# Auctionator (3.3.5 fork) — Scanning & Selling Overhaul

A heavily upgraded fork of **Auctionator v2.9.9** for WotLK 3.3.5 clients, backporting the auction database and selling UI from Auctionator v3.2.6 (WoD 6.2) and rebuilding the scanning engine around the reliability patterns used by **TradeSkillMaster v2.8**.

Requires the companion data addons `Auctionator_Price_Database` and `Auctionator_Pricing_History` (they own the saved data so it survives reinstalls of the main addon).

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## Full scan (Full Scan… button)

The full scan was rebuilt from scratch:

- **Page-by-page scanning is the default** (TSM style). It works on every server, needs no getAll cooldown, and walks the entire auction house 50 results at a time with a live `Page N of M` counter.
- **Zero dead time per page.** The scan loop is fully event-driven: the query throttle is polled every frame, pages are processed synchronously inside `AUCTION_ITEM_LIST_UPDATE`, and the next page query is chained in the same frame. The old version pumped its loop from a 0.2s idle timer at both ends of the cycle, which is why it was so much slower than TSM.
- **Self-healing:** pages that arrive with incomplete data are re-requested; a dropped server response triggers a hard retry after 10 seconds; closing the auction house aborts the scan cleanly.
- **Fixed a 3.3.5 filter bug** inherited from the WoD code: the page query passed `0` for its filter arguments, which WoD treats as "no filter" but 3.3.5 interprets as *"Poor quality only"* — the scan only ever saw grey items. Filters are now `nil`, matching the (working) item-search path and TSM.
- **Ctrl+click = getAll fast scan** where the server permits one. Results are analyzed in configurable chunks per frame (`/atr fsc N`, default 50) so a 50k-auction payload never freezes or disconnects the client, and a 30-second no-response timeout protects against servers that advertise getAll but silently ignore it.
- Both scan types feed the same database, record daily price history, and clear stale items via purge marks.

## Item search / browse scanning

The per-item scan engine (Sell tab current-auctions scan, Buy tab searches, undercut checking) adopted TSM's reliability model:

- **Event-driven paging** — the next page is requested the instant the current one is processed, instead of waiting for the old 0.2s idle tick.
- **Bad-data detection with soft/hard retries** — on 3.3.5 the owner names of a results page often arrive a frame or two after the page itself. The scanner detects incomplete rows and re-reads the page (0.1s soft retries), escalating to a full re-query after 2 seconds, up to 4 attempts — so "(yours)" tags and undercut detection are reliable.
- **Duplicate-page detection** via full row snapshots, handling the server occasionally re-sending the same page.
- **Stuck-query timeout** — a lost `AUCTION_ITEM_LIST_UPDATE` no longer hangs the scan; the page is re-queried after 10 seconds and the search aborts with a message after repeated failures.
- Removed a **client freeze of up to 5 seconds** (a busy-wait loop in the old browse-clearing code, now deferred and non-blocking).
- Each results page is read from the API once and cached, rather than per-row repeated API calls.

## Price database

Upgraded from a single scalar price per item to a rich per-item record, migrated automatically on first login (`__dbversion` 4; your existing prices are preserved as the starting point):

- `mr` — most recent lowest buyout
- `qmr` — lowest observed buyout per rarity
- `vmr` — lowest observed buyout per exact market variant (item ID, suffix, rarity, item level, upgrades and custom bonus fields)
- `H<day>` / `L<day>` — daily high/low of the observed lows (the History sub-tab's data)
- `id` — item ID string, `cc`/`sc` — class/subclass
- `po` — purge mark: items no longer seen in full scans are cleaned out automatically; long-unseen items and old history are pruned on login (`AUCTIONATOR_DB_MAXITEM_AGE`, `AUCTIONATOR_DB_MAXHIST_DAYS`)

