You can sort the podcast list by status, which more or less shows what you're asking for here.  It's a bit weird to have downloading episodes first, then downloaded episodes, then episodes queued for download, though.

Yes, it's weird, that's the problem. There should be a more direct way of displaying what is currently downloading and what is going to be downloaded, and it should not display what it's not going to be downloaded. 

This direct way should be like "Play Queue", and it should (may be, depending on Preferences) appear when it is downloading podcasts.

I really don't see the point of adding a whole new blob of UI to display information that is already available in the podcast episode view.  We should fix the status column sort order though.

Yea, you are right about the blob of UI, but there needs to be a way to not show extra information.

We could easily add a few more "special" feeds, like the "all X feeds" display, showing downloaded episodes, downloading episodes, and failed downloads.

Hello,
I am a French student. As regards a school project and in order to do a patch, I should develop an application that shows the list of podcasts which are currently downloading and podcasts which are going to be downloaded.
I cant understand the comment of Patrick Patel when he talks about "new blob of UI ".
Can I have some explanation plz? Can someone describe me more the goal of this application?
thank you

The bug submitter is asking for a new window or a new pane in the main window (the "new blob of UI" as I called it) that displays podcasts being downloaded.  I argue that this is unnecessary because all the information that would be displayed there is already present in the existing podcast view.

(In reply to comment #4)
> I really don't see the point of adding a whole new blob of UI to display
> information that is already available in the podcast episode view.  We should
> fix the status column sort order though.
> 

I agree.  The use case seems to be mostly about _monitoring_ podcast download status.  I argue that Rhythmbox is not and should not be a monitor for this.  Per Gnome style intentions (as I understand them), the UI should be clean and purpose driven.  Rhythmbox is not meant to be a download monitor.

This feature request does not play a part in the process of finding and listening to audio (podcasts in this case).  I don't think it makes much sense that users would prioritize what they want to listen to by its downloading status -- that is independent of the actual content or timeliness.  

Reporter: How does this help you choose what you want to listen to?  Perhaps you are running into another issue.  Perhaps, for example, you are really running into a problem of not being able to play the podcast that you want to listen to?  (Cause is that it is not downloaded yet.)  In such a case, finding its downloading status is useful for diagnostics, and this information is available.

Rhythmbox seems to support listening to a podcast while it is downloading, so as a user, it's download status is mostly irrelevant, so long as the stream is or can be downloaded faster than than required for listening "live".

If necessary, efforts should be made towards intelligently handling the background downloading, initiating downloads on demand, etc.  The user should not have to do much with the downloading status or amount.

Yes, diagnostics information is really important, because at my college bandwidth at times is scarce to point where listening "live" isn't really an option and at other times it's wonderful. It's more important for me to budget the bandwidth and really I can't do that. Just having the percent done isn't enough for diagnostic information. 

Commit 1cfd8d0 added child sources underneath the podcast source, showing newly posted and recently downloaded episodes.