Automatic Help

Creating Custom Rules

Using custom subscriptions, you can create flexible and powerful rules to match pretty much any content. Start by setting a name for the subscription, and a source URL, which is the URL of the feed. You can then use the rule editor to construct rules.

To add or remove rows, click the "+" or "-" buttons in each row. Option-click the "+" button to add a nested row. You can also drag rows to change their nest order.

If you've set a valid source URL, you can click "Load Preview...". Automatic will apply the rules against the current content of the feed, so you can see the effect they will have.

You can use various attributes of the feed items to construct rules:

Most operators are self-explanatory (for example, 'contains'). A couple require some discussion:

There are also a few other options you can set for custom subscriptions: