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FeedCraft

HTML to RSS

FeedCraft includes a visual HTML to RSS tool that allows you to generate selectors for creating RSS feeds from websites that don’t provide them natively.

Note: This tool is designed for HTML pages. If you need to process a JSON API, use the CURL to RSS instead.

Overview

Section titled “Overview”

The HTML to RSS tool allows you to:

  1. Fetch a webpage’s content.
  2. Select elements visually to define what constitutes a feed item (title, link, date, content).
  3. Metadata Define feed details like title and description.
  4. Save the configuration as a Custom Recipe directly.

How to use

Section titled “How to use”
  1. Navigate to Worktable > HTML to RSS in the admin dashboard.

Step 1: Target URL

Section titled “Step 1: Target URL”
  1. Enter the full URL of the webpage you want to scrape (e.g., a blog list or news site).
  2. Enhanced Mode: Enable this if the site requires JavaScript to load content (uses headless browser).
  3. Click Fetch and Next.

Step 2: Extract Rules

Section titled “Step 2: Extract Rules”

This step allows you to map HTML elements to RSS feed fields.

  1. Page Preview: The left pane shows the rendered webpage.
    • Selection Mode: When active, clicking elements in the preview will generate selectors.
  2. CSS Selector (List Item):
    • Click Pick.
    • In the preview pane, click on a container element that represents a single article or item in the list.
  3. Field Selectors:
    • Once the Item Selector is set, you can map the relative fields.
    • Title: Click Pick and select the element containing the title text.
    • Link: Click Pick and select the element containing the article URL.
    • Date: (Optional) Pick the date element.
    • Description: (Optional) Pick the element containing the summary.

Click Run Preview to test your selectors. If satisfied, click Next Step.

Step 3: Feed Metadata

Section titled “Step 3: Feed Metadata”

The tool attempts to auto-extract metadata from the page.

  • Feed Title: Adjust if necessary.
  • Description: Feed description.
  • Site Link: The source URL.

Step 4: Save Recipe

Section titled “Step 4: Save Recipe”

Review your configuration and save it as a permanent recipe.

  • Recipe Unique ID: A unique identifier for this feed configuration (e.g., tech-blog-feed). If left empty, it will be automatically generated from the feed title.
  • Internal Description: Notes for yourself about this recipe.

Click Confirm and Save. The tool will automatically create a new Custom Recipe with your configuration, which you can manage in the Custom Recipes dashboard.