How to Setup an IDX search on your blog

Last week I talked about setting up an IDX link on your blog. David left a comment asking for more detailed instructions and here they are.

First you need to get the Home Search plugin from Matt at Realivent. After you download the file you will need to unzip the files and upload them to your wp-content/plugins directory on your wordpress installation. We will activate the plugin after we have create the custom page for our IDX Search.

Creating the Custom Page.
From your current theme you will need to find the file called page.php or single.php either of these files are for you single post/page viewing of your website. It will depend on your theme if it uses page.php or single.php. This file is used for when a post is viewed when someone clicks on the post to view it.

Open this file and get ready to edit it. If you don’t have any web design software like dreamweaver or something else open the file in notepad.

After you have opened the file you will need to do 2 things

Look for this line near the very top – “Template Name: whatever it says here”
Change it to – “Template Name: Page w/ No Sidebars”
Leave out the quotes

Now look for this line – “?php// get_sidebar(); ?>”
( i have left out the first < so this shows up in the post correctly)
Delete this line

Now save the file as page_no_sidebar.php or single_no_sidebar.php

Upload this file to your server into the same location as where single.php or page.php is located.

Now login to your wordpress admin page

Activate the plugin and follow the plugins directions. After you have done that, go to manage->page, choose the page to edit (should be home search or whatever you named it), then on the right you will see a dropdown box for templates. Select the template called “Page W/ No Sidebars???.

Save the page. Now view it in your browswer and marvel in your elite skills.

If you still need help send me an email or call me and I can do it for you for a small nominal fee.

Loren Nason
Future of Real Estate Technology