Hey guys, I'm Doug. I'm not too new in this field, but not very well versed in Perl. I have a customer who would like to use the MLS/IDX software offered. They are www (dot) mlscitrus (dot) com. I had alot of trouble searching for information to begin this task. I was lucky to find this forum. So if someone could take a moment, and send me on some good links to begin. That would be great. I have some .txt files, and some .dic files as well. I'm quite confused. So thanks ahead of time everyone. Nice to meet you!

Well, since I posted, I found this thread. http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread14553.html

I read about "Bash?" I'm going to look that up now. I'm going to look into your iframe solutions, to save some time. Any suggestions?

What are you looking to do, Doug? Are you looking to set up an IDX search site using Marketlinx's RETS?

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Reed Botwright
IDX Coordinator
Real Estate Webmasters Staff
MLS Update Blog

I'm not quite sure. I have to speak with the "representative" tomorrow morning. If so, then I wouldn't need your IDX solutions. =( Nevertheless! I will post tomorrow about it, and I appreciate you getting back to me so fast. Thanks!

See, we build and host custom IDX solutions by downloading listing data from MLS's for our clients. Marketlinx RETS, which it looks like the Realtor Association of Citrus County is using, is a delivery method for that data. An experienced programmer could set up a system to regularly grab the data from the IDX feed and organize it to dynamically display on a web site, but throw in the data storage and host costs and you have an undertaking that can be quite costly and time-consuming. That is purely the reason people will often opt for a pre-made IDX link instead or hire us to do all of the IDX dirty work for them.

__________________
Reed Botwright
IDX Coordinator
Real Estate Webmasters Staff
MLS Update Blog

Alright. I'm curious on your thoughts as to how I should take on this. I have a beginner at best skill in Perl. What would be my best route? And when you mean hosting, do you have a ball park idea on the amount of necessary storage for a single Realtor? Thanks for your help mate.

Well, any time you are dealing with IDX, you are grabbing all the active listings and images that are provided by the MLS. Did a quick search on your MLS's site and they returned 2600 listings from an open query of the residential listings. This isn't huge, but it can add up. Factor in 6 images per listing at ~6K each and you have several gigabytes of images to start the database.

Unless you have a lot of time on your hands to learn how to set up a cron to query the RETS server, a parsing script to change the IDX data into something usable, and database scripts to grab the listings to show on the website, I would hire a professional to develop an IDX solution for you. An MLS we recently started working with said it takes most professional developers 8-10 weeks to get a solution up and running using their RETS feed.

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Reed Botwright
IDX Coordinator
Real Estate Webmasters Staff
MLS Update Blog

Doug - this forum is for discussion of IDX / MLS solutions, but you are likely not going to be able to get much help on the "help me learn how to code this front" - for the most part, (There are rare exceptions) the only members of this board qualified to educate you on this are REW staff, and because we are in the business of custom IDX development, it is not in our best interest to teach other people how to build IDX's. It's hard to do, and even harder to do well, that is why we get paid

Best of luck.

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Strep throat! - Yup tis the season - boooo if you are wondering why you haven't seen me as much it's because I had strep throat for a week, feeling better just playing catch up. Merry Ho Ho folks

It depends on how your providers gives you the information. Usually you have to download the daily files (text and photos) and import the listings in the database. You'll have to add them on cron to make sure the daily update is done every day. Now it depends - you want to use one of the software's which is made to show listings? you want to make one on your own ? If you want to make one on your own you'll have some things to work on - make a search page, search results page, listing view page, contact forms, leads and many more

I would like to use your services then gentlemen. I thank you for your help!