It would be really interesting to be able to create custom "conversion" parameters for SearchUI. The custom "conversion" parameters would allow you to search for any item X that can be turned in to item Y, or more generally any item X based on the price of Y. You would, of course, be able to set the minimum discount and profit. You would also be able to set multiplier A (and maybe B?) such that the search would return any matches where A * priceOf(X) < B * priceOf(Y) and also satisfies the rules for minimum discount based on price of Y and the minimum profit. An example of this search would be to find any auctions of mageweave cloth where the price per unit of mageweave cloth times five is less than the price of a bolt of mageweave.

You might guess that I'm leveling a tailor right now based on my example and you'd be correct. Does anyone think being able to add custom "conversion" parameters would have wide enough application beyond the type of example I've port forth to warrant addition to SearchUI?

Edit: -----------

Had some other thoughts. This might work in a more general way if you could add multiple inputs. It would be very interesting to allow: x1 * priceOf(item_1) + x2 * priceOf(item_2) + . . . + xn * priceOf(item_n) < y priceOf(item_). This way you could do a search based on a recipe with multiple components. You could quickly setup a search to determine if components were available to make any recipe more cheaply than the market price. I can see there would be some work and thought involved in determining what percentage of the total price of item_ the components x1 through xn would be. Perhaps you could take the 100% price of each item, add them together in the proportion for the recipe, and then determine the percentage contribution to the final price from that.

ElvisWind,

This sort of thing comes up from time to time, if we had a full time staff, we could do nothing but create individual Searchers, but alas, we do not. =|

Your best bet is to look at the code behind the other Searchers and then use the bits that correlate to your idea and ignore those that do not. Auctioneer, as a whole, is completely modular, unlike AuctioneerClassic, so that folks can insert different modules as they please, without breaking other portions in some manner.

For more, read Q.17 of the FAQ, available at http://Wiki.Norganna.Org/AucAdvanced/FAQ .

Once you get started, if there are specific issues, then feel free to post and someone will lend a hand when they are able to do so.

If you do not code and are looking for someone else to do the hardwiring, then you will have to delineate exactly what you are attempting to do, including which items to compare, et cetera. By doing so, that will make the person's job a bit easier should someone else decide to take up the cause.

Happy Sales,

Nikk