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 JSON to RSS instead.

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

1. Navigate to Worktable > Generate Feed Sources > Webpage to RSS in the admin dashboard.

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. Pre-navigation actions (optional): Add click element, wait for element, or wait time actions in order, such as clicking #tab-a, #tab-b, and #tab-c before capturing the final page.
4. Click Fetch and Next.

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

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

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).
  • Auto-Fill: This field is automatically populated from the feed title.
  • Format: Only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens ([a-z0-9-]) are allowed.
  • Refresh: You can manually regenerate the ID from the title using the refresh button.
• 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.