## Sell tab

- **Clickable bag panel** — a "Click an item to sell it" panel attached to the right of the AH frame lists every auctionable item in your bags (soulbound / quest / conjured items filtered out via tooltip scan). Clicking an item loads it into the sell slot and starts the price scan; drag & drop and right-clicking bag items still work. The panel live-updates as your bags change.
- **Results sub-tabs reworked:** *Current* (live auctions) / *History* (the scan database's daily prices for the item) / *Other* (price hints — vendor, disenchant, external data — merged with your own posting history).
- **"Hide bid-only" checkbox** above the results list (available on every page): filters out auctions with no buyout price so undercut pricing isn't buried in bid-only spam. Toggling rebuilds the current list instantly — no rescan needed — and the setting is remembered across sessions. While active, price recommendations are also based purely on buyout auctions.
- Smarter fallbacks: with no current auctions, the recommendation is based on scan history, then hints.
- **Clickable bag panel** with reliable soulbound filtering: items are only listed once cached, and any `* Bound` line (Soulbound, Account Bound, custom **Realm Bound**, etc.) excludes them — while the sellable "Binds when picked up/equipped" state is correctly kept. Uncached slots are retried automatically instead of leaking a bound item into the list.
- **Rarity-aware variant handling:** same-named variants (e.g. Bloodforged items that exist as rare *and* epic) no longer blend together — result rows are color-coded by rarity, the price recommendation prefers auctions matching *your* item's rarity, and buying matches rarity exactly.
- **Per-auction item links:** every result row carries the exact item it represents — same-named variants never merge into one row even at identical prices, **hovering a row shows that auction's real tooltip** (compare stats/levels directly), the header icon's tooltip follows the selected row, and buying/row-removal match on the exact link so even same-rarity variants at different item levels can't cross.
- **"My rarity only" toggle** (Sell tab, next to *Hide bid-only*): hides same-named auctions of a different rarity from the list entirely while selling — your own listings always stay visible. Persisted across sessions.
- Fork features preserved: Bloodforged/suffix name stripping, stacking preferences, multi-stack posting.

## Inventory Value tab

- Lists every currently auctionable item in the player's bags and sorts the list by estimated total auction value, highest first. Bound, quest, conjured and otherwise unsellable items use the same defensive tooltip filter as the Sell tab.
- Quantities are combined only when the items share the same stable market-variant key. Rare and epic Bloodforged versions, different item levels, random suffixes and custom upgrade/bonus variants therefore receive separate rows and separate prices.
- Values prefer an exact-variant scan price, then a same-rarity price, the normal item-name scan price, and finally posting history. Items with no known price remain visible and are clearly marked `No data`.
- Rows can be selected individually, all at once, or cleared. `Start Queue` takes a snapshot of the selected quantities and processes the highest-value rows first.
- The tab uses the full auction-house canvas: inventory value and selection are on the left, while the right side shows every live buyout matching the current item's exact rarity, item level and variant. Rows include per-item price, stack size, auction count and seller; clicking one copies that price into the posting fields.
- Before each selected variant is posted, the queue performs a live, page-by-page exact-variant search. It undercuts the lowest matching competing auction, matches the player's own lowest listing, or leaves the per-item buyout fields editable when no reliable price is available. An isolated tier containing at most two auctions below one quarter of the next price tier is shown in red and excluded from the automatic recommendation as a likely typo-price outlier.
- The buyout per individual item is directly editable as gold, silver and copper, with the standard in-game coin icons beside each field. `Use Rec.` restores the calculated recommendation, and the visible duration button cycles through 12, 24 and 48 hours.
- Stack size and number of auctions are independent editable fields. Both have context-sensitive `Max` buttons, and the live plan preview shows the resulting item quantity, buyout per auction and combined buyout total before posting. Existing Auctionator stacking preferences provide the initial values.
- Posting is deliberately assisted: `Post Next` submits one planned auction per hardware click, then advances automatically only after a confirmed server response. This avoids the unreliable legacy multi-stack path and complies with the old client's protected auction action rules.
- Server failures and timeouts pause the queue without increasing its listed quantity or gold totals. Retry first checks bag and owned-auction evidence so a late success cannot be posted twice; Skip and Stop preserve accurate accounting.

