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The programming effort over the past several months has been monumental with marathon hours of programming. The table of links above document the more significant changes. Redesign Objectives:
The above objectives have been achieved in the current version of Ensign Windows. More improvements will continue to be made over the coming weeks.
Because many of you like the Hull Moving Average which as been available as a DYO implementation, I have added it and the Predictive Average as new studies on the study drop down list. This give you the benefit of the Study Modes for Rising..Falling, Above.. Below, Zones, easy parameter changes, line styles, Data Points, etc. Also, it makes it easier for other studies to reference the built in study, and the built in is much faster than the DYO processing, and uses less memory, etc. So, enjoy these favorites. While on the topic of averages, Ensign has made a major overhaul to add more average formulas and expose these in all the studies that use averages. This amounted to making changes in some 30+ different studies, but the end result is a huge leap in flexibility. Let me demonstrate.
The Study property form has been redesigned to handle the increased flexibility referred to. Here is the property form for the Moving Average study selection. Note that this form does 2 averages and each can be independent of the other. Each average can have its own unique data point, such as the 1st average being and average of the bar Highs, and the 2nd average can average the Bar Lows. Use the selections for the Data Points to pick one of a couple dozen choices for the data point. Also new is the ability to select unique average formulas for each average. So there is now a Drop down selection box by the Ave 1, and Ave 2 parameters to select the formula. This selection list is common through out all studies and offers a list of 10 formula choices. The 1st six formulas were available in a few studies previously, and 4 more formulas have been added.
But the really big change is that this formula selection list is available in all 30+ studies that use averages. For example, the RSI itself does not need an average, but the RSI property form allows a 2nd line to be plotted with is an average of the RSI. Previously the formula for the average line used just Exponential, or in a couple of studies a check box option selected the Simple formula. Now the average of the study line can be any of the above 10 formula selections.
Yes, the formula selections, for example, will default to the Exponential or Simple, which ever choice was used before so you should not see any change to your studies by upgrading. The selections that are new will have to be manually selected. Both formulas on the Ave will be set to the same formula that was previously in use in your older Ensign. We will have documentation eventually that show the formulas for the new additions of Adaptive, Attenuation, Gaussian and Butterworth formulas. But you are welcome to select the formulas and see the change it makes to the average curve. One word about adaptive is that it self adjusts for the momentum of the market. When the momentum picks up, the parameter shortens so the line tracks the move more quickly. When the momentum slackens, market moves sideways, the parameter adjusts to be bigger so the line flattens out and tracks further away from the price action. That is kind of cool behavior -- check it out.On the study property form, you have the ability to change the name of the study, and this is the name that shows on the chart objects list and in the sub-window at the mid-line position. You can make this label a multi-line label by using the ',' line character in the text of the name.
A DYO message line or label also uses the comma character as the multi-line separator. As in the earlier example, each comma of the DYO label made a new line and the Section Message of Hello,World will print on 2 lines. In the Section Message, the text Hello | World will be treated as a 2 part message for a Boolean flag to resolve, where the True message would be Hello and the False message would be World So the vertical line in the section message is a separator for the Boolean flag pick, and the comma is the multiple line separator. Now we get to the study name, like STO 6 & 3. The STO 6 & 3 would be a typical default provide by the program when the Name field on the study form is blank. This would show on the chart objects list and as the sub-window label. The 6 & 3 are the first 2 parameters from the study property form, and helps you identify which study you are referencing. Many of you have multiple copies of the same study, and just have different parameters.
The next new thing about the redesign is the Study Scale list box.
This box has 12 selections and they are similar to those you have enjoyed on the DYO property form. Now you will be able to customize the scale range used by a study, and lets use Stochastic as an example. In the past the STO scale was fixed at 0..100. This is still the Default and a selection of Default will give you what you have been accustomed to in the past. However, you can now pick a different scale range, and appropriate ones for STO might be Fixed Range, Data 50 Centerline, and Data 50 Centerline +5%. IF Fixed Range is selected then 2 more boxes show on the form for you to enter the Range High and the Range Low.
This example would be equivalent to the Default which is 0 to 100 for the range. But you can enter custom values, such as 20 and 80 if that is the range you want Stochastic to plot on. A manually entered range might be wide enough and the study can possibly plot off range as a result. Possibly a better selection would be to use Data 50 Centerline. The Data 50 Centerline selection will find the highest and lowest values to be plotted by the study, and center that about the 50 line being at mid-panel. Thus if the high is 82 and the low is 40 then the range will be from a low of 18 to a high of 82. The 18 to 82 allows the 82 to plot and keeps the balance above and below 50 equal so 50 falls at mid-panel.
For something like Stochastic, if you want a buffer of blank space above and below the highest and lowest value, then select the Data 50 Centerline + 5% selection. The 5% is added to the range to give the buffer space you seek and it looks nice Let me post examples of Sto with various scale selections.
Note in the following Dataset scale the lowest touches the bottom, yet 50% is still mid-panel
The next example has the +5% for the little buffer space added.
The Bollinger study plots on the chart scale, and thus you need to adjust the chart scale and not a study scale to give yourself the buffer. One change in that aspect is in a chart rescaling, I added more space above and below the plotted bars which will help in this issue of wanting a little more buffer space. So that is one of the subtle changes built into the program but not announced on the changes list.
This last example used just Dataset without centering. Notice the data goes full range, without centering and thus the 50 scale is no longer on the mid-panel position. For some, that is OK and a visual effect they want to see. It magnifies the amplitude of the study being plotted. In summary, the new Scale range control available on all studies is another big step in flexibility. Your existing studies will convert over to use the selection Default, which is the default scale you have been accustomed to in the past. A comment was made that the user had