Post New Episodes Automatically

Once your site is connected to show.fm, each new episode can become a WordPress post. A scheduled episode becomes a scheduled post, so it goes live on your site when it goes live on show.fm.

You control this in two places:

• In WordPress, the Publishing tab sets how posts are made: the post type, category, author and template, and what goes in them.
• In show.fm, each episode's Publish and Schedule dialogs choose which connected sites post it. See Post Episodes to WordPress.

Choose how episodes are posted

1. In WordPress, go to Settings → show.fm and open the Publishing tab. (It appears once the site is connected.)

2. Under Auto-posting, set the options:

   Setting	Default	What it does
   Post new episodes automatically	On	Creates a post for each new episode. Off, new episodes aren't posted here, but posts that already exist keep updating.
   Post type	Post	Any public post type that supports the block editor.
   Category	Default category (your site's own default)	Added to every new episode post. Post types without categories don't offer it.
   Author	The first person on the site who can publish	Shown as the post's author. Only people who can publish that post type are listed.
   Post template	Default	A template from your theme. Default uses the normal post template.
   Include the transcript	On	Adds the transcript under the player, so search engines and screen readers can use it.
   Use the episode artwork as the featured image	On	Falls back to the show artwork when an episode has none.

3. Click Save changes. You'll see Settings saved.

These settings shape new posts only. Changing one never rewrites a post that already exists.

What a new post contains

Each new post has:

1. a show.fm Player block for the episode;
2. the show.fm Transcript block, if Include the transcript is on and the episode has a transcript;
3. the episode's show notes, or its description if it has no show notes.

The post's title is the episode's title. With Use the episode artwork as the featured image on, the artwork is copied into your media library once.

How posts follow the episode

Sync is one way, from show.fm to WordPress. The How sync works card on the Publishing tab sums it up.

On show.fm	On your site
The episode is published	A post is created and published.
The episode is scheduled	A scheduled post is created for the same time.
The episode is rescheduled	The post's date moves with it.
The title, description or artwork changes	The post is updated, unless someone edited it in WordPress (below).
The episode is unpublished	The post goes back to draft.
The episode is deleted	The post goes to the bin.

Your site picks up changes within a minute when show.fm can reach it, and otherwise at its next check, every 15 minutes.

Edit a synced post

You can edit a post the plugin made. Once you do, show.fm only updates its date and status, so your edits are never overwritten.

Stop syncing a post

If you move a synced post to the bin, show.fm stops updating it, even if you restore it later.

If a show is taken off your site in show.fm, or the site loses access to it, its posts stay where they are and stop syncing. If the show's plan pauses posting, posts stay as they are and update again when the plan allows it.

See what the sync did

The Recent activity list on the Publishing tab shows the Last 20 events, with the Time, the Episode, What happened and a link to the Post. It records posts created, scheduled and updated, posts moved to draft or the bin, posts no longer synced, posting paused by the plan, and episodes not posted because auto-posting is off.

Before the first episode, it says No episodes posted yet.

Check one post

Open a synced post in the block editor and open the show.fm panel in the post sidebar. It says where the post stands, for example:

• In sync with show.fm, with when it was last updated;
• Edited here, so show.fm now only updates the date and status.;
• This post went back to draft. (the episode was unpublished);
• No longer synced from show.fm.;
• Paused because of the show's plan.

Open in show.fm opens the episode in show.fm.

Show an episode's details in any post

The panel's Episode for this post setting connects a post to an episode. Heading and Paragraph blocks connected to the episode title or description then show that episode's. Click Choose an episode to pick one.

Turn auto-posting off for a while

Turn off Post new episodes automatically and click Save changes. New episodes aren't posted, and Recent activity notes each one as not posted. Posts that already exist keep following their episodes.

To stop one site posting one episode instead, turn it off in the episode's Publish or Schedule dialog in show.fm. See Post Episodes to WordPress.

Related

• Connect a WordPress Site
• Connected Sites: each site's status, in show.fm.
• Troubleshooting: when new episodes aren't being posted.