## Buy tab

- **Exact Match checkbox** — syncs both ways with quoted search text (`"Copper Ore"`).
- **Advanced search dialog** — now a full category browser:
  - **Category → Subcategory → Slot** three-level drill-down. The Slot (sub-sub-category) level is populated live from the server's `GetAuctionInvTypes`, so equipment slots like Head, Shoulder, Chest, Trinket, Held-in-Off-Hand appear per subcategory.
  - **Rarity filter** (Any / Poor … Heirloom, colored) passed as the query's quality index.
  - Level range and free-text name filter as before.
  - **Fixed the category round-trip bug:** the dialog previously rebuilt your selection into a `"Armor/Miscellaneous"` text string and re-parsed it *by name*, so any subcategory whose name didn't string-match (or collided with a top-level category like *Miscellaneous*) silently fell back to a useless name search. The selection now drives the query with numeric class/subclass/slot/quality indices directly — no lossy text round-trip — and whatever category tree the server exposes is browsable. (Use `/atr catdump` to print that tree.)
- **Shopping list upgrades:** *Search for All Items* scans a whole list in one pass (`{ list name }` searches); a full **Manage Shopping Lists** options panel with rename, inline editing, delete, and plain-text **import/export**; unsaved shared lists can be saved with one click. Compact two-per-row list buttons.
- **Buying quality-of-life:**
  - **Chain Buy** (checkbox next to the Buy button): after each purchase the buy dialog stays open and hops straight to the next cheapest auction — no closing and re-clicking rows. A running **purchase summary** on the dialog shows `Bought N (M items) for: Xg Ys Zc`; totals reset when you start a new manual buy, and a chat summary prints when the chain runs out of auctions. Cancel always stops the chain.
  - **Real quantity tracking:** the summary counts actual items bought (sum of stack sizes), not just auction rows.
  - **Rollback on failed buys:** purchases are confirmed against your actual gold movement; if the server rejects a bid ("Item not found" — someone sniped it — or insufficient funds), the spent/quantity totals and the bought counter are rolled back so the summary never claims gold you didn't spend.
  - **Max button** on the buy-confirm dialog sets the quantity to every matching auction in one click.
  - **Bought auctions disappear from the results list immediately.** Previously a purchased auction stayed in the list as a stale row; clicking Buy on it wedged the buy engine and blocked further list updates until reload. Purchases now subtract from the local scan data and the list re-renders — no follow-up server query needed.
  - **Clear (✕) buttons** on the Buy tab search bar and the Advanced dialog's text field.

## UI & compatibility

- **ElvUI coexistence:** button geometry is enforced from Lua (`Atr_FixupButtons`) after load and on every tab switch, so UI skins that re-anchor frames they recognize can no longer scramble the layout. Fonts are deliberately left to the skin.
- Options and Full Scan buttons anchored at the frame's far right on every page.
- XML ported from the WoD codebase was converted to 3.3.5-safe long forms (no attribute shorthand, no `function=` script handlers, no chained virtual button templates — the 3.3.5 client mishandles them).

## Commands

| Command | Effect |
|---|---|
| `/atr fsc N` | Full-scan analysis chunk size (rows per frame, default 50) |
| `/atr catdump` | Print the server's auction category tree (class › subclass › slot) |
| `/atr uidebug` | Print button geometry/state for skin-conflict diagnosis |
| `/atr clear fullscandb` | Wipe the scan price database |
| `/atr clear posthistory` | Wipe your posting history |
| `/atr mem` | Addon memory usage |

## Credits

Based on **Auctionator** by Zirco (and the Borjamacare v3.2.6 WoD branch). Scanning reliability patterns modeled on **TradeSkillMaster v2** by Sapu94 et al. Fork maintained for WotLK 3.3.5 private servers.