Skip to content
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. Preview the generated feed items immediately.
  4. Use the generated selectors in a Custom Recipe.

How to use

Section titled “How to use”
  1. Navigate to Tools > 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. Click Fetch Page.

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 (indicated by button text), clicking elements in the preview will generate selectors.
    • Keyboard Shortcuts: Use Arrow Up to select the parent element and Arrow Down to select the first child element. This is useful for fine-tuning your selection.
  2. List Item Selector (Required):
    • Click the Pick button next to “List Item Selector”.
    • In the preview pane, click on a container element that represents a single article or item in the list.
    • The system will attempt to auto-calculate a CSS selector.
  3. Field Selectors:
    • Once the Item Selector is set, you can map the relative fields.
    • Title Selector: Click Pick and select the element containing the title text.
    • Link Selector: Click Pick and select the element containing the article URL (usually an <a> tag).
    • Date Selector: (Optional) Pick the date element.
    • Content Selector: (Optional) Pick the element containing the summary or full content.
  4. Preview RSS Items: Click this button to test your selectors. The parsed items will appear in the right-hand panel.

Step 3: Use in Custom Recipe

Section titled “Step 3: Use in Custom Recipe”

Once you have verified the selectors in the preview:

  1. Note down the generated selectors (Item, Title, Link, Date, Content).
  2. Navigate to Custom Recipes > Create.
  3. Configure your recipe using these selectors to parse the target website.