This page allows you to create a new episode or edit the details of an existing podcast episode. You may also allow anyone, or just registered users, to view an episode.
Before creating your first episode you need to create your first Participant.
What are podcast episodes?
Podcasts are a popular form of audio content that can cover a variety of topics, from news and entertainment to education and business. Podcasts are typically delivered as a series of episodes, which are individual audio files that listeners can download or stream online.
Podcast episodes can vary in length, format, style, and quality, depending on the preferences of the podcast creator and the audience. Some podcast episodes are short and concise, while others are long and in-depth. Some podcast episodes are scripted and edited, while others are spontaneous and raw. Some podcast episodes are solo shows, while others feature guests or co-hosts.
Podcast episodes can be accessed through various platforms, such as podcast apps, websites, social media, or smart speakers. Podcast listeners can subscribe to their favorite podcasts and receive notifications when new episodes are released. Podcast listeners can also rate, review and share podcast episodes with other people.
Podcast episodes are a great way to learn new things, stay informed, be entertained, and connect with others who share similar interests. Podcast episodes can also provide opportunities for podcast creators to express themselves, showcase their expertise, build their brand, and monetize their content.
How to Access
- Home Dashboard → Components → Ideal Podcasts → Episodes. Then...
- To Add a new Episode:
- Select the New button in the Toolbar.
- To Edit an existing Episode:
- Select an episode title in the Title column.
Screenshot
Form Fields
In this section, you can enter information about the Episode, such as title, description, audio file, participants, and so on. The options allow you to control settings such as what information gets displayed for each Episode.
- Title. The full title of the Episode. It should be catchy, concise, and relevant to the content of your episode. You can use up to 255 characters, but it's good to keep it under 100 characters for the title.
- Alias. The internal name of the item. Normally, you can leave this blank and Joomla will fill in a default value Title in lower case and with dashes instead of spaces. Learn more.
Edit Episode
Here you enter the basic information about the episode.
- Image. Image to display for this Episode. Select an image file from the drop-down list box. This lists images in the 'images/stories' folder. Images can be uploaded using the Media Manager.
- Description. This is a brief summary of what your episode is about. It should provide some context and entice listeners to tune in. This field can be as long as you want, however keep in mind that Apple will trim the description to 4000 characters when showing it to listeners.
- Status: Published status of the item. Possible values are:
- Published: The item is published. This is the only state that will allow regular website users to view this item.
- Unpublished: The item is unpublished.
- Archived: The item has been archived.
- Trashed: The item has been sent to the Trash.
- Category. The Category this item belongs to. A category can also be a separate Podcast because it will have it's own RSS feed
- Featured. Whether or not the item will be displayed in featured view.
- Access. The viewing Access Level for this item.
- Language. Item language. Usually, you'll only have the podcast in one language, but the component works with the multi-lingual features of Joomla.
- Tags. Enter one or more optional tags for this item. You can select existing tags by entering in the first few letters. You may also create new tags by entering them here. Tags allow you to see lists of related items across content types (for example, episodes, episodes, and categories).
- Version Note. Optional field to identify this version of the item in the item's Version History window.
Images and Links
This section lets you display images and links in your episodes using standardised layouts.
Intro Image
- Intro Image. Click the Select button to select an image to be displayed in a fixed location in the Intro Text of this episode in the category view in the front end. This is the cover art of your episode. It should be visually appealing and consistent with your podcast branding. You can upload an image file from your computer. The image recommended minimum resolution is 1400 x 1400 pixels. The component will automatically resize it for the RSS feed.
This will open a window that allows you to select an image from your images folder. - Image Description (Alt Text). Set the alt attribute for this image. A few descriptive words for screen readers.
- No Description. Check in the rare instance of a purely decorative image. Note that if the Image Description is empty and the No Description checkbox is unchecked then the image will fail to meet accessibility criteria. If an image description is present this checkbox has no effect.
- Image Class. You can add any CSS class for your own styling ideas. For image position use for example float-start and float-end.
- Caption. Create a caption for this image.
Full Episode Image
- Full Episode Image. Click the Select button to select an image to be displayed in a fixed location in the Full Text of this episode. When using the Theater view it will display this image as the background-image. This will open a window that allows you to select an image from your images folder.
- Image Description (Alt Text). Set the alt attribute for this image. A few descriptive words for screen readers.
- No Description. Check in the rare instance of a purely decorative image. Note that if the Image Description is empty and the No Description checkbox is unchecked then the image will fail to meet accessibility criteria. If an image description is present this checkbox has no effect.
- Image Class. You can add any CSS class for your own styling ideas. For image position use for example float-start and float-end. This will NOT be used if you use the theater view.
- Caption. Enter an optional caption for this image.
Link A
- Link A. The URL for the first link to be displayed in a fixed location in the episode text. This must be a full URL, not relative. For example, it normally would start with 'https://'.
- Link A Text. The text used for Link A. If blank, the URL will be displayed.
- URL Target Window. Sets the default value for the target for the first Link in this episode. Choices are:
- Open in a parent window: Opens the in the main browser window, replacing the current Joomla episode.
- Open in a new window: Opens the link in a new browser window.
- Open in popup: Opens the link in a pop-up browser window (without full navigation controls).
- Modal: Opens the link in a modal pop-up window.
Link B, Link C: Same options as Link A.
Files & Details
- Files: You can upload an audio and/or video file from your computer and they should not exceed your server's maximum upload file size limit. You can also click on the edit button to manually enter the URL to a file.
- Audio. This is the audio file of your episode. It should be in MP3 format and have a bitrate of at least 64 kbps.
- Video. A video file is optional. You can upload to your own server if you want to serve the files or you can enter the URL to a Youtube or Vimeo page.
