Another month, another Pull release 
This month is not a very feature rich release, but includes some vital features and new ideas:
New Parsing Engine
Internally in Pull, we have added a new parsing engine which now handles feeds which are broken. The scenarios we are catering for:
- Putting incorrectly encoded content in the description. Ted Talks I’m looking at you.
- Using DTD’s with the feed. Let’s Talk Geek podcast used to break because of this.
- Incorrect date and time formats. 702 podcast are an example of this.
What this means to you as a consumer of podcasts, is that more are podcasts available for you to subscribe to now!
Battery Support
If you are on batteries (i.e. laptops not plugged in) downloading can put a big strain on the batteries, so we now have a way to prevent downloads while on batteries. This can be controlled in the settings dialog.
Online Detection
There is no point even trying to download if you are not online (waste of CPU, memory, batteries etc…), so we now ask Windows if you are online and then only if download if you are online. This too can be controlled in the settings dialog for scenarios where you are online but Windows is unable to detect it.
Better Hardware Use
We optimise how many downloads you can do based on the number of CPU cores available, this ensures we download optimally based on the limits of the CPU. This can be adjusted in the settings.
Sync Support
We new have a very basic sync system in Pull, which allows you to easy sync your devices with your downloaded episodes. This is intentionally basic for this release as we try to understand the needs and wants of people who use this. Please provide feedback on this feature.
Twitter Support
Another new feature is a one click way to share using Twitter what podcasts and episodes you are listening to! This is very basic too in this release and can break in some situations. We will be working on this and it will be enhanced in the January release.
Minor Features
- Improvements to the UI and theming
- Better last resort crash support
Looking Forward
For the January release we will be implementing some major new features:
- Grid overhaul – we make use of grids to list your podcasts, episodes, downloads and the log. In January we will be giving them a major overhaul and give you the ability to have filtering and searching, persistent customisations and performance improvements.
- UI Enhancements – Really working hard on making the UI easier to understand while giving power users more control.
- Twitter – Better support for Twitter, including using bit.ly for shortening.
Little taste of the current development progress:
