1. I fill out a form & click submit. 2. I get the results page. Goal: Get the same results without filling out the form again.

Question

This is my first time posting - I greatly appreciate any and all guidance on this subject.

Background: I am building a Real Estate web site. I would like to use the free IDX data provided by my local MLS board. The MLS board does not allow me the option of displaying a predefined search and only provides me with a link to the search field. after filling out the search field, I am able to view the results.

Goal: I would like to bypass this step and frame the results page into a GoDaddy website I am building, which supports HTML.

Here is a link to the search page: http://fgcmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?APPNAME=Fortmyers&PRGNAME=MLSLogin&ARGUMENT=vBSJvLQtMcbg7F0O0KnXDiggv%2F12B0S6Ss9wv4510QA%3D&KeyRid=1

I am trying to only show the listings that appear in my neighborhood. Options include: 1. Property Type - Residential 2. GEO Area - FM11 3. Developments: Fiddlesticks Country Club

Once this criteria is entered, I have the page needed to make this project work.

Thank all of you for taking the time to read this and for the time you spend helping me out.

Best regards,

Chris

Answer 1

Without looking at the page itself, it's probably doing a "POST" operation to give the form to the website. You should be able to use javascript (maybe jquery or some other ajax framework) to do this for you in the frame and have it display the results.

Answer 2

I took a look at the page HTML, the form posts is defined thusly: <FORM action="/scripts/mgrqispi.dll" method="POST" name="InputForm" />

you may be able to create your own form defined like this: <FORM action="http://fgcmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll" method="POST" name="InputForm">

</FORM>

You will have to go through the HTML on the page you provided to get the appropriate ID's and Name's of the form elements you are interested in. Its possible their processing page checks to ensure its their form that is submitting to it, in which case this wouldn't work.

good luck.

Answer 3

So long as this is a POST form and they aren't doing a lot of strict referrer checking, the following should work:

Replicate the form on your own site.

Make a few minor changes to automate a few of the fields to better serve your geographic area/company.

Ensure everything is a full path and not relative to the server handling the query.

You will probably end up changing a lot of the text/select fields to hidden fields with pre-set values to keep it simple for end-users. The server handling the request won't know the kind of field it came from, just the value and name.