Episode Credits

Episode credits let you create reusable credit templates per show and stamp them onto individual episodes. Credits are useful for consistently acknowledging guests, sponsors, producers, or any other collaborator in a standardized format that appears on your episode pages and in your RSS feed.

What Episode Credits Are

A credit is a block of rich text — HTML — that appears on an episode. Instead of typing the same credit language on every episode, you create named templates once and apply (“stamp”) them to episodes as needed. Templates can contain shortcodes that resolve to episode- or subscriber-specific values at stamp time.

Each show can have multiple credit templates (for example, “Standard credits”, “Guest episode credits”, “Sponsored episode credits”). One template can be designated as the show’s default.

Setting Up Credit Templates

Credit templates are managed in Show Settings → Credits. The Credits tab appears in the settings sidebar between Feed Sync and Emails.

To create a template:

1. Go to Benecaster → Settings → [Your Show] → Credits.
2. Click Add template.
3. Give the template a name (internal label, not shown to listeners).
4. Write the credit body using the rich-text editor. You can include shortcodes — they resolve when the template is stamped onto an episode, not when the template is saved.
5. Click Save.

To designate a template as the show default, click the Set as default link on any template row. The default template is pre-selected in the episode editor’s credit picker and can be applied automatically at episode creation (see below). Only one template can be the default at a time.

You can create as many templates as you need. Templates are per-show — they are not shared across shows.

Stamping a Credit onto an Episode

Credits are applied in the episode editor.

1. Open an episode for editing.
2. In the right sidebar, click the More tab.
3. Find the Credits section (collapsible, above Errata).
4. The section shows the current stamp status — either “No template applied” or “Credits (applied from: [template name])”.
5. Select a template from the dropdown.
6. Click Apply.

At stamp time, Benecaster resolves all shortcodes in the template body and writes the resulting HTML into the episode’s credit field. The TipTap editor below the status line shows the resolved HTML, which you can freely edit after stamping.

Re-stamping: Clicking Apply again replaces the current credit entirely — it does not append the new template to the existing credit. The previous credit is discarded.

Note: The Apply button is disabled until the episode has been saved at least once (Benecaster needs a WordPress post ID to store the credit). Save the episode as a draft first, then return to the Credits section to apply a template.

Default Credit Auto-Application

The default template can be applied programmatically at episode creation using the benecaster_apply_default_credit() function. This is useful if you want every new episode to start with a credit pre-applied rather than applying one manually each time. See the developer recipes for a working example.

Where Credits Appear

A stamped credit appears in three places:

• Episode page — below the main episode body, in a labeled credits section on your website.
• RSS <description> — as plain text (HTML tags stripped).
• RSS <content:encoded> — as HTML, exactly as stamped.

If no credit has been stamped on an episode, no credits section appears in any of these locations.

Developer Hooks

Three hooks let add-ons and custom code interact with the credits system:

benecaster_credit_options filter — Customize which templates appear in the picker for a given episode. Called with (array $templates, int $episode_id, int $show_id). Return a filtered array to restrict or augment the picker options.

benecaster_credit_before_stamp filter — Modify the template body before shortcode resolution occurs. Called with (string $template_body, int $template_id, int $episode_id). Use this to inject dynamic content or conditionally alter the credit text at stamp time.

benecaster_credit_applied action — Fires after a credit has been successfully stamped onto an episode. Args: (int $episode_id, int $template_id, string $resolved_html). Use to trigger downstream side effects — for example, logging which template was used or sending a notification.