PodHawk - Podcasting to the world!

PodHawk 1.3 released.

Posted by Peter 22 April 2009

PodHawk 1.3 was released today. You can download it from Sourceforge. The download package contains notes on how to install PodHawk and how to upgrade from PodHawk 1.2 or from LoudBlog. (If you have an earlier version of PodHawk than 1.2, please upgrade to PodHawk 1.2 first). Note that there are separate install programmes for mysql/sqlite and for postgres.

Upgrading to PodHawk 1.3 will return some of your settings to their default values. So if, for example, you find that commenting no longer appears to work, just go to the backend settings page and switch commenting on again.

The new release contains full support for the JW FLV player. This player is able to play .flv and .mp4 (H264) video files, YouTube videos, playlists and streaming video. This and the next few postings show some of the things it can do! For licensing reasons, you need to download the player from the Longtail Video site and upload a couple of .swf files to your site. There are full instructions here.

There is also a new backend page where you can choose and configure the audio and video players for your site. With the aid of some crafty JavaScript, you can see what your player will look like before you commit to it.

PodHawk 1.3 also supports the Disqus commenting system, which you can use as an alternative to the built-in PodHawk system. Just register your site with Disqus, choose the Disqus option in the backend settings page, enter the Disqus short name for your site, and PodHawk will do the rest.

The backend menu system has been redesigned, and there are fixes for a number of bugs which users have told me about.

On the security side, the PodHawk install programme no longer requires certain folders to have “0777” permissions if you, or your web host, have other and more secure ways of making the folders writeable by the PodHawk programme.

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