Podcast data for block themes

Description

** Still in beta stage, use at your own risk. **

This plugin turns your podcast data from the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin (SSP) into block bindings you can use in any block theme — no PHP or custom fields UI required. It also ships two ready-made archive templates and podcast-specific icons for the Social Links block.

What it gives you

Block bindings for episode data (source gt-podcast-bb/episode-data):

• recording_date — formatted from the date_recorded meta.
• download_link — the episode’s audio_file URL. Works on wp:button (URL) and on wp:audio (src), so you can wire up a native HTML5 audio player straight from the meta value.
• podcast_description, podcast_title, podcast_subtitle, podcast_author, podcast_owner_name, podcast_owner_email, podcast_copyright, podcast_language — pulled from SSP’s Feed Details options.
• subscribe_url — populates each wp:social-link from SSP’s Feed Details subscribe URLs. The plugin auto-derives the SSP option key from the block’s own service slug (e.g. applepod → apple_podcasts, feed → rss) via a filterable map (gt_podcast_ssp_service_map), so no arg is needed for common services.

Series-aware. On /series/{term}/ pages the feed-detail bindings pick up the currently queried series first, then fall back to the site-wide default series (ss_podcasting_default_series), then to the base SSP option.

Podcast-specific Social Links icons. Registers Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, CastBox, Podbean, and Podchaser as wp:social-link services so they render correctly with the core Social Links block.

Two bundled block templates (registered via register_block_template()):

• taxonomy-series — the Series taxonomy archive.
• archive-podcast — the Podcast post-type archive.

Themes can override either template by shipping their own templates/taxonomy-series.html or templates/archive-podcast.html; that is standard WordPress behavior, not a plugin quirk.

Plugin vs. Theme Responsibilities

When something doesn’t render the way you expect, this chart helps you decide whether to fix it in the plugin or in your theme.

Plugin owns (data + registrations):

• All the bindings and helpers above.
• Cover-image binding falls back to the post’s featured image when no cover_image_id meta is set.
• Custom wp:social-link services (Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, CastBox, Podbean, Podchaser) via block_core_social_link_get_services.
• Opting core/audio.src, core/video.src, core/video.poster, and core/social-link.url into block_bindings_supported_attributes (WP 6.9+) so those attributes accept bindings.
• Bundled taxonomy-series and archive-podcast templates as sensible defaults.

Theme owns (presentation):

• Which template renders /podcast/ and /series/{term}/, and its visual layout. Any theme file with the same slug will override the plugin’s registered template.
• Button styling, spacing, column widths, typography — the plugin ships unstyled markup so your theme.json and CSS drive the look.

Common gotchas

• Template edits in the plugin folder don’t appear on the site. Your active theme is probably shipping its own template with the same slug — that always wins. Edit the theme file, or remove it if you want the plugin’s default back.
• Bindings return nothing on /podcast/. That page has no queried series, so the plugin falls back to the ss_podcasting_default_series option — set a default series in SSP’s settings if none is configured.
• Audio bar doesn’t play or download URL is empty. Make sure the episode has an audio_file meta value set (SSP’s episode editor).