Earlier in the year I posted a tip for password protecting your feed. At the time there was a problem with iTunes where it would require the user name and password to be entered every time you tried to update a podcast, unless these were placed in the feed’s URL like so:

http://user:password@www.example.com/feed.xml

Thankfully, the problem has been fixed in iTunes 7.0 and this workaround is no longer required. I have updated the original post on this blog and the Feeder Tips feed to reflect this.

Thanks to Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline for letting me know.

Feeder is reviewed on Episode 6 of the NeatLittleMacApps podcast with Frank De Graeve. Each episode of the NeatLittleMacApps podcast features a single application, gives an overview of their capabilities, a quick walkthrough and usually some special offers and/or prizes too.

In the beginning there was nothing…

No wait, there was something. There was an RSS-feed creation tool called Feeder. And then there was podcasting.

Ok now combine this with a developer who updates his software so fast that he must be psychic, and you get probably the best and most used podcast/rss-feed creating App out there.

Thanks, Frank! For every app Frank reviews, he gives a developer tip such as a feature request, something he thinks is not quite right or whatever.

I won’t spoil the podcast by revealing that here, but I will say: yes, that is becoming one of the most requested features for Feeder, something like that is coming and you might be pleasantly surprised at how it works out.

It’s a great review of Feeder, check it out as there is also the chance to win some free copies and a promotional code. 🙂

Feeder 1.3.5 is now available and this includes support for the new iTunes podcast categories Apple introduced with iTunes 6.0.5 last week.

Feeder will upgrade any existing categories using the same mappings as FeedBurner, so all you need to do is publish your feed again. You may want to review the new categories to see if any of those fit your podcast better – you can do this in the iTunes section of the Info drawer.

Apple says it could take up to two weeks for changes to your categories to take effect in the iTunes Music Store, so bear that in mind when checking your changes. It also appears to be taking some time for the new categories to be populated, but I understand Apple is working on that.

FeedValidator has also been updated to support the new categories, so if FeedValidator says your feed is valid and you are having problems with the iTunes Music Store, your best course of action is to check Apple’s Producing Podcasts discussion forum, otherwise please get in touch.

Podcasting in iTunes is one year old today. How the last year has flown! Feeder has been there since the beginning (and even before), it hasn’t always been a smooth ride but we got there in the end. It’s also interesting to see from the post I just linked to how much iTunes has changed in that short time.

Apple has a special page on iTunes to celebrate with a lot of the original podcasts on there. It’s great to see Feeder-using TWiT and the MacCast present and still going strong, along with a number of other really cool podcasts that show what the medium should be all about! 😀

Templates in Feeder serve two purposes. Firstly, they control which fields you see when editing items and secondly, they can contain default values for fields.

The idea is borrowed from page layout applications and the like, which help you to know what content is needed for a particular purpose and where to place it.

While there is only so much you can do to control the appearance of your feed in the various online and desktop feed readers, RSS feeds have so many different uses they almost resemble a blank piece of paper. Templates help you to know exactly what is needed.

Feeder comes with a number of templates suited to various tasks such as a news feed, a podcast and so on. These standard templates can be easily customized and you can create your own.

Using Templates

You normally choose a template when creating your feed, but you can change the template for a particular feed at any time by choosing Item > Template from the menu or by clicking the Template button in the editor windows.

Once there, you can choose an existing template from the pop-up menu, or click the Customize button.

Custom Templates

When editing a custom tempate, you can check fields to show them in the editor or enter default values in the fields themselves. The default values will be used even if the field isn’t displayed.

Note also the Show pop-up. This allows you to see fields from RSS extensions – at present only the iTunes extension, and mix and match these in your feed.

Global Templates

If you have a custom template you wish to use for other feeds, you can click the Save As… button, give the template a name and it will then appear in the pop-up menu of templates.

You can edit these global templates in Feeder’s Template preferences.