Ok, so you downloaded Amarok 2. You love the new splash screen, the pretty buttons, and the cleaner user interface. The widgets are a great feature, and you love that your media player is supported. There's just that one problem, and it just happens to be the one huge pain that kills the entire experience:



You can't transfer podcasts. I mean, not at all. It doesn't matter how many menus you go through, how many configuration drop downs you change, the tracks just won't move. I say this with some frustration, as I have a good number of podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis. In fact, I have two podcasts that I pay a decent subscription for. I hate being tied down to my PC and having to listen to them there.

Since this bugged me so much, I went through the a couple of less-than frustrating searches using Google. They all told me one thing: There is no way to transfer your podcasts to a media player. This being the generally accepted rule, I decided to change the rules.

You see, I noticed if I just downloaded an MP3, and saved it to my "Music" folder, it showed up in my collection. I could then transfer the file over to a media player. That got me thinking. Maybe I could just make the podcast directory discoverable. There was only one problem: the path to the place where podcasts were stored was in a hidden folder "/.kde". I couldn't get the file tree to open the path in Amarok.

So, I had to change the path. It worked perfectly. If you will follow the steps below, you will be able to transfer your podcasts easily:

- Open Amarok

- Click the "Playlists" tab on the left-hand side

- Select the "Podcasts " tab

- Right Click on the name of the Podcast

- select the "Configure" option

- You will notice the default save location is /home/yourusername/.kde/share/apps/amarok/podcasts/PodcastName

- Change the path to something discoverable by Amarok. I recommend /home/yourusername/Music/Podcasts/PodcastName . If you already have downloaded podcasts ( I had about 2 GB of previous material), I would recommend copying the contents for each PodcastName folder from the /.kde path, to the /Music/Podcasts path. That way, it becomes instantly discoverable, and you don't lose, or have to redownload the material.

- Now, just in case the directories are not already being scanned, go to the top menu. Click Settings >> Configure Amarok. Then, select the "Collection Tab". Make sure checkbox beside the "Music" Folder is selected, so it is scanned by Amarok.

- Give it about 15 seconds. You should start seeing your podcasts appear under the "Collection" tab at the top.

-Hook up your media player. Right click on the track or podcast that you want to send.

- Mouse over to "copy to collection". Your media player (if it is plugged in and recognized), will show up. Left click on it to start the transfer.

That's it. I haven't seen any problems with it thus far, other than a few earlier podcasts without sufficient author data being thrown into the "Unknown" category.

Hopefully this will help an otherwise great version of Amarok back to health, until such a time as the developers correct this problem in the next incremental release.

God bless all of you, and remember: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. None of those who put their hope in Him will ever be ashamed.