Custom search forms

Although the property search forms are customisable to fit into your website some web designers prefer to make their own custom search form. This is very simple to do and is simply a case of passing across in a form the relevant parameters. You can set the name of the select inputs in the form to any of the names listed below and as long as the content of the drop down items matches exactly with the data within your Universal system (i.e. case and spelling) the custom form will work exactly the same as one of our search forms.

• sales_rental (Whether a sales or rental property search)
• area (the area a property is located)
• num_beds (number of bedrooms)
• price_high (maximum price)
• price_low (minimum price)
• type (property type)
• keywords
• country (country location based on ISO code)
• term (length of term for rentals properties)

A couple of other points to mention:

• If you are having a sales/rentals dropdown you will need some javascript to change the prices dropdowns accordingly.
• To make sure the "Modify Search" Link on the search results page returns to your own form the code below must be entered in the form. (Replace myformpage.co.uk with the correct search form url).

<input type="hidden" name="formurl" value="http://www.myformpage.co.uk">

Below is an example of such a custom form. Click here to view the source for this custom search form. The important points to take note of are highlighted in red in the code.