Post templates

A template is the HTML blueprint of one part of the post. RSS Retriever fills it for every imported item: placeholders are replaced with data from the item, Spintax picks random variants and shortcodes call AI models or image services. Templates are on the Post templates tab of every feed.

How templates work

By default the content template contains only %post_content%, which is replaced with the content of the feed item. Anything you add around it appears in every post:

Hello, I'm a <strong>WordPress</strong> post!
%post_content%

A template can be static (the same text in every post) or dynamic. If you delete everything from the content template, posts are created without content. All available placeholders are listed on the Placeholders page; the shortcodes are described in AI text shortcodes and Image and gallery shortcodes.

Inside one template, shortcodes run first and their parameters may contain placeholders; then the remaining placeholders of the template are replaced. If a shortcode fails, for example because the AI service returns an error, the item is not published.

Template processing order

Drag the title, content and excerpt boxes into the order in which these three templates are processed, from left to right. Default: title, content, excerpt.

The order matters because each template can use the result of the templates processed before it through %post_title%, %post_content% and %post_excerpt%. Two typical setups:

Title first, then an article about it

Order: title, content.

Post title:   {Work|Life|Weather} in {Paris|Amsterdam|London|Prague|Vienna}
Post content: [gpt_article topic="%post_title%"]

Article first, then a title that fits it

Order: content, title. Usually gives better results, because the title is written for the finished article.

Post content: [ai_generate prompt="Rewrite this article in your own words, return HTML: %post_content%"]
Post title:   [ai_generate prompt="Write a title (no quotes, no colons) for this article: %post_content_notags%"]

A third option is a short excerpt first, which is then used as the base of both title and content.

Parse Spintax

Converts Spintax in the templates into plain text. {word1|word2|word3} becomes one of the variants at random, and variants can be nested: {The {big|huge} news|Today}. Without this option, curly braces stay as they are.

Post title

Default: %post_title%. Make sure it is not empty. To prepend text to every title:

Breaking news: %post_title%

Post slug

Default: %post_title%, so the slug follows the final title (after translation and spinning). Change it for a custom URL structure, for example %post_title% %post_date[Y-m-d]%. WordPress converts the result into a valid slug.

Remove emojis from post slugs

Enabled by default. Emojis stay in titles but are removed from URLs.

Post content

Default: %post_content%. Make sure it is not empty. Examples:

A random Creative Commons image from Google matching the title, above the content:

<img class="aligncenter" src="%random_image[%post_title%]%" alt="%post_title%">
%post_content%

A link to the source below the content:

%post_content%
<p>Source: <a href="%link%" target="_blank">%link%</a></p>

A post built from a product XML feed:

<h3>%xml_tags[product_name]%</h3>
<img src="%xml_tags[picture]%" alt="%xml_tags[product_name]%">
<p><b>Price:</b> %xml_tags[price]%</p>

Post excerpt

The excerpt template. It is empty by default, so imported posts get no stored excerpt and WordPress creates one from the content when your theme needs it. Enter %post_excerpt% to keep the excerpt from the feed, or write your own, for example an AI summary:

%gpt_prompt[Summarize in two sentences: %post_content_notags[400]%]%

Meta title and meta description

Templates for the SEO title and description of the post. RSS Retriever detects the active SEO plugin and saves the values in its fields:

Yoast SEO
Rank Math SEO
SEOPress
The SEO Framework
Slim SEO

One of these plugins must be active; otherwise the templates are ignored. Placeholders, Spintax and shortcodes work here too. Quotes around the generated description are removed automatically.

Meta title:       %post_title% | My Site
Meta description: %gpt_prompt[Write a meta description of up to 150 characters for this article, no quotes: %post_content_notags[300]%]%