meant to correct. It's disabled by default but will be enabled by default in future releases.

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Feed Options

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:53:08 +0000

Basic Options

RSS URL
This is the web address for the Feed.

Nickname
You can specify a name that will displayed in place of the name provided by the feed publisher.

Auto Download
DoggCatcher will download media enclosures for new items until this value is reached.

Set this value to 0 (default) to disable automatic downloading of media for this Feed.

Auto Delete Policy
DoggCatcher can delete media to make room for new media. Note that the media is not deleted until just prior to adding new items to the queue.

None - media will not be automatically downloaded
As space is needed - DoggCatcher will delete done media as needed (to keep within the auto-download quantity) when there is new media ready to be downloaded. Available SD card space does affect this deletion policy in any way.
E.g. - If you have auto-downloads set to 5 and 'As space is needed' configured, the oldest 5 new items will be kept. Once one of the 5 items is flagged as done, it will be deleted and the oldest new un-downloaded item will be downloaded. This essentially creates a sliding window of new items whose size is the value of auto-downloads. The window slides along the oldest end of the new items. Confusing...yep.
All done items - media flagged as Done will be deleted when the feed is updated.
Keep most recent (Delete oldest) - This will delete all of the oldest media except for the newest x media files where x is the number configured for auto-downloads. It will delete the oldest regardless of whether the media is flagged as New, In Progress, or Old.

Number of Items
This is the number of items that will be displayed for this feed. This does not include Expired Items.

Advanced Options

Virtual Feed
A virtual feed uses a folder on the SD card as content for a feed. E.g., you can place audio files from an audio book in a folder and play them like a regular feed.

Steps to creating a virtual feed:

Create a feed using the 'add feed' action in the DoggCatcher menu
Select 'Add by RSS URL'
Enable the 'virtual feed' feed option.
Save the feed
View the list of feeds. Your new virtual feed will have a number in the title.
Place the media files in the folder on your SD card that corresponds to the folder for the virtual. E.g. /sdcard/DoggCatcher/EpisodeEnclosures/[number].
Update the feed

Pin Expired
If this option is selected, DoggCatcher will not delete items that are deleted from the published feed. These items can be manually deleted from item context menu.

Episode Identifier
Some feeds use the same title for every item. If you see only one item displayed for a feed when you expect more, try selecting an alternate identifier. This is not common.

Make filenames unique
Some feeds use the same filename for every item. If you see all of the item icons (speaker, green arrow, etc) changing at the same time when the state of one of them changes, try enabling this feature. Changing this option requires that you re-downlkoad media for this feed. This is not common.

Full fetch
Some feeds publish items out of order. If you are seeing only older items or the items are in a strange order, try selecting this option. This increases network traffic, so use only when needed. This is not common.

Username/Password
Enter username and password if your feed requires authentication credentials.

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Subscribe to a feed by RSS URL

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:52:27 +0000

All Feeds have an URL that is the address that podcatcher software like DoggCatcher uses to obtain information about the Feed and the list of Items. Sometimes it can be a little difficult to find the URL for a feed.

Finding the RSS URL

It is usually easiest to go to the website of the feed and look for a link to the RSS feed. It should look something like this - "http://leoville.tv/podcasts/twit.xml". The http:// part is required and the URL's nearly always end in ".xml".

If you are having problems with this, it may be helpful to click on the link to the RSS feed, then view the source of the web page to be sure it looks like a valid RSS feed. You'll know it's ok if it contains one of these near the top and some of these throughout.

If it is a FeedBurner page, long press on the "View Feed XML" link to get the RSS URL.

Once you have found the right URL, copy it to the clipboard, open DoggCatcher and add a feed using the "RSS URL" selection, and paste the URL into the "RSS URL" textbox.

DoggCatcher will also try to create feeds automatically when you click on RSS URL's in the browser if the URL is one of the supported types.

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Getting help

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:51:55 +0000

There are a few resources on the website that will be helpful

FAQ - Frequently asked questions
Feature Overview - List of features
User Guide - complete details for configuration and usage
Support forum - we provide free support via forums
Change Log - changes made to each application version

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Common Feed Configuration Scenarios

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:51:29 +0000

Here are some common feed configurations that will help you get started.

