Hi Shaun, Your question about subscribing to podcasts in iTunes using links has a few parts, but the quick answer is you're not doing anything wrong. Your link should, on a Mac, open iTunes if it isn't already open, set the Source List selection to the iTunes Store, and point you to the page for the podcast at the iTunes Store in the Songs Outline. The "iTunes Store dimmed image" you hear when you press tab, just before your second tab takes you to the list of available episodes in the Songs outline, is part of the podcast's page, and includes images and some currently inaccessible items, including a button to subscribe to the podcast.
I actually prefer finding this podcast page in iTunes to getting the results of a search by podcast name, because I can sample any of the episodes -- even play them through in their entirety -- before deciding whether I want to subscribe or if I want to download a few selected episodes. The fact that there's a brief description of each episode helps if there's only a specific show that I want to hear, in case someone mentions an interesting program they heard a few weeks ago, and it means that I don't have to subscribe to the podcast to hear it or find it, even if I ultimately decide to download it. If I do want to subscribe to the podcast after downloading an episode, I tab back to my Sources Outline and arrow up to "Podcasts", then tab to my Songs outline and select the "subscribe" option on the contextual menu (VO-keys+shift+M) for the podcast episode or for the folder for that podcast series. I've added a long description below about podcast features in iTunes for new list members. Folks who are familiar with this can skip over this part of the post. On Nov 27, 2007, at 02:57AM, VaShaun Jones wrote: >Listers this is a link that I was given to subscribe to a pod-cast, >however when I I go to subscribe to pod-cast and put in this link it >just shows the link in the songs table under pod-cast. I know how to >subscribe using search in the I Tunes store, but this way has me >stumped. Can someone direct me as to what I am doing wrong? The link >is http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=250474344 The differences between accessing iTunes podcasts from a search and from a link to the iTunes podcast page can be summarized: (1) Search brings up just a single line entry for a particular podcast series in the Songs Outline, and there is a button to subscribe to the podcast in one of the columns, whereas the link to the podcast page shows a list of available episodes for the podcast series in the Songs Outline, with a button to "get episode" in one of the columns. (2) If you want to sample a podcast without downloading by pressing carriage return on one of the Songs Outline items, you can only sample the latest episode for the search result, but you can sample each available episode (and view its program description) when you use the podcast page link. I think you will eventually be able to subscribe from the podcast page. There's now a contextual menu entry for "Copy iTunes Store URL" that allows you to find/save the iTunes location for any item in your Songs Outline list. So I can determine, for example, that the Screenless Switchers podcast page has a URL of: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=161020459 and put this link in a web page, save it to my bookmarks list, or mail it to a friend. For new users, some advantages of getting podcasts through iTunes are: (1) They are automatically organized into folders by podcast name under a Podcasts folder of your Library. (2) They contain a short description for each episode that you can check (if the producer of the podcast provided one - true for most) (3) When you play them partway through, your last played position will be remembered and you can resume listening at that point. If you "shuffle" play music randomly from your library, podcasts will not be included in the shuffled list. (To change either of these automatic settings for music podcasts, you can Get Info with Command-I on any podcast or group of selected podcasts, go to the options tab, and uncheck the boxes for "Remember Playback Position" and "Skip When Shuffling".) (4) You can set up your iTunes preferences for podcasts to keep all episodes, keep all unplayed episodes, or keep the last (one, two, three, four, five, or ten) episodes, so you do not have to check and delete your podcasts one-by-one. Again, to change this for specific selected podcasts or series, use the contextual menu (VO-keys shift-M) to select "Do Not Autodelete". Individually downloaded podcasts are automatically marked "Do Not Autodelete". To change this behavior, select the podcast and choose "Allow Auotodelete" from the contextual menu. To set your general podcast preferences, use command+comma then command+2 and choose how many episodes you want to keep. These features are not available for podcast files that you separately download and add to your iTunes library. They will show up under "Music" and not "Podcasts" and will not have the other automatically set up features. However, you can subscribe to podcasts through iTunes even if they're not listed in the iTunes Store by typing the URL of their RSS feed in the "Subscribe to Podcast" option of the iTunes Advanced menu. (VO-keys+m to get to the menu bar, either right arrow to "Advanced" or type A to get there faster, arrow down the menu to "Subscribe to Podcast") When iTunes checks the subscribed feeds and downloads podcast episodes it will write additional information in the file headers that identifies this as a podcast to the iTunes library and triggers the features listed above. HTH Cheers, Esther
