Antennapod: [UX] Add single episode without subscribing to podcast

[arthurlutz]

Checklist

• [x] I have used the search function to see if someone else has already submitted the same feature request.
• [x] I will only create one feature request per issue.
• [x] I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.

System info

App version: 2.0.3

App source: F-Droid

Feature description

Problem you may be having, or feature you want:

After recommending AntennaPod to a friend, the friend is really happy with the application and use it to listen to regular podcast shows, some of them in auto-download, some of them cherry picking the episodes according to the description and title.

I recommend a particular episode of a podcast I enjoy, which she doesn't follow, she says "great, I'll listen to it, but not right now, I'll add it to AntennaPod", but then she had the following reaction "Hey, why can't I add a single episode without having to subscribe to the whole podcast ?". And I thought this would be a nice feature in AntennaPod : not having to subscribe to a podcast which you won't follow or have to unsubscribe to later, and benefit from the "Queue" feature that enables one to "Listen later" to a single episode.

Suggested solution:

In the podcast "Subscribe" menu, when the user clicks on an episode there is a "Preview" link which is useful to listen to it straight away, there could be an other link / button with "Download to listen later (without subscribing)".

Screenshots / Drawings / Technical details:

[tonytamsf]

I suggest we don't work on this. Without subscribing to a podcast, it's difficult to manage that 'dangling' episode in the app without the data structures behind the 'parent', which is the podcast.

For example: for the episode that you download, we have to deal with the 'Open Podcast' menu because it has no where to go.

I suggest you 'share the episode' with your friend so they can use their email as a bookmarking feature

[Matth7878]

Now that support for virtual podcast from local folder is going to become possible maybe it could be used to allow this :

• create a preview folder if it doesn't already exist and add it as a virtual podcast
• download the episode and put it in the preview local folder

Local folder for this would really be handy and I think could remove a lot of problem which were making this hard to do?

[ByteHamster]

While that would work, it's not really good UX. Users could then not press the "open podcast" button to hear more from the same publishers. Also, deleting the downloaded file would also delete the listening status. In general, to store listening status, we always need the feed as well. I don't think we should add this as a half-working feature. (the reason why we can not really store state of individual episodes without a subscription is that AntennaPod is decentralized without a server that knows all episodes of all podcasts. You can read more about that on the forum: https://forum.antennapod.org/t/newbie-questions/84/2)

The easiest option is (as @tonytamsf wrote) to share the link to the episode file. In AntennaPod 2.1, you can add the downloads folder as a "virtual" podcast to have it directly in AntennaPod.

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Why don't you just subscribe to the podcast and unsubscribe again when no longer interested? The number of clicks to delete a whole subscription is not much higher than the number of clicks to delete a download.

[tonytamsf]

You can also just preview an episode without subscribing to it.
I vote that we close this issue @keunes ?

[keunes]

To be honest I find the use-case very relevant: it would be great if you could share a particular episode with a friend who could listen to it at a later point. Indeed temporarily subscribing is a workaround, but it doesn't feel great as a user (you have to remember to delete the feed afterwards, a cognitive burden).

I realise it's currently technically hardly possible to cater for this use-case elegantly, but I would opt to keep this feature request open.

[Matth7878]

Another idea to manage this :

• wait for group folders to be implemented
• have a "no subscription" folder
• let user download episode without subscribing (instead of previewing) and add it to the queue
• behind the scenes subscribe to podcast, put it in "no subscription" folder
• make "no subscription" folder and podcasts in it invisible to user
• remove invisible subscriptions if there is no longer any related episodes in queue or in favorites
• like for normal subscriptions user can go to podcast screen from episode or player. When viewing podcast screen a subscribe button should be added so user can permanently subscribe. (Doing so, move subscription outside of "no subscription" folder)

Pros :

• user can access to podcast normally from player or from episodes (but he won't be able to see it in subscriptions in lateral menu or in subscriptions screen)
• all information from podcast is available and accessible to AntennaPod like any other podcast
• It becomes easy for user to permanently subscribe
• apart from invisible group folder everything is the same

Cons :
I fear that it could be complicated to manage an invisible folder group ☹️

[arthurlutz]

@keunes thanks for this user centric approach. There is no rush for this feature.

[ByteHamster]

behind the scenes subscribe to podcast, put it in "no subscription" folder

Yeah, I think that is the only good option we have. Would mean a lot of work, though (hide in episodes list, etc). Also, what happens if someone goes to the podcast page and downloads another episode of that podcast without subscribing? Do we delete the subscription only when no episode is marked as favorite? This feature sounds like it could lead to pretty big discussions about the behavior and quite a lot of confused users

[Matth7878]

Yes removing podcast should only happen when there is no more downloaded episode or episode in favorites.
Really all would be like any other podcasts for the user except he wouldn't be able to see it in subscriptions screen or in subscriptions list. As all others interaction will be exactly the same I don't think it will cause any confusion.

[keunes]

what happens if someone goes to the podcast page and downloads another episode of that podcast without subscribing?

Either nothing special (episode gets added, nothing else changes), or - probably better - a dialog is shown saying that they're currently not subscribed and adding more episodes is not possible, offering to 'subscribe' (i.e. remove the 'not subscribed' tag).

[antennapod-bot]

This issue has been mentioned on AntennaPod Forum. There might be relevant details there:

https://forum.antennapod.org/t/is-there-a-way-to-download-podcasts-from-within-antennapod-without-subscribing/456/2