BeyondPod Tips and Tricks

Below is a list of some less-known shortcuts and experimental features in BeyondPod.
(All experimental features are first introduced in our Beta versions. If given feature is not yet available in your version of BeyondPod, you can download the latest BETA version from our Phone Beta Page or Tablet Beta page)

  1. To quickly open the playlist from every screen in the main window - long press the "Player" title bar button.
  2. There is an easy way to mark posts as read as they scroll off-screen. This is useful for text feeds and allows you to quickly scan the feed and mark all scrolled off-screen feeds as "read" at once (rather then one a time). To enable it go to: Menu > More > Settings > Menu > Advanced Settings > Mark Read on Scroll. The number of scrolled "unread" items will appear in the tile bar as you scroll. To mark them read select: Menu > Mark Read XX posts.
  3. When setting a custom sleep timeout (Settings > Player Settings > Custom Sleep Timeout), you can enter multiple times separated by a space or a dash (for example 20-10-30-45). The first (20) will be set as usual for the default sleep, but the remaining (10-30-45) will be shown as the options in the "Sleep" pop-up.
  4. Long press on the player's "Sleep" icon will set directly the "end-of-episode" sleep option.
  5. Google Reader tracks the "read" status of items only for about 30 days, after 30 days it considers the item as "read" regardless if it has been actually read or not. If you use feeds that have older episodes, there is a way to tell BeyondPod to to ignore the "read" status Reader assigns to posts. Menu > More > Settings > Menu > Advanced Settings > Ignore Reader 'Read' Status.
  6. If you want to be notified about new Beta versions of BeyondPod, you can enable Beta notifications in: Settings > General Settings > Beta Version Notifications.
  7. You can use a double-tap to close the post content window (or the post web page). To enable it go to: Settings > Menu (press the Menu key) > Advanced Settings > Close on Double Tap.
  8. If you often read Comics RSS feeds, you may find it more convenient to use the old-style post viewer with dedicated zoom buttons so you can zoom in-out the images. Menu > More > Settings > Menu > Advanced Settings and uncheck 'Enable Posts Swipe Paging'
  9. Episode cleanup rules (for example keep at most XX episodes) are currently enforced only when performing automatic downloads. If you download episodes manually (one at a time) you can enable automatic cleanup in: Menu > More > Settings > Menu > Advanced Settings > Allow Cleanup for Manual Downloads. This will use feeds cleanup settings to clean the old episodes before downloading the new episode.
  10. If you often check episode notes on Feed Content Screen, there is a "Read Optimized" mode that uses the entire width of the text to open episode notes (playback is started by tapping on the episode icon). You can also long press on the icon to access some additional episode options. To enable the "read optimization" use: Menu > More > Settings > Feed Content Settings > "Optimize for Reading".
  11. If episode names/titles are long and can't fit in a single line, you can select if BeyondPod should cut the "end" or the "start" of the name. This is configured per feed in the feed properties (open the feed, then Menu > Edit Feed > More Settings... > Long Episode Names).
  12. Episode titles can also be wrapped in multiple lines (so they are visible entirely). Title wrapping can be enabled in Menu > More > Settings > Feed Content Settings > Wrap Episode Titles. If you only occasionally need to see the full title, instead of using that setting, turn the device in landscape mode - there the title is always shown in full.
  13. There is a useful setting to retain the current episode when clearing the playlist. To enable use: Menu > More > Settings > Menu > Advanced Settings > "Keep Current Episode".
  14. If some of your feeds mix audio episodes with images or video, you can ignore images or videos and leave only the audio episodes. Episode filtering is configured globally for all feeds using the existing "Hide Unsupported Media" setting located in the Advanced settings (Menu > More > Settings > Menu > Advanced Settings). Keep in mind that the filter is "exclusive" - once enabled, it will allow only file types (identified by their extension) that are listed in "Supported File Types" setting. The same filter is also used to filter out by file type in virtual feeds.
  15. You can quickly show/hide "read" feeds or posts/episodes by using a "pinch-zoom" gesture (Zoom-in for "Show All", Zoom-out for "Unread Only"). This works on both the Feeds Screen and the Feed Content Screen.
  16. You can use Quick Play commands to instantly play categories, feeds or episodes matching a search keyword. Quick Play can be started using Android Voice search (by saying for example “Listen to News” or “Listen to Science Friday”), by creating a home screen shortcut or from a 3rd party application (like Tasker/Llama). More information on how to set it up is available here.