What are formats and how do they work?
Formats are used by Podcasting to allow you to have multiple versions of the same podcast. Podcasting then takes these different formats and generates separate feeds for you. For instance, you can have a .mp3 file and a .m4a file in the same post and Podcasting will separate those two file types into a two different feeds.
In order to use a format, you need to create a format and then apply a format to the enclosure you wish to separate into a different feed. All format options can be found at the bottom of Podcasting's Settings page. This page can be found by clicking the "Settings" link in the plugin directory or it can be found under "Settings > Podcasting".
At the bottom of this page, you will see the format section. To add a format, you will need to give the format a name. By rule of thumb, I would suggest naming it the file type of the podcast you wish to display (.mp3, .m4a, etc). You can then decide if you want the Format slug to be different than the Format name. The format slug is used in the Format feed. You will then need to determine if this podcast is explicit. This option can be useful if you have an explicit podcast with a clean version as well. Once you have created a format, a new box will be created directly above the format area. This will store the information of each format and give you the URL of your format's feed.
The next step is to add a podcast to this format. This can only be done through the Post screen. When you add a new enclosure, there is an option to choose a format. If you forget to change the format as you add the enclosure, that's fine. You can still modify it with the enclosure options.
So, how does it all work out? Well let me give you an example. I have two formats at the moment, .m4a and .mp3. I did not give a format slug to my .m4a format, but I gave the format slug of "explicit" to my .mp3 feed. I am using the Permalink structure of /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/.
This is what my three feeds would look like (yes, three feeds, one is .m4a, one is .mp3, and one is default):
Defaulthttp://example.com/feed/podcast/.m4a formathttp://example.com/feed/podcast/?format=m4a.mp3 formathttp://example.com/feed/podcast/?format=explicitThe default feed will show everything that is marked as the default format and nothing else. The .m4a feed will show everything marked as the .m4a format and nothing else. The .mp3 feed will show everything marked as the .mp3 format and nothing else.
