MRN Podcaster

MRN Podcaster is an independent WordPress podcast publishing engine. It turns a primary podcast feed into an editable local catalogue, enriches each episode from an optional backup feed, imports external listener comments for moderation and provides a persistent, theme-independent audio player.

Current feature set

• Primary RSS 2.0 or Atom feed as the canonical episode source.
• Optional backup feed matched by external identity, season/episode number, then normalized title.
• Idempotent mrnp_episode posts with title, body, excerpt, image, duration, season, episode number, likes and all audio sources.
• Editor-safe synchronization: title/body/excerpt stop being source-owned after an editor changes them. Existing featured images are never replaced.
• Optional local audio archive in the WordPress Media Library.
• WP-Cron synchronization every 15 minutes, hourly, twice daily or daily, with an overlap lock and persistent operational logs.
• Pending-by-default episode and show-level comment import with global hash deduplication. Standard RSS comment feeds, public Schema.org Review/Comment data and public Castbox channel comments are discovered without publishing automatically.
• A bottom player with speed, seek, volume, source switching, automatic fallback, progress memory, an in-page minimized timer, loading feedback and Media Session API controls.
• Shortcodes for episode carousels, approved listener comments and play buttons.
• A protected Persian administration dashboard and explicit uninstall policy.

Installation

1. Copy this directory to wp-content/plugins/mrn-podcaster.
2. Activate MRN Podcaster.
3. Open پادکستر → فید و همگام‌سازی.
4. Save the primary feed, optionally add a backup feed and platform pages.
5. Run the first manual synchronization from the dashboard.

PHP 8.1+ and WordPress 6.6+ are required.

Shortcodes

[mrnp_episode_carousel count="8" heading="آخرین اپیزودها"]
[mrnp_listener_comments count="8" heading="از شنوندگان"]
[mrnp_player id="123"]

All output is theme-independent and uses stable mrnp- classes. A theme can override the design through CSS custom properties or wrap the shortcodes in its own layout.

Comment provider contract

RSS inline comments, standard RSS comment-feed links, Schema.org reviews and Castbox's publicly rendered channel comments are built in. Podcast platforms differ widely and many do not offer a public comments API. Provider adapters can safely add results without changing core synchronization:

add_filter(
    'mrnp_external_comments',
    function ( array $comments, array $episode, array $platforms ): array {
        // Query an authenticated platform API and append normalized comments.
        return $comments;
    },
    10,
    3
);

Each appended item may contain id, author, author_url, text, date and source. source + id is hashed globally, and imported comments remain pending until an administrator approves them.

Synchronization guarantees

The primary feed is always canonical. A backup episode can contribute audio and comments, but can never create a WordPress episode or change primary identity. Network calls use WordPress safe HTTP requests, bounded response sizes, short timeouts and redirects. Concurrent cron/manual runs are rejected.

The optional local audio archive can consume significant storage and bandwidth. The setting is off by default.

Development

.\tools\verify.ps1
.\tools\package.ps1

The verification script lints every PHP file, validates JavaScript syntax and runs the standalone parser/normalizer tests.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later.