Scenario 1

I want to have up to 3 of the most recent episodes auto-downloaded and for them to be auto-deleted after I am finished listening to an episode. I do not want any episodes to be deleted until I finish listening to them.

Auto-downloads: 3
Auto delete policy: All done episodes

In this configuration, if a new episode arrives and you still have 3 episodes that are new or in progress, no new episodes will be downloaded until there are less than 3 episodes that are new and in progress.

Scenario 2

I want to always have the 3 most recent episodes auto-downloaded and for any episodes older than the most recent 3 to be deleted (even if they are not flagged as done).

Auto-downloads: 3
Auto delete policy: Keep latest x...

Important things to remember

* Only new episodes will be auto-downloaded. When a new feed is created, only the most recent episode is flagged as new. So you will need to flag some episodes as new if you want them to be auto-downloaded. Once new episode arrive, they will be flagged as new and auto-downloaded.
* While you are getting your configuration set up the first time, I would recommend staying away from the global settings. Once you learn how the different settings interact, you can set up the global feed options and then configure the feeds to use the global settings where you can.

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Playlists

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:50:52 +0000

General

The Audio tab is the place to view and change the active playlist. You can select the active playlist by pressing on the header area of the audio tab (look for the little triangle).

The active playlist determines which episodes and what order they play when auto-play is enabled. Playlists can be useful even without autoplay by serving as a list of episodes that can be manually selected for play.

Auto-play

When an episode finishes playing and auto-play is enabled, auto-play will start the next episode in the active playlist. This can be enabled/disabled in the preferences or on the A button on the media player controls.

Playlist quick tips

Here are some simple ways to know which type of playlist will best suit your needs:
System playlist - you would like DoggCatcher to completely manage adding/removing episodes from your playlist
Dynamic playlist - you would like DoggCatcher to completely manage adding/removing episodes from your playlist but you want to specify which feeds are included and whether the episodes are grouped by feed.
User playlist - you would like to control which episodes are added to the playlist and want to be able to manually re-order, add, and delete from the playlist
Play order of episodes - episodes for each feed are ordered within a playlist based on the feed option "Play Order". This can be configured globally for all feeds in the preferences or overridden per feed.

System Playlists

There are some playlists that DoggCatcher creates for you. These have a headset icon next to them and cannot currently be modified or removed.

All - sorted by feed/date
All - sorted by date
Categories - one playlist is created for each feed category that you have added

You should order your feeds on the Feeds tag in the order that you would like them to play. You can move a feed up/down by pressing the context menu and then pressing "Move".

The system playlists and the dynamic playlist (mentioned later) will then use this order to generate the playlist.

Dynamic Playlists

Dynamic playlists will always contain all the episodes that match the category that is configured for it. Their contents can be filtered by catetgory and grouped/not grouped by feed.

The order of your feeds on the feeds tab determines the order of episodes in dynamic playlists.

You can create as many as you like. They can be renamed and deleted by long pressing on the playlist on the playlist selection screen (pressing on the playlist button).

User Playlists

User playlists are created and managed by you and have a person icon next to them.

You can add episodes to a user playlist (or create a user playlist) by pressing on the context button for a feed or episode and then selecting 'add to user playlist'. User playlists can be configured to automatically add all or some new episodes once they are downloaded.

You can create as many as you like. They can be renamed and deleted by long pressing on the playlist on the playlist selection screen (pressing on the playlist button).

Virtual playlist

This is a playlist for all of your virtual feeds. When using auto-play and virtual feeds, make sure you have the virtual feed playlist selected.

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Download Queue

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:50:23 +0000

The Download Queue lists all of the episodes with media files that are currently queued for download. Episodes are added into the queue either by a feed update or by manually pressing on an episode.

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Feed updates

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:49:15 +0000

Feed updates occur on the schedule that is configured in the preferences (press the three dots on the top right and then press Settings). When an update occurs, each of the feeds will be updated from the publisher's site, media will be deleted according the the auto-delete policy, and new media will be downloaded to your device.

Downloads will begin as long as the related criteria configured in the preferences do not prevent the download.

