Antennapod: Feed option to skip the first x seconds of episodes

[gappleto97]

This can be accomplished by starting it with a playback position of x seconds.

[keunes]

Thanks for sending this in. With 'series', d'you mean that you want to be able to set the starting playback position per feed?

[gappleto97]

Yes.

[mfietz]

This looks like one of those features that makes a lot of sense for a desktop client, but just seems over the top for a smartphone app.
We don't have a lot of room on a smartphone, so we have to keep it simple. Just trying to picture how the user would try to find out how many seconds she should choose for a particular podcast...

Too complex. Only useful for very few people. Irritating for the rest. Clutters the app.
@TomHennen opinion?

[gappleto97]

I can tell you that Podcast Republic has this feature. I recently migrated from there. You may look at them for an example.

On January 14, 2016 5:02:33 PM PST, Martin Fietz [email protected] wrote:

This looks like one of those features that makes a lot of sense for a
desktop client, but just seems over the top for a smartphone app.
We don't have a lot of room on a smartphone, so we have to keep it
simple. Just trying to picture how the user would try to find out how
many seconds she should choose for a particular podcast...

Too complex. Only useful for very few people. Irritating for the rest.
Clutters the app.
@TomHennen opinion?

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/issues/1552#issuecomment-171833435

[TomHennen]

I'm thinking it's a little too fidgety. Our time is likely spent better
elsewhere. You can always skip forward easily enough.

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016, 8:04 PM Gabe Appleton [email protected]
wrote:

I can tell you that Podcast Republic has this feature. I recently migrated
from there. You may look at them for an example.

On January 14, 2016 5:02:33 PM PST, Martin Fietz [email protected]
wrote:

This looks like one of those features that makes a lot of sense for a
desktop client, but just seems over the top for a smartphone app.
We don't have a lot of room on a smartphone, so we have to keep it
simple. Just trying to picture how the user would try to find out how
many seconds she should choose for a particular podcast...

Too complex. Only useful for very few people. Irritating for the rest.
Clutters the app.
@TomHennen opinion?

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:

https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/issues/1552#issuecomment-171833435

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/issues/1552#issuecomment-171833710
.

[gappleto97]

If I were to make a pull request, would it get merged? I'm not sure I know the codebase well enough, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

[TomHennen]

If you can do it without complicating the interface too much it might get
merged in. Can't say for sure. Our primary goal is making sure the app
stays usable for the majority of users.

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016, 9:00 PM Gabe Appleton [email protected]
wrote:

If I were to make a pull request, would it get merged? I'm not sure I know
the codebase well enough, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
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.

[keunes]

@gappleto97 Did you have in mind yet how you'd implement it? If it were a simple per-feed setting it wouldn't clutter the user interface too much, for me at least, as it's pretty much hidden away.

[mfietz]

If I were to make a pull request, would it get merged? I'm not sure I know the codebase well enough, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

How about this? Only do the UI stuff (prototype), no actual "business logic". Make screenshots. Pretty sure I can tell right then and there if I would merge then full implementation or not.

[forteller]

I'm thinking a box where you can input a number inside the per feed settings screen (the "i" in the top right corner of the feed screen) would not create any clutter and would be very helpful/a great time saver for those listening to podcasts with a lot of ads and/or random chatter at the beginning. (this could also be helpful at the end)

I've actually thought about asking for this myself.

[gappleto97]

+1 to @forteller, that's exactly what I was thinking.

[ahstro]

Is this being worked on by anyone?

[mfietz]

Don't think so.

[sbadux]

+1 for this. It's very useful when a podcast has some advertisement at the beginning or a long opening music or theme. This could be useful also at the end of an episode

[rubaboo]

+1. Some very popular podcasts start with a jarring loud intro (Tim Ferriss) that I'd rather not hear every time.

how the user would try to find out how many seconds she should choose for a particular podcast

Why, by listening to episode after episode until getting fed up with having to wait for intro/adverts to be over. Typically those take up the same amount of time at the beginning of each episode (per feed).

too fidgety. Our time is likely spent better elsewhere. You can always skip forward easily enough.

Making everyone's commute a little bit safer is a good use of time IMO. Skipping is fidgety.

[forteller]

I can't code, so I wouldn't be the one putting time into making this feature, so I will not make any demands, obviously. I will just note that the time saved by the collective user base of the app will probably overshadow the time needed to implement this, if you ever choose to do so :)

Also, it would be a great "selling point" to get new users, IMHO.

Just my thoughts, I'm very happy with the app either way.

[tonytamsf]

+1 I can implement if @bytehamster agrees

[rulnick]

+1 I can implement if @ByteHamster agrees

AntennaPod is superior to Podcast Addict, Podcast Republic, and many other full-featured apps in many ways, with one painful exception: the lack of intro/outro skip. So many daily or weekly podcasts have long or tedious intros and/or outros that an app that skips them is a regular source of pure joy. Godspeed.

[Pentaphon]

+1 I can implement if @ByteHamster agrees

Would you be able to skip both intro and outros? The OP asked for intro skipping but outro skipping is also important. Some podcasts have useless music or ads playing in the last X minutes of a podcast.

[ByteHamster]

I can implement if @ByteHamster agrees

:+1: I agree ;)

[tonytamsf]

will start this week

[tonytamsf]

@ByteHamster could you assign this to me?

I'm working on the UI right now, what do you think the following UI?

[Pentaphon]

I'm working on the UI right now, what do you think the following UI?