- Details:
- Host. Select the host from the list of participants.
- Guest. If needed, select a guest from the list of participants. If the same participant is added to the host and guest fields, Ideal Podcasts will remove the guest.
- Duration. This is the length of your episode in hours, minutes, and seconds. It should match the duration of your audio file. You can edit this field manually or let it auto-fill based on your audio file.
- Season and episode numbers: These are optional fields that help you organize your episodes into seasons and episodes. You can use numbers or letters for these fields, but we recommend using only numbers. Ideal Podcasts will automatically increment the Episode number based on the last episode uploaded.
A podcast season is a collection of episodes that share a common theme, topic, or format. Podcast seasons can help podcasters organize their content, attract new listeners, and keep their audience engaged. Some podcasts have fixed seasons with a set number of episodes, while others have ongoing seasons that release episodes regularly. Podcast seasons can vary in length, frequency, and style depending on the podcast's goals and preferences.
Episode timeline (also known as episode chapters)
If you are a podcast listener, you may have noticed that some episodes have chapters. Chapters are segments of the episode that have their own titles, timestamps, and sometimes images or links. Chapters can help you navigate the episode, skip to the parts that interest you, or revisit the ones that you want to hear again. Chapters can also enhance the podcast experience by providing additional information or resources related to the topic.
Podcast episode chapters are metadata that is embedded in the audio file of the podcast. For example, the title, author, genre, and cover art of a podcast are metadata that describes the podcast itself. Similarly, the title, timestamp, image, and link of a chapter are metadata that describes a segment of the podcast episode.
Podcast episode chapters are supported by some podcast players and apps, such as Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and Podcast Addict. These players and apps can read the chapter metadata from the audio file and display them on the screen. You can then tap or click on a chapter to jump to that segment of the episode. You can also see the image or link associated with the chapter if there is any. The player on Ideal Podcasts also supports chapters.
Ideal Podcasts already write the Title, Category, Author, and other metadata to the audio file and will soon be able to write the chapters metadata as well. You can already enter the episode timeline/chapters.
Podcast episode chapters are a great way to enhance your podcast and provide value to your listeners. They can help you organize your content, improve your SEO, increase your engagement, and grow your audience.
Publishing
- Start Publishing. This is the date and time when you want your episode to be available for listeners. You can choose to publish your episode immediately or schedule it for a later date and time. You can also choose to save your episode and set the Status to Unpublished, so it will be just a draft if you want to edit it further before publishing.
- Finish Publishing. Date and time to finish publishing. Use this field if you want to have content automatically changed to Unpublished state at a future time (for example, when it is no longer applicable).
- Created Date. This field defaults to the current time when the Episode was created. You can enter in a different date and time or click on the calendar icon to find the desired date.
- Created By. Name of the Joomla User who created this item. This will default to the currently logged-in user. If you want to change this to a different user, click the Select User button to select a different user.
- Modified Date. Date of last modification.
- Modified By. Username who performed the last modification.
- Revision. Number of revisions to this item.
- Hits. The number of times an item has been viewed.
- ID. This is a unique identification number for this item assigned automatically by Joomla. It is used to identify the item internally, and you cannot change this number. When creating a new item, this field displays "0" until you save the new entry, at which point a new ID is assigned to it.
- Meta Description. An optional paragraph to be used as the description of the page in the HTML output. This will generally display in the results of search engines. If entered, this creates an HTML meta element with a name attribute of 'description' and a content attribute equal to the entered text.
- Keywords. These are words or phrases that describe the main topics or themes of your episode. They help listeners find your episode when they search for relevant terms. You can add up to 10 keywords for each episode, separated by commas. Keywords can be used in several ways:
- To help Search Engines and other systems classify the content of the Episode.
- For episodes only, in combination with the 'Ideal Podcasts - Related Episodes' module, to display Episodes that share at least one keyword in common. For example, if the current Episode displayed has the keywords "cats, dogs, monkeys", any other Episodes with at least one of these keywords will show in the 'Ideal Podcasts - Related Episodes' module.
- Robots. The instructions for web 'robots' that browse to this page.
- index, follow: Index this page and follow the links on this page.
- noindex, follow: Do not index this page, but still follow the links on the page. For example, you might do this for a site map page where you want the links to be indexed but you don't want this page to show in search engines.
- index, nofollow: Index this page, but do not follow any links on the page. For example, you might want to do this for an events calendar, where you want the page to show in search engines but you do not want to index each event.
- noindex, nofollow: Do not index this page or follow any links on the page.
- Use Global: Set in Global Configuration: Metadata Settings.
- Content Rights. Describe what rights others have to use this content.
Associations
Language associations in case you have a multi-lingual website. This is rarely the case for podcasts.
Toolbar
At the top of the page, you will see the toolbar shown in the Screenshot above. The functions are:
- Save. Saves the item and stays on the current screen.
- Save & Close. Saves the item and closes the current screen.
- Save & New. Saves the item and keeps the editing screen open and ready to create another item.
- Save as Copy. Saves your changes to a copy of the current item. Does not affect the current item. This toolbar icon is not shown if you are creating a new item.
- Cancel. Closes the current screen and returns to the previous screen without saving any modifications you may have made.
- Close. Closes the current screen and returns to the previous screen without saving any modifications you may have made. This toolbar icon is not shown if you are creating a new item.
- Versions. Opens the Item Version History window to show any prior versions of this item. This allows you to view older versions of this item and, if desired, restore from an older version. See Version History for more information.
- Associations. With a specific language set for an item, allows side-by-side editing in another language. This toolbar icon is shown on Multilingual Sites only.
Quick Tips
At least one Episode Category must be added before adding the first Episode.