I tried it out.. here's my experience:

Installation

I first tried to install it via the Application Manager, and it warned me: 'Unable to update gPodder Podcast Client (thp's Test Release). Some application packages required for the update are missing.' When I hit details and looked up Problems, it says, 'Unable to update gPodder Podcast Client (thp's Test Release) Application packages missing: python-mokoui'

So I dropped to xterm and did an apt-cache search mokoui' and I saw python-mokoui listed. So my guess is that there's something missing in the deb that would tell Application Manager to also install python-mokoui when gpodder is installed.

At the terminal, I ssh'ed back to localhost as root and then entered 'apt-get install python-mokoui' ...permitted it to install along with the libmokoui2-0 that came along for the ride to support it.

I went back to Application Manager to try to install the test gpodder again and it worked fine.

Using gpodder

It started up well enough--no problem there!

First thing I noticed was that the shows are, indeed, without their descriptions (which I'm VERY fine with.. always thought they were unnecessary) but that there is a lot of white space over and below each title. I support the entries' boxes could be sized to fit the title and icons better.. but it would make finger-based functions less reliable. I would rather opt to slightly increase the text size a little (maybe with a TALLER font instead of the same font currently being used) so that there's less white space.

I worried that a permanent toolbar will use up space, since I always turned that off, but this actually looks fine. There's space freed up by putting the update button in there. My suggestion might be remove the text beside icons and instead put a legend for the icons under help.. so that this way you can make finger-sized buttons (about teh same height as the toolbar now, same icons (logically double-wide, but visually the same width with white space between them to make them to finger-differentiate them apart). That way you can put the refresh button, preferences, play (triangle right), download (arrow down), details (circle i) and a lot of white space, putting the TRASH icon (delete old/played episodes) and QUIT door icon all the way to the right. This will eliminate the need for any pressing of the list to have to generate any menus at all. To make it more inuitive, the music-note icon should probably be a button that toggles the episode status (so you don't need the other options in the menu) and the icon status for a downloaded episode can cycle between played, unplayed or locked (prohibit deletion).. and a non-existant episode can cycle between being marked for download or not (as opposed to the trash/deleted and star/new paradigm you currently have). This would also eliminate the need for the 'download' option since it'll mark it for download during the next update.

Performance on changing from show-to-show is vastly improved! EXCELLENT experience with that, now.

Scrolling is a bit wonky, however. When I try to scroll up and down, the first thing I'm struck with is that it's not kinetic. If I slide my finger up or down and let go, it doesn't continue to scroll until it slows down like I expected after using many apps that scroll this way. The way it works now can be tolerated but it's inconvenient, especially while driving, and requires a lot of repeated finger dragging to scroll way down to the last shows. I expect it's just a matter of putting in some logic that measures how quickly you drag your finger during the scroll and continuing to scroll at that speed with a decay. Not sure if kinetic scrolling can be handled by the library already but if you see anything in there to that effect, please use that instead.

Also, another quirk of scrolling is scrolling above or below the first or last entries in the lists, respectively. Weirded me out for a moment until I realized I had scrolled off the edge of the lists and was just seeing it snap back into place.

When I hit the UPDATE FEEDS button, I get back the old status line under the show titles. I'm not sure I want to see it anymore, now that the toolbar is there. Since we have to wait for it, can we replace the entire length of the toolbat with that, so it doesn't take up space above and prevents other things from being done while it's updating the feeds? It also lets you actually SEE the update text better that way too. Keep the CANCEL button all the way on the right side, though, since we don't want to get stuck.

Downloading is MUCH improved. Things get sluggish but nothing is STUCK like it always had been before.. and the progress bars in the DOWNLOADS tabs are actually useful now since you can actually watch them move (instead of waiting for the screen to refresh for several minutes just to find that everything was already done by the time the screen was updated). So this is EXCELLENT progress on preventing blocking operations! Thanks MUCHLY!!

Playlist and selection

The loss of selecting a bunch of podcasts will sadden me. Muchly. Maybe a non-scrolling tap on a show can select shows and a new tab (in addition to podcasts and downloads, a PLAYLIST tab) keeps track of a playlist. As shows get tapped, they are added to the end of the playlist immediately or removed from anywhere on the playlist if that show is already listed. When you go to the PLAYLIST tab, the toolbar at the bottom can change to reflect this tab's operations such as PLAY (send the m3u to a player), MOVE UP, MOVE DOWN, REMOVE FROM PLAYLIST, a lot of white space and the same DELETE PLAYED FILES and QUIT icons I'd suggested earlier. This doesn't eliminate the DELETE OLD in podcasts tab, but once a playlist is PLAYED, the files in the playlist can be marked as played and so ready for being deleted later.

If you ever implement panucci as a built-in player for gpodder, this could be redone some to be much more intuitive and smarter.. but this might be a much more convenient way to handle queuing up programs and letting them just GO and then being able to mass-delete those shows once they're listened to.

Summary

So far.. I like this new test version a lot. I'm going to be nagged by that big flashing BANG sign telling me I'm using an older version for a while. I'm not sure I want to go back to the previous version already.

I'm a big fan of gestures for the scrolling but it needs to be kinetic scrolling that hits the edges and stops. The new toolbar is VERY nice but could double as both status and toolbar by switching when it's pointless to have a toolbar. Screen real estate is important on such a small device but if things need to be finger sized, make them do something useful to toggle things, select and unselect things or do things. I've not been a big fan of drop-down menus--so I would like to see more of those go away... they're small, not finger friendly and they're not something you want to tackle while you're driving. Playlist functions would elmininate a LOT of the need to even bother to fiddle with the screen whether you're driving, walking or working--I don't see a downside for that.

If I had to choose prioritizing these things, I'd prioritize on the kinetic scrolling, then the status bar ui/icons and selections (with planning ahead for marking things for the playlist).. and then finally, a playlist tab.

Tabs are good. I definitely would love a playlist TAB so we have space to organize.


Hope this was helpful feedback. I certainly appreciate all these new tweaks and changes. I'd wager that a LOT of this work will be MUCH more important on ANY touchscreens devices that end up using gpodder (maemo, pandora, laptops with touchscreens, smart-phones, etc.) even if the tag being used is '--maemo', this code could always get tweaked to be enabled for other platforms.

And for someone like me who wants to learn Python (when I get time.. grr), I now have this magnificent project to look at for a bunch of examples of great ways to do things.

Thanks again!!!