You can also manually update one feed by pressing on the triangle button on a feed and pressing Update

If an update is scheduled to occur when the phone is sleeping, DoggCatcher will wake the phone, do the update, and then let the phone go back to sleep when all the work (including downloads) has completed.

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Episode states

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:48:46 +0000

Each feed contains a number of episodes which can contain audio/video files. Episodes can be in one of the following states as indicated by a coloration near an item:

New (blue) - Not listened to or read
In Progress (green) - played has been started but not finished
Done (grey)

These states are important because they tell DoggCatcher which episodes should be considered for auto download and auto delete (of media files).

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Configuring media file auto delete

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:48:18 +0000

By default, DoggCatcher will not automatically delete any media files. Auto deletes can be enabled in the Feed Options. Scroll down to Auto Delete Policy and make a selection.

Note that media is deleted when a feed is updated.

Auto Delete Policy

None - media will not be automatically downloaded
As space is needed - DoggCatcher will delete done media as needed (to keep within the auto-download quantity) when there is new media ready to be downloaded. Available SD card space does affect this deletion policy in any way.
E.g. - If you have auto-downloads set to 5 and 'As space is needed' configured, the oldest 5 new items will be kept. Once one of the 5 items is flagged as done, it will be deleted and the oldest new un-downloaded item will be downloaded. This essentially creates a sliding window of new items whose size is the value of auto-downloads. The window slides along the oldest end of the new items. Confusing...yep.
All done items - media flagged as Done will be deleted when the feed is updated.
Keep latest X, where X is the value of auto-downloads - This will delete all of the oldest media except for the newest x media files where x is the number configured for auto-downloads. It will delete the oldest regardless of whether the media is flagged as New, In Progress, or Old.

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Configuring media file auto downloads

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:47:23 +0000

By default, DoggCatcher will not automatically download any media files. Auto downloads can be enabled in the Feed Options. Scroll down to Auto Downloads and enter the maximum number of files that you would to have downloaded for this feed. Most users configure DoggCatcher to automatically download media files when they become avaialble from the feed's publisher.

DoggCatcher will automatically download new media files until this number has been reached. It will download more later once media files have been listened to and deleted.

There are preferences that can change some of these settings for all feeds in one place but we recommend not changing those until you are familiar with the application.

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Configuring feeds

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:46:56 +0000

All of the options for a feed can be accessed by pressing on the context button (triangle) and then pressing "Feed Options". Here you can configure how many episodes are displayed for the feed, how many audio files will be kept on your devices, if/when DoggCatcher will delete media files, along with many other things.

There is a much more detailed list of all of the feed options in a later post titled "Feed Options"

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Subscribing to feeds

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:46:28 +0000

DoggCatcher is installed with a few sample audio, video, and news feeds. But most likely, you will find many others that you like.

To add more feeds, open the navigation drawer. You can open the drawer by pressing on the DoggCatcher icon on the top left of the screen or by swiping from the far left edge of the screen towards the right. There you will see a Subscribe link where you can add feeds by browsing the top feeds, searching for keywords, browsing podcasts directories, and importing from various sources.

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Feeds Tab

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:45:52 +0000

The feeds tab shows all the feeds that you are subscribed to.

Filtering - feeds can be filtered by pressing on the top of the application. Filters can be applied in a variety of ways including by audio, video, news, categories, or feeds that have episodes that are new or in progress.

Colored numbers

Blue numbers indicate the quantity of new episodes
Green numbers indicate the quantity of in progress episodes
Red numbers indicate the quantity of episodes with media file download errors

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Overview

eric — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:44:14 +0000

DoggCatcher is a podcast manager that will help you to subscribe to the podcasts that you enjoy, have their audio/video files automatically downloaded to your device for listening anytime, and automatically delete them when you are finished.

Since the terminology can vary between different podcast applications, let us clarify the terminology used in DoggCatcher

Feed - (Podcast) This is what you subscribe to. Common examples are weekly or daily talk shows.
Episode - (Show/Item) A feed is composed of episodes. There is usually one episode per week or day for a feed depending on how often content is produced.
Media files - The audio or video files associated with an item.

So you subcribe to Feeds, which have many episodes. Each episode can have a media file that can be downloaded and played on your device.

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