In Operation
Here’s hullcaster on its first run. We need to start by adding a new podcast feed.
Press a to add a podcast. We’re prompted to enter a Feed URL. In the image below, we’ve proceeded to add some interesting podcast feeds.
hullcaster provides a ncurses-like interface. Besides subscribing to podcast feeds, the program sync feeds to check for new episodes. Podcasts are played with an external media player.
We’ve constrained the size of Hyper, but with a wider window, there’s a Details pane which sits in between Podcasts and Queue.
The software lets you download podcasts (one at a time or all). They are saved by default to ~/.local/share/hullcaster. If you don’t like this download path, you can edit the program’s config.toml file which lets you define the program’s settings.
By default podcasts are played with vlc, but this can also be changed in config.toml.
What other functionality does hullcaster offer?
- Import OPML files from other podcast managers.
- Download/upload subscriptions from gpodder.
- Panel for unplayed episodes across podcasts. This is particularly useful.
Summary
hullcaster builds on the work of shellcaster. It’s not particularly stable — it’s too easy to crash the program, but hopefully the bugs will be ironed out.
There’s lots of useful functionality we’d like added to hullcaster. For example, you need to know the URL for each feed, so discovering new podcasts (and their respective feed URL) is best done with separate software (e.g. the GUI Kasts). And we’d love some search functionality added as well as an option to show the URL for the podcast/episode.
Here’s the program’s keybindings.
If you prefer software with a graphical user interface, check out our GUI Podcast roundup. Alternatively, if you love the command-line and hullcaster doesn’t meet your needs, we’ve also compiled a roundup for terminal-based podcast players.
Website: github.com/gilcu3/hullcaster
Support:
Developer: gilcu3
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
hullcaster is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation and Summary