Movable Type 4.0 will be the first release of Movable Type that has podcasting support built into the core application, with no need for a plugin or additional software of services. In creating the plugin known as Feed Manager, I found that, for many, podcasting is a lot like "Retsyn": They have very little idea what it actually is, but they know they need it. That is why I compiled a simple podcasting guide for users and potential users of Feed Manager.

To summarize, podcasting is at its core the ability to subscribe to a feed of rich media files that can be played in your media player of choice.

Podcasters using Movable Type can make video and audio available through their Atom feeds with one simple addition to their Atom feed template which for any given entry will output the media assets associated with that entry:

<mt:EntryAssets>
<mt:SetVarBlock name="assettype"><mt:AssetType></mt:SetVarBlock>
<mt:if name="assettype" eq="audio">
    <link rel="enclosure"
          type="<mt:AssetMimeType>"
          title="<mt:AssetLabel>"
          href="<mt:AssetURL>"
          length="<mt:AssetProperty property="file_size" format="0">" />
</mt:if>
</mt:EntryAssets>

Or users can download the following complete Atom Feed template that contains the template code above.

In a couple of days we will be publishing the complete documentation for all of Movable Type's template tags. At last count there are over 70 new template tags being made available to developers and designers in MT4 and we can't wait to see the exciting new blogs and designs people will be producing as a result!