ListGarden Version 1.3 adds many new features to the previous Version 1.02. Many of them are to provide better support for podcasting, but most ListGarden users will find something new that is useful.

Here are the most noticeable:

• Enclosures have been added to the list of item elements you can set, including the URL, length (in bytes), and type (e.g., audio/mpeg).
  
  
• You can browse for enclosure information. It is assumed that you use another program (like a simple FTP program) to upload the file to be "enclosed". Instead of filling in the enclosure URL, length, and type by hand you can click a "Browse" button and see a list of files in a directory on the server, sorted by most recently modified. (You can browse a different server than the one where the RSS feed is uploaded to.) You can then fill in the enclosure information by pressing a "Select" button.
  
  Alternatively, if you have the URL of the enclosure, you can click "Get Info" to get just the length and type information from the server. If the server does not return a correct MIME-type, there is an Item Enclosure Type Template to provide an initial value.
  
  
• There is a new "Backup Data" feature as part of publishing. You can save the backup copy of the feed data file locally and/or upload it to the server along with the RSS file(s). The backup files need not be in the same directory as the other files (so they may be in places off-limits to the web server for security). For security, by default the password values in the data file are not backed up. The backup goes either repeatedly to the same file or to multiple files with time-stamped names.
  
  
• The "Item Additional XML" field has been added so that you can add additional <item> elements, including the ones in RSS and those in other namespaces, like for Apple iTunes.
  
  
• The "RSS Tag Additional Text" value has been added to allow you to add text to the <rss> tag, including the namespace declaration needed for Apple iTunes extensions.
  
  
• Non-HTML mode of the item description field has been upgraded to create more interesting output without needing to manually enter HTML: Line breaks are preserved as <br> and there are easy ways (similar to some wikis) to add bold, italic, and linked text, as well as indented text.
  
  
• There is new Load Feed Setting From URL functionality. This lets you automatically fill in many Option and Publish settings from a file on the web. This is useful for filling in fields such as the HTML Template fields and is used in some tutorials.
  
  
• Automatic GUID creation has been fixed to use months starting with 1, not 0 (this will only affect new items -- previously created GUIDs will not change).
  
  
• There are more extensive publish progress messages.
  
  
• There is a new tutorial on using ListGarden for podcasting. See "Setting Up an RSS Feed for Podcasting Using ListGarden".
  
  

Version 1.3 should be compatible with the data files created by previous versions. Just download the new version and use it. As always, it is prudent to backup your data before upgrading.

Note: Remember that ListGarden usually finds its data files by looking in the current directory. That is usually the directory from which it is executed. If you move the program file to a different directory you will need to move the data files as well.