Play folder as audiobook

Feature request
1

Hi,

This app would be perfect if I could also use it to play audiobooks. That is, play an entire imported folder from beginning to end and skip to the next file when the last is finished.
As it is now, every file has to be imported into the playlist manually (and some audiobooks are well over 100 files). Once they are played I manually have to import more. Then the files sit there and clutter up the queue when I dont want to listen to them, because its easier to import a lot of files in advance.
A “play as audio book” so a folder is shown in the queue as one file would be optimal.

2

Hello Taylor,

Your request is in fact ability to have multiple queue combined with being able to create a playlist from a (group) podcast.
Open issue about the first one exist and I think it also exists for the second one. (Didn’t search)

About queue being cluttered with old listened episode there is only a setting in storage to delete an episode when it has finished and another settings to remove from playlist when an episode is deleted
→ I never noticed but now I feel like a setting for removing from queue when an episode end in playback settings is missing. I wonder what happens for users streaming or for local podcast : I’m pretty sure it won’t respect above settings but still… Out of curiosity I tested it with a local folder and episode is removed from playlist but not deleted. Did it also with streaming an episode and it is also removed from playlist when it finishes. So at least you have a way to not keep your playlist cluttered. :smiley:

1 Like
3

Have you looked at using a dedicated audiobook player app? I use Smart Audiobook Player which does what you want.

I actually use it for various radio programmes I rip to my laptop and thence to my phone to listen to in the work van and it easily copes with a rolling list of files deleted and added to a folder, treating each folder as a book / playlist with its own resume point as you swap between them.

1 Like
4

Have you looked at using a dedicated audiobook player app? I use Smart Audiobook Player which does what you want.

Thanks for the response.
I have used Smart Audiobook Player, and it was great. I even paid for the full version. But on /e/ that billing service doesn’t work, so it won’t let me use the full version. So it unnecessarily restricts most of the features, which is very annoying and means that I practically can’t use it.
I just stumbled onto AntennaPod because I’m using /e/ now, and I really like it so I had hoped I could use it all in one app.

Your request is in fact ability to have multiple queue combined with being able to create a playlist from a (group) podcast.

How can I do that? I never found an option for making other queues or creating playlists from folders.

5

That’s currently not possible. But, as @Matth78 noted, there are open issues about this:

6

Having dedicated apps for each type - music/podcasts/audiobooks is not worst solution, it just requires changing your approach a little. For audiobooks try AudioAnchor, it’s open source audiobook player, available on Github and F-droid. For music player try Music or Vinyl, both available on F-droid and Github (I would link to them but I’m not allowed to put more 2 links in post).

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7

I would rather use apps that are good at one thing than that fail miserably at trying to be a jack of all trades.

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8

Having dedicated apps for each type - music/podcasts/audiobooks is not worst solution, it just requires changing your approach a little. For audiobooks try AudioAnchor, it’s open source audiobook player, available on Github and F-droid. For music player try Music or Vinyl, both available on F-droid and Github (I would link to them but I’m not allowed to put more 2 links in post).

Thanks for the tip. AudioAnchor seems to work for me. At least it lets me change the play speed.

I would rather use apps that are good at one thing than that fail miserably at trying to be a jack of all trades.

You may be right. But what happened in my case was that I forgot about the other app. I just looked into AntennaPod whenever I was looking for something to listen to. Two months later, I noticed I hadn’t touched any of my audio books in Smart AudioBook Player.
AntennaPod does a lot of things really well, and it would be a minor feature adaptation to add playing folders as one.

9

See also feature request linked above. I wouldn’t consider this a feature specific to listening audiobooks :slight_smile:

10

I just have the three apps: Podcatcher, Audiobook Player and Music Player side by side on my phone screen so don’t “forget” them.

I don’t mind an app adding non-core functionality as long as it does not undermine its competence at doing its main job by making design compromises in order to do so.

In this case I would actually welcome Play Folder as Audiobook as long as it included the same aggressive smart rewind functionality of SABP which I find so useful to regain context when listening to long radio programmes with frequent Pause/Play while working as a multi-drop driver.

11

What do you mean with this? That AntennaPod should rewind automatically when an episode is paused? If so, that’s already present.

12

Does it? Didn’t realise that. Not mentioned anywhere in the app that I can see.

13

Yep, it does :slight_smile: And it’s not mentioned anywhere, because it ‘just works’ (and doesn’t need a setting).

1 Like
14

Audiobookshelf is great for Audiobooks. Audiobookshelf can also be used as a Podcast player, but is not so great in it. That’s why I switched solely for Podcast to AntennaPod and keep using Audiobookshelf for Audiobooks :slight_smile:

3 Likes
15

An option to choose how aggressive the automatic rewind should be would be good though: Depending on use case case anything from 0 to 60 could be needed depending on length of pause: 5 seconds for a more or less momentary pause up to 60 seconds for an overnight / next day pause / resumption.