Thanks for the comments. I've just edited the bit you quoted, to say that the shownotes scrollable area could also show other metadata (in a smallish font) like dates when the content was published or downloaded, so I am expanding things a bit.

Maybe we should move away from thinking that the proposed scrollable information area is the "shownotes" and instead think of it as a general information and metadata area for the ep. For example, when downloading an ep it could also contain a progress bar and estimated download time (maybe removing the need for the separate download manager view). The title of the ep could be made blue and underlined and clickable to view the website for the ep (if the ep provides that info).

You mention cover art. Yes, I think it would make gPodder more attractive if I could see the cover art as part of this scrollable information pane in the ep window (it might need scaling so that it isn't too large, and again, it is important that this is implemented such that the displaying of the cover art should not slow down the user who just wishes to click Play or whatever).

If people dislike the white background of the current shownotes implementation and my mockups, I'm sure a dark background (or whatever the user's theme says) could be used. I think marxian's screenshots of cutetube look great, and that's the sort of thing I would like to see in gPodder.

This is a very interesting debate, in any case, even though I don't seem to be persuading many people! ;-)