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PCL is Pando’s Command Line tool that simplifies the process of publishing content into the Pando Platform.
PCL is supported in Windows, Mac and Linux and allows publishers to automate the Pando publishing process and easily integrate with existing content publishing workflows.

For the smaller scale publishers, PCL offers an intuitive solution for manual publishing.

This guide describes how to install PCL as well as provides links to the latest PCL binaries for Windows, Max OS X and Linux.
To learn how to use PCL to publish content into the Pando Platform click here.

This area of the developers site is accessible to Pando's Customers. I you would like to become a customer, contact us to learn more about or products and services.

The Pando RSS Feed Converter is a tool that monitors an RSS "podcast" feed, automatically processing any enclosures and publishing the result as a Pando RSS feed. It can process a wide range of RSS "podcast" formats automatically.

Feed Setup

To set up Pando RSS Feed Convertor processing of an RSS feed, please provide the following:

• Feed Name (optional string, displayed to users in directory and application. If not provided, defaults to the channel's "title" element from the RSS feed.)
• Feed Description (optional string, displayed to users in directory. If not provided, defaults to the channel's "description" element from the RSS feed.)
• Feed URL (RSS 2.0 feed, specification at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss)
• Source URL (optional link to your web site)
• Sender Name (optional string, displayed in application. If not provided, defaults to channel "title" element from RSS feed.)
• Feed Thumbnail (optional graphic, 100x75 pixel PNG). Used as the default Package thumbnail for all feed items.
• Maximum number of items to serve in the feed (e.g. 3).

Feed Contents

Channel Data

The Pando RSS Feed Converter can process a wide range of RSS formats. We take advantage of the following RSS 2.0 attributes:

The RSS feed includes the following information for the channel:

• Channel Name. (Required string, displayed to users in directory and application.)
• Channel Description. (Required string, displayed to users in directory.)

Item Data

The RSS feed includes the following information for each item:

• title. This becomes the package title. Required.
• description. This becomes the package description. Optional.
• pubDate. This becomes the item's date in the RSS feed. Optional, but strongly encouraged.
• enclosure. This is the file that is retrieved and Pando packaged. Items without enclosures are ignored.

Limitations: All extended characters are stripped out, so that all file and package names are "safe" for all operating systems. This means that "Resumé" would become "Resum". Because the Pando client cannot display it, HTML and other special formatting / markup is also removed.

Pando Package URL

Every Pando Package has a unique URL that identifies the package. The Pando Package URL is output by the Pando Command Line when a package is published.


C:\pcl>PCL publish --username=jgcameron --password=titanic --pandofile=AuntDana.JPG.pando --sender="J.G.Cameron" aunt-dana.JPG


Might return a package URL such as:

A typical Pando Package URL looks like:

http://cache.pando.com/soapservices/Package/package.pando
?id=5A4A7B2AE83E0AA3DAF066C28703C6F3132B0633
&key=3557F2AAD6CEAEC0FB6B1F1E19C7531A116A1C2B209554FC9343F2A6ED9DAC94

This URL is then used throughput the Pando APIs to identify the package.

The first part of the URL identifies the service that is being used to deliver the content. This may be different for different types of content. The id is the unique identifier of the package in the Pando network. The key is the encryption key of the package. By giving a complete Package URL to a recipient, you are giving them the ability to download the package and access its contents.

Note there are some cases, such as when integrating Pando into an application, that you may wish to separate the package ID and key and communicate them separately. For example, you could distibute the package ID freely, such as on web pages, and communicate the key through a secure channel, combining the two to allow authorized recipients to download the content.

Package URLs in Pando application

The Pando Package URL is available for consumer-generated packages by using Pando's "send to web" command, and copying the "Download Link".

If you want to implement your own RSS feed, or wish to add Pando support to an existing RSS feed server, you'll need to know some technical details.

A Pando RSS feed is a standard RSS 2.0 feed containing Pando files as enclosures. Pando will download any enclosure with the MIME type "application/x-pando", or with the file extension ".pando".

Pando supports RSS, combining the convenience of Podcasting with the efficiency of Pando. This allows you to efficiently deliver extremely large files, such as high quality audio or video, to your subscribers, without any file hosting or delivery costs.

To make Pando packages look nicer to your recipients, there are a few simple tricks.

Every Pando package has a unique Package URL. The file at the URL is the Pando file for the package.

The pando:subscribe URL allows users to subscribe to a Pando RSS feed with one click. These links have the following format where RSS URL is the URL to the RSS feed containing Pando packages:

pando:subscribe?RSS URL

We also support authenticated RSS feeds. These are feeds that require a username and password to access, such as those provided by paid content services, or web sites that require registration for access. A link to an authenticated RSS feed looks like this:

pando:subscribe?http://username:password@RSS URL

When clicked, the Pando client will attempt to subscribe to the linked RSS feed. See Creating a Pando RSS Feed for more information on creating Pando RSS feeds. You may also be interested in the RSS Feed Converter, for converting your existing Podcast to Pando RSS format.

Example

Pando provides an RSS feed of video's that we we find interesting, at http://rss.pando.com/rss.xml. We also publish "Pando enabled" versions of other rich media feeds, which are listed in our Podcast Gallery. To provide a link on a web page to allow Pando users to subscribe to the first feed with one click:

<a href="pando:subscribe?http://rss.pando.com/rss.xml">
<img src="http://rss.pando.com/themes/rssvideo_customized/PandoSubscribe.png">
<a>

This looks like:

Feel free to use the above graphic, so that Pando users will be able to spot your feed easily.

Authenticated Example

A web site has paid registration for access to premium content, which they make available via Pando RSS. When a user is logged into their web site, they display a "subscribe using Pando" link that allows for one-click subscription to the premium content. The HTML could look like:

<a href="pando:subscribe?laird:secret@http://www.contentsite.com/premium.xml">
<img src="http://rss.pando.com/themes/rssvideo_customized/PandoSubscribe.png">
<a>

This looks like:

The RSS server would need to be configured to use the web site's registration system so that it requires HTTP Basic Authentication for access to the RSS feed, and authenticates against the database of registered web site users. The details of this configuration is specific to the web site's registration and content systems.

Supported Versions

pando:subscribe links are supported in Pando version 0.9.3 and newer.

Authenticated pando:subscribe links are supported in Pando version 1.5.5.5 and newer.

Creaating Pando RSS feeds

• You can package a Podcast as Pando RSS using the RSS Feed Converter.
• You can Create a Pando RSS Feed on any blogging platform.

Pando offers a "feed converter" service that allows Podcasters to provide Pando RSS feeds generated from existing Podcasts without requiring any engineering. This service subscribes to your PodCast and automatically repackages your feed as a Pando RSS feed, which you can then promote on your web site. The advantages of Pando RSS feeds include:

• No bandwidth cost - Pando delivers your data at no cost to you, no matter how large the files or how many subscribers you have.
• Higher quality - Pando lets you send higher quality video than standard PodCasts.
• Works with FeedBurner, a very popular free service that provides data about subscribers to your feeds.

This service is available by request. If you would like us to convert your Podcast to Pando RSS, please send email to laird@pando.com with "Pando RSS" in the subject line. Please provide the following information in your request:

• The URL you'd like converted
• An approximate number of current subscribers.
• The format(s) of enclosed files.
• How frequently new items are added to the feed (weekly? daily? hourly?)

While we can process pretty much any Podcast, you may want to read more details about the Pando RSS Feed Converter input format in order to take advantage of Pando's capabilities.