About the RSS Feed Scanner

 

What is RSS?

Many torrent providers make lists of their most recent torrents available to the users in an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication) so that the users can use parsers to automatically process this information for a number of purposes.

 

Some such programs can display the most recent torrents on your screen, generate torrent lists for websites, or automatically launch torrent clients to fetch specific torrents when they appear.

 

What does this feature do?

It will periodically check the RSS feed URLs that you specify, and fetch the torrents that you are interested in, automatically starting them downloading in ABC.

 

Because of it's integration into the ABC BitTorrent client, this rss reader can be extended in its range of functionality to do things that the currently available RSS feed scanners cannot.

 

What else can this Rss Reader do?

* View detailes\description\date about each torrent.

* Can be used for reading non-torrent feeds, such as news.

* Only run when your BitTorrent client is running.

 

In addition to these benefits of running in the ABC BitTorrent client, this scanner has more advanced functionality, unavailable in other RSS clients currently.

 

This RSS Feed Scanner allows you to build more flexible rules, to target your exact needs...

 

What are some of the more advanced features?

 

* Your choice of Regular Expression or Substring matches

If you don't understand regular expression syntax, you can simply use the less powerful, but more easily  understood substring format.

Using the substring format, the title and/or torrent is searched for the existence of the particular text that you specify.

Both of these are case-insensitive.

 

* Add cookies

If you want to use a rss feed of a private tracker that requires cookies, you can add in the feed settings your own cookie values.

Find the cookie of the private tracker (you may want to use cookie monster). add the values of the cookie to the "use cookies" field in ABC. The form should be <name>=<value>;<name> =<value> ...

In example: if the uid is 1234 and pass is 5678 then write : uid=1234;pass=5678

 

* Positive and\or Negative filter syntax

You can set the rss feed scanner to download all torrents that include (in their name or link) one of the positive filter syntax. And you can set the rss feed scanner to not download any torrent that includes one of the negative filter syntax. You can use them both in the same rule. i.e you can set the rss feed scanner to download all torrents that include "myshow" but not the one that include S1E04.

 

* Fast View of old feed results

In the rss reader you can use the "Update" button in order to parse the feed for new results.

If you already hit the update button for a feed, choosing this feed later will quickly view the last results.

If you wand to see new results you can press the "Update" button again.

 

* Specific feeds rules

These will allow your filters to target specific matches to either one specific feed, or some of the source feeds.

This is helpful if you only want to download a specific torrent from a specific source or only from some of the sources.

 

* Automatic downloads

A smart timer will search every 10 minutes for a match in your rules.

The timer will be activated only when  at least one rule is active.

You may also make a manual search by pressing "Get torrents"

 

* Post Fetch Processing

After successfully fetching a torrent, you can have it do the following automatically:

Set the state of the download (States: Queued, Stopped, Working).

Set the torrent priority.

 

* Only download an item once

If a torrent have been successfully downloaded, the URL of the torrent will be saved in the history file and this torrent won't be downloaded again. You can reset the history file by using the "Clear History" button, or modify manually the history file for removing only some of the urls. The file is in X:\ Documents and Settings\*user*\Application Data\.ABC\urls.ini .

 

* Logger

You can view the log for details about which torrents have been successfully downloaded, which torrents have been faild, and which torrents the rss feed scanner have tried to download.

 

* Html Pages Scanner

Some rss feeds provide only an html page with the details about the torrent instead of the torrent link itself.

The Rss Feed Scanner can search such html pages and automatically download the torrent it contains. 

 

 

All about RSS Feeds

 

Where do I get RSS feed URLs from?

There are a variety of places to get feeds from.

 

Mostly you just need to have a quick look on the sites that you visit to see if you can spot the link.

 

Another way to find lots of torrent feeds is to go to google.com and search for "torrent rss"

 

Ok, I have a RSS feed URL, what now?

 

* Click on the RSS icon in the first toolbar.

* Paste the URL into the box next to the Update button.

* Click the "Update" button

 

 

All about Torrent Filters

 

How do filters work?

Filters are quite easy to build, but it is helpful to understand how the matching process works.

First, when a RSS feed is fetched, the filters are matched against each item in the feed, starting at the top of the filter list until it finds a filter that matches.

 

Ok, I want to add a filter, guide me through?

 

* Click on the 'Set Filters' icon (cogwheel)

* Click the New Button (scroll down if you can't see it)

* Type a meaningful name for this filter into the name field (Just make one up)

* Choose the torrent priority for torrents that will be downloaded acording to this filter.

* Choose the torrent status for torrents that will be downloaded acording to this filter.

* Click the 'Set Feeds' button and mark the feeds that you want your filter to be assigned to (default: All). 

     Note: It doesn't matter which feed is selected in the "Feed/s" field.

* Type the text that you want to match into the "Filter/s" field and click "Add/Remove" or the Enter key.

* You may do the same for the text you don't to match in the "Negative Filter/s" field.

* If your "Filter/s" text is a regular expression ckick the "Search as regular expression" checkbox.

* Click the "Active" checkbox

* Click the "Save" button

 

I don't understand the 'Filter/s' and the 'Negative filters' thing. Can you explain better?

 • Ok, we will start with the 'Filter/s' field:

 As you can see you can add more than one syntax to this field.

 The delimiter between all the syntaxes is something like "and" mode.

 I.E: For matching any torrent that contains both "myshow" and "S01", you can add these two syntaxes to the "Filter/s" box, each one in a separate field. Torrents that has only one of them like only "myshow" but not "S01" won't be downloaded.

 If you are using the syntax as a regular expression, you can use "|" as a delimiter between the srtings, and it will be like an "Or" mode.

           I.E: "myshow|S01" will match every torrent that include either "myshow" or "S01".

  Special signs in the Sub String mode:

   # = Any digit (0-9)

   * = Any character

  For special signs in the regular expression mode go to: http://sitescooper.org/tao_regexps.html 

 

  • The 'Negative Filter/s' field:

  We can add more than one syntax here, just like in the 'Filter/s' field.

  The only difference is the delimiter between all the syntaxes. In the 'Negative Filter/s' box the delimiter would be something like 'or'.

I.E: If you want to match any torrent that doesn't contain "E04" or "E06" you can add them as two negative filters.

 

  • Combination  of 'Filter/s' and 'Negative Filter/s' :

  Combining them both will set the filter to download any torrent that contains all of the 'Filter/s' syntaxes, but only if  the torrent doesn't  

  have any of the 'Negative Filter/s' syntaxes.

 

What can I match on?

Filters may match both the title and the filename.

Filters may also be either the Regular Expression type, or the Substring type.

 

What are Regular Expressions?

Regular Expression types utilize a specially written code that defines a set of matching criteria that may be used by power users to write more flexible rules.

This is not the place to discuss the intricacies of Regular Expressions, but suffice to say a Google search on "regular expressions" provides ample documentation for those wishing to learn.

Others may use the less powerful substring match below.

 

That sounds too complex!

The Substring match is more suitable for novice users and only matches if the supplied text is found inside the text of the title or file.

 

I have a torrent that is on multiple feeds, but I only want to download it from one.

The feed selection allows you to choose which feeds the rule applies to.

 

How can I temporarily disable a specific filter?

The Active setting allows you to temporarily enable/disable the current filter, without having to delete/re-add it.

 

 

Originally written by the Azureus RssFeed plugin developpers