The standard trade skill window in World of Warcraft annoys me. I know it's impossible, but I can't help but feel that it's personally out to hinder me as much as possible. It's a conspiracy, I tell you! Not only is the trade skill window difficult to read (or perhaps I need to pay a visit to my eye doctor), but it is constantly glitching out. It randomly decides to stop functioning, showing only five or six patterns available when I know for a fact I have hundreds. Opening and closing the window sometimes fixes the problem, or logging off and then back in, but a great majority of the time the problem just refuses to fix. I know I can't be the only one who has these issues. Wouldn't it be great to be able to fix all these problems and many others with a wave of a magic wand? Well, I may have found the magic wand, in the form of a mod called Advanced Trade Skill Window.
**Mod Name:** Advanced Trade Skill Window
**Category:** Professions
**Author:** Slartibartfast
**Version Reviewed:** 0.7.8
**Homepage:** [Click Here](#)
Advanced Trade Skill Window is one of the larger mods I've had the chance to review, but for all it does, I can understand why it's a little bigger than some. Once downloaded, the mod (after a short wait on the first start-up) converts your old trade skill window from a beat-up Chevy into an Aston Martin Vanquish. Bigger, easier to read, and more streamlined than the original trade skill window, it gives a much better vantage point to view your craftable items.
ATSW sports all the features of your current trade skill window, including sorting recipes by groups and allowing you to view patterns for which you currently have the materials, and has a few new tricks up its sleeve. Players with the mod will be able to sort patterns in new ways, such as by difficulty or in alphabetical order. You may even venture to create your own sorting method.
ATSW also provides an interactive queue where you can queue multiple items at once, even if you don't have the materials for the item. Once queued, ATSW will tell you with a click of a button (Process Queue) what items you are missing, and if you are at a merchant that sells the item, it will automatically purchase it for you. ATSW can also be set up to check your alternate characters for materials.
On the other hand, if you have the item but have lost it in the recesses of your bags, bank, or even the guild bank, ATSW will allow you to see exactly which bag it's in by simply hovering over the item. For example, let's say you have misplaced an Arctic Fur. You're quite sure you have it, but those pesky fairies (the same ones that steal the socks from your dryer) must have done something with it. Simply find and click on the Fur Lining you wish to create, and hover your mouse over the Arctic Fur icon under Reagents. This will produce a box that will tell you which character has the item and its exact location.
The options menu is simple, with relatively few options, none of which are cosmetic. Don't be discouraged though; the options it does offer are impressive. Some of the smaller options allow the player to decide if they want recipe tooltips enabled and to use a compact recipe link instead of multi-line links. The big (and very cool) options are the ability to display a shopping list at the Auction House (my personal favorite) and to automatically open a reagent list in the bank if there are saved queues on any of your characters.
Overall, I have fallen in love with this mod. It fixes every problem I have ever had with the original trade window and showed me some other features that I had never even imagined. The mod works well, and I had no issues while using it. I tend to break things a lot, so that really is saying something. The website does state that since ATSW is such a complex mod, some bugs are to be expected, but the author seems fully intent on continuing to work on the mod and fixing any bugs that arise.
ATSW is not just your old trade skill window wrapped in pretty paper; it truly makes the window more functional, your patterns more manageable, and crafting more pleasurable.