How To Differentiate Between Basic and Custom for RSS Headers and Items in the Email Builder

Modified on Tue, 06 Dec 2022 at 12:27 AM

Within the Email Builder, you may be using the RSS Header or RSS Item elements to automatically update information across sites. They are useful for blogs and other sites if you want to pull information from a site into an email.

Follow these steps to edit the Headers and items using both “Basic” and “Custom” options.

Step 1: Editing The RSS Header Block

The RSS Header Block dynamically populates <channel> tags from your feed. The header element supports these RSS channel tags:

RSS Tags	Custom Value
<title>	{{rss_feed.title}}
<description>	{{rss_feed.description}}
<link>	{{rss_feed.url}}
<lastBuildDate>	{{rss_feed.date}}

Be sure to use the corresponding custom value for each, in order to populate the email with the correct tag value.

In the Header block’s editing options, you will see “Basic” and “Custom” options.

“Basic” will add non-editable text in the editor:

<h1 class="h1">{{rss_feed.title}}</h1> {{rss_feed.description}}<br /> <br />

“Custom” will add this editable text in the editor:

Updates from {{rss_feed.url}} <h1>{{rss_feed.title}}</h1> <strong>{{rss_feed.description}}</strong><br /> <br /> <strong>In the {{rss_feed.date}} edition:</strong><br />

NOTE: The custom RSS <channel> variables can also be used in the subject field.

Step 2: Editing The RSS Items Block

The Items block will accept these custom values, dynamically inserting the respective RSS Tags:

RSS Tags	Custom Values	Description
<title/>	{{rss_item.title}}	The title of the RSS item, most commonly a blog post. title
<description/>	{{rss_item.content}}	A summary of the RSS item in HTML format
<link/>	{{rss_item.url}}	The text link to the RSS item online, which can be displayed as text or used in a hyperlink. content:encoded
<content:encoded/>	{{rss_item.content_full}	The full content of the information inside the <content:encoded> tag for an RSS item, in HTML format. If no <content:encoded> tag, it will display the information in the <description> tag.
pubDate	{{rss_item.date}}	The date the RSS item was published, formatted as `MMM DD, YYYY hh:mm A`.
<dc:creator>	{{rss_item.author}}	The author of the RSS item media:content
<media:content>	{{rss_item.imageUrl }}	The src URL of image as text in order to render it as image, use {{rss_img}} {{rss_img alt="alt_text" src=rss_item.imageUrl height="200" width="200"}}
<item>	{{#rss_items rss_items}}	It's used to open the customized formatting for individual RSS items (doesn’t display anything).
</item>	{{/rss_items}}	It's used to close the customized formatting for individual RSS items (doesn’t display anything.)

In the Items block’s editing options, you will see “Basic” and “Custom” options, like the Header block’s options above, along with some additional options.

“Basic” will add non-editable text in the editor:

{{#rss_items rss_items}} <h2 class="mc-toc-title"><a href="{{rss_item.url}}" target="_blank"> {{rss_item.title}} </a> </h2> {{rss_item.content}} <br /> <a href="{{rss_item.url}}" target="_blank">Read on »</a><br /> <br /> {{/rss_items}}

“Custom” will add this editable text in the editor:

{{#rss_items rss_items}}<h2 class="mc-toc-title"><a href="{{rss_item.url}}"target="_blank">{{rss_item.title}}</a></h2> <em>By {{rss_item.author}} on {{rss_item.date}}</em><br /> {{rss_item.content_full}}<br /> <a href="{{rss_item.url}}" target="_blank">Read in browser »</a><br /> <br /> {{/rss_items}}<br /> <br /> <br /> <h3 class="h3">Recent Articles:</h3> {{#rss_items rss_items}}