I would make the panel wider (a rectangle rather than a square) and make the cancel and ok buttons farther apart to make them a bit easier to press. That should be about it.

[egvimo]

On the network settings there is a similar panel (parallel downloads). Maybe you can reuse that.

[egvimo]

Also it would be good if you add the unit of the value (seconds) somewhere.

[keunes]

Also it would be good if you add the unit of the value (seconds) somewhere

I'd even say it's necessary ;)
And another two comments:

• it might be good to display the current value in the settings overview (e.g., on a new line, if any value > 0 is provided: Currently: xx seconds)
• it might be helpful to display only a keypad rather than a full-fledged keyboard to users, if they can only enter numerical values.

[forteller]

This _could_ be fused into one menu item: Skip intro/ending, with two input boxes in the resulting popup. This would make the options page a bit less crowded and save people who want to edit both start and ending two steps. Just a thought.

[tonytamsf]

This _could_ be fused into one menu item: Skip intro/ending, with two input boxes in the resulting popup. This would make the options page a bit less crowded and save people who want to edit both start and ending two steps. Just a thought.

I'm going to proceed with this UI, thank you for all the suggestions

[ByteHamster]

Looks good. I would remove some of the margins (at least between text box and its heading). How about adding a text "Seconds" to the right of the input box instead of adding it to the heading? Just like the sleep timer does it (but without the spinner for selecting different units).

[Pentaphon]

I'm going to proceed with this UI, thank you for all the suggestions

I would have made the entire box smaller (you can compress it vertically into a rectangle) and kept the text entry centered since it's just a number. Something like this below. Just my preference though.

[sbadux]

I'm going to proceed with this UI, thank you for all the suggestions

I would have made the entire box smaller (you can compress it vertically into a rectangle) and kept the text entry centered since it's just a number. Something like this below. Just my preference though.

Thank you SO MUCH for this feature. AntennaPod will became perfect now!
Just keep in mind that sometime the SKIP FIRST lenght could be longer than the episode's duration.

E.g. You choose to skip the first 30 seconds of each episodes. Then the podcast publishes a 20 seconds trailer of an upcoming episodes. How will it be managed?
Another possible situation: you skip the first and the last 30 seconds of each episode and the published episode is 50 seconds long.

I'm thinking at some possible critical situations just to avoid bugs :)

[Matth7878]

I agree with @sbadux. I think skipping should be ignored when :

• intro is longer than episode
• outro put you before skipped intro

For more control there could be an additional setting to ignore skipping if episode lenght (or remaining time) is less than x seconds. So skipping won't work when podcast is releasing an episode just to make a 5 minutes announce.

[tonytamsf]

Here is a preview of the skip intro and ending.

The code is working here -> https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/pull/3975

On a per feed basis

1. Allow the user to set skip intro and skip ending dialog in preferences
2. When the user plays an episode, show them a toast message that we are skipping ahead and marking ending early
3. When we are ending early, give them a toast message as well

Feedback needed:

1. Are there too many toast messages?

[Matth7878]

I think it will be better to have no toast message because most of the time user won't see it.
When ending and episode we are not looking at the screen, and most of the time it's the same when starting one.

What could be great is to display skipped time under played time (with a +20 secs if 20 secs has been skipped) and under total / remaining time (-30 secs)

In the futut (I think it's already nice enough right now) user could tap on secs to be skipped at end to switch it off/on (text would be greyed or striked when off)

[sbadux]

1. ```
   Are there too many toast messages?
   ```

I usually don't like those messages, but for a new user they may be useful. Since an user usually runs the app in background, I think you can keep them. Othewise you can add a check box in the options page to enable/disable the messages.

I'm just thinking about a new user that enables this option and forgets to have the skip enabled. The messages could be a useful reminder.

[Pentaphon]

Are there too many toast messages?

I think most users will not mind them or find them useful as a reminder. I do agree that a checkbox to turn them off would be good to help the people that do not want to see them.

[ByteHamster]

I like the Toasts. This prevents bug reports saying "AntennaPod stops playing before finished".

I do agree that a checkbox to turn them off would be good to help the people that do not want to see them.

AntennaPod has enough settings, already. I do not want to add more (especially for such tiny things).

[Pentaphon]

AntennaPod has enough settings, already. I do not want to add more (especially for such tiny things).

I also like the toasts. However, I don't think it's too much to add a "show toasts" checkbox to the panel that @tonytamsf made. It would please the people who want the skip feature but didn't ask to be shown a toast every time it happens.

[tonytamsf]

Very closed to be done, almost there https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod/pull/3975

[tonytamsf]

Just capturing thoughts here

1) I have been using this feature daily to skip intros, but it takes some time to get the amount of skip correctly. I need to play a podcast, watch how many seconds the ads are, then set the skip and I might need to adjust until I get it right

2) I end up not bothering to set the skip ending because I could just hit skip, but I would like to have the app be smart about it.

So.. this leads me to think that we can also add a 'learn from my habbit' mode where the app just learn from my forward and rewind actions and continue to adjust the 2 settings. We can have that as a check box in the Auto Skip dialog.

[Pentaphon]

So.. this leads me to think that we can also add a 'learn from my habbit' mode where the app just learn from my forward and rewind actions and continue to adjust the 2 settings. We can have that as a check box in the Auto Skip dialog.

I think that just overcomplicates things. People just want a hard number setting because of how long an intro or outro is. If that varies for their podcast, they can just hit skip. This option is strictly for intros and outros that have a duration that never changes.

[tonytamsf]

Closed by #3975