Click on the Create New Article button at the top-right of the page, give your article a Title, and select the Podcast category that was created earlier.. Create the menu link and RSS f
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server In this example, we will upload a self-contained audio file (called audio
in mp3 format) to our web server
If you are using FTP, simply move the MP3 file from your computer into the new
directory If you are using the Media Manager, then make sure you are residing in
the directory you wish and use the file upload feature to load the audio into your
desired directory on the web server
Once your audio has been uploaded, we can proceed to include this in a
Joomla! Article
Disable the WYSIWYG editor
In order to place the correct HTML into our Joomla! Articles, it is best to make
sure the built-in WYSIWYG Content Article Editors are disabled You can easily
do this by following these steps:
Logging into your administration
Clicking on the menu item named Site|User Manager.
Select the user to edit
Under the parameters for that user, select Editor – No Editor as the option
for the Editor field.
Clicking on Apply or Save to save your settings.
The editor can also be disabled on a global basis, by visiting your Global
Configuration and changing the Default Editor field to Editor – No Editor.
Create the category
Follow these steps:
Log into your Joomla! Administration and proceed to the Create Category
area which is located under Components|Articles|Categories.
In the top-right corner, click on the New icon, which loads the Category
Manager: Add Category screen.
Give your category a name For our example, I am going to call it Podcast
The Alias can be left blank, but make sure the category is published If you
want, you can give this category a description
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That is all we need to do for now, so complete the process by clicking on the Save
button at the top-right of the page
You will see your new category created and shown in the Category List.
Create the article to display your audio
The next step is to create a new Joomla! Article, which will contain your audio content
If you are already in the Category screen, click on the link to the article view
If you are not, then click on the Article Manager icon on your Control Panel
or go to the Components|Articles menu item.
Click on the Create New Article button at the top-right of the page, give your
article a Title, and select the Podcast category that was created earlier.
We now need to include the HTML code into our article (refer to the Embed
and display audio in Joomla! Articles section, mentioned earlier in this chapter).
Make sure you don't have your WYSIWYG editor turned on in your Joomla! Articles when entering complex HTML code into your Joomla! Articles
Once you have your audio code in place, click on the Apply button (top-right) to
apply the changes and save the new article
Create the menu link and RSS feed
Once you have created your audio article (or articles) and have it located in
the applicable "Audio Podcast" category, it's time to utilize the Joomla! RSS
feed menu feature
Creating a menu link to the category is done by going to the menu you wish to place
the new link on, for example, Menus|MainMenu, and clicking on the New icon at
the top-right of the screen:
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As this section is about creating a menu link for an RSS item, we will not take the
time to go through all of the menu parameters, but for our RSS menu link the most
important ones are:
Title: Enter a title for your menu link For our example, I am going to call the
menu link Audio Podcast.
Type: Click on the Change Type button to open up the menu Type options,
which will open a lightbox with menu type options Create a new menu
type called Link to Category by clicking on the applicable link The popup
lightbox will disappear and the appropriate Menu fields will be populated
Parameters (Basic) - Category: You need to choose which category you wish
the menu link to link to
Parameters (Advanced): Make sure the Show a Feed Link radio button is set
to Yes.
If you want to fill out any additional parameters or properties for the menu item,
then please do, but the previous are the main requirements to create our new
Link to a Category menu item.
Click on Save on that page to save the new menu item.
How it all works
If you look at the front page of your website, you should now see the new menu link
you have created If you cannot, then make sure your menu link is published, and
your menu module is published to show the menu on your front page
Click on this menu item, which will take you to the Category page, displaying the
links to your podcast articles
As most modern web browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, have built-in RSS
readers, once you are on this Category page, you should see an RSS icon in
your browser In Mozilla Firefox and Safari, this will be an icon to the right of the
URL field in your browser Click on this to view the RSS feeds from this particular
web page:
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You may receive more than one option when you have clicked on the icon:
RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 These are syndication languages and will be covered in
a chapter later in this book For now, both will display your new RSS feed, and
allow users to subscribe to and view them
FeedBurner
Now the fun begins We are going to create a podcast-friendly feed using the
FeedBurner service by Google
The FeedBurner service is located at http://feedburner.google.com If you do
not have one already, you will need to create a free account with Google in order
to utilize this service
When you are logged into your Google account, visit the previous URL, and you will
be presented with a box to enter your RSS feed location into:
Paste the URL to your podcasting category into this box, and not the
actual RSS link itself Then make sure you check the I am a podcaster!
box to the right of this and click on the Next button.
If the link you entered is a valid URL link to your Joomla! Category, FeedBurner
will accept it and take you to the next step If you are having issues with your
link, please create a new menu link in your Joomla! site that links directly to your
"Podcast" category, click on that link, copy the URL, and then paste it in FeedBurner
This should be all that is required and FeedBurner will now report that it has found
two valid RSS links from that URL—RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 These are different
syndication languages, and for this example, I will use the RSS 2.0 option:
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Next we need to give our feed a descriptive Title that users will be able to view, and
also provide the Feed Address, which will start with http://feeds.feedburner
com/ and then have our suffix at the end For this example, I will use the title,
Amplify Podcasts and the Feed Address, amp_podcast Once this information is
populated, click on Next:
Unless the information you entered into your fields has already been allocated, you
should be presented with your brand new sparkling podcast feed:
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The FeedBurner service offers you additional features to customize your feed and
even submit it automatically to iTunes We need to utilize one of these, so click
on Next.
At the top of this page, make sure the Create podcast enclosures from links to: any
rich media file is selected It should be the default setting:
You can give your podcast a description, some keywords, and even add it to iTunes
and the Yahoo! search engine Then click on Next.
In this last page, FeedBurner offers you some powerful statistics, which lets you
know who is subscribing to your podcasts and how often they have clicked on the
content in your feed:
Click on Next and we are all done here!
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Next, we need to let people know about your new podcast feed In your FeedBurner
page, you should see a tab labeled Publicize Click on this and then on the left-hand
side menu item labeled Chicklet Chooser:
Scroll to the bottom of the page where you can copy some HTML code:
Copy the code, go back to your Joomla! site, and create a new module, pasting in this
HTML code linking to your new feed Publish this on your podcast pages, and users
will be able to subscribe directly to your feed:
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To continue to produce podcasts from your website is now an easy process When
you want to create a new podcast, simply create a new Joomla! Article and either
embed your audio player into it, or create a link to the podcast material and save
this article into your "Podcast" category Joomla! and FeedBurner will do the rest,
automatically creating a new RSS feed entry for this new article
Podcasting using extensions
There are other ways to podcast from our Joomla! site These involve using the
power of Joomla! third-party extensions, and one of the best tools for the job is
the "Joomla! Podcast Suite" by Joseph LeBlanc:
The Podcast Suite extension contains a Joomla! Component, Module, and Plugin
which provides an extensive list of podcast tools at your fingertips You can get your
first podcast up and running quickly, and easily build and manage this ongoing
We will highlight the Podcast Suite extension in the following section, which covers
third-party audio extensions
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Third-party audio extensions
Joomla! Extensions provide us with a range of powerful audio solutions which
can be installed and configured by administrators, with nearly no developer's
knowledge required
There is a huge number of extensions that are now available for Joomla! The most
difficult decision for a Joomla! site administrator is usually not finding an extension to
do what you want it to, but finding the most suitable one out of the available options
The following section highlights some of the most popular, and non-commercial
third-party audio extensions
Podcast Suite
The Podcast Suite for Joomla! is in a world of its own It does "what it says on the tin"
and you can be presenting podcasts within Joomla! in as little as ten minutes:
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The suite consists of a component, module, and plugin These are installed via the
Extensions Manager, and require minimal administration configurations
The Podcast Suite works by creating an RSS feed for your podcasts, as well as a new
article, which can contain a description and a special code enclosure for the podcast
file The plugin embeds a useful Flash-based MP3 player into the article, which
means you can publicize an RSS link for your podcasts, as well as link directly to the
article so your users can listen to them within your site There is also a handy module
to display the RSS feeds
The Podcast Suite has some excellent author and metadata features, some of which
are utilized by iTunes, helping to make your podcasts as iTunes-friendly as possible
To download the Podcast Suite, visit http://extensions.joomla.org and search
for "podcast"
MP3 Browser
The MP3 Browser plugin is a superb solution if you are looking to display and play
multiple MP3 files in your articles The plugin creates a table containing all of the
MP3 files from a specific directory, for example, /audio/training/
This material is copyright and is licensed for the sole use by jackie tracey on 23rd February 2010
953 Quincy Drive, , Brick, , 08724