So how do we build one of these mysterious RegExp statements in Rainmeter? Let me use a template showing the format in simple terms: As we saw above, WebParser uses a regular expression to search for the bits of information you want to retrieve, and return them in one or more StringIndex values on the measure. Now let's spend a minute talking about the key part of the code, that RegExp option.
Each (.*) captures some information and creates a StringIndex. The captured information is held by WebParser, and is individually referenced by child measures with the StringIndex numbers. What happens is that the parent measure connects to the site with the URL, and uses the RegExp option to capture some information with one or more instances of (.*). It is important right off to understand that WebParser works with a "parent / child" approach. The basic format of a WebParser skin is: Then you capture that information, and display the results in meters. Finding those strings will position you in the output at a point where you want some information.
When we say parse in this context, what we mean is to search the output for some text strings.
WebParser is a measure that is used to connect to some resource, normally a web site on the internet, read the raw HTML output that the site returns, and parse information from that output to use in meters in your skin. A lot of us have used WebParser to get RSS feeds or other data from websites, but often by using or tweaking existing code, and without really understanding how it works. This tutorial is meant to shed some light on using the WebParser measure in Rainmeter to retrieve information from a website for use in your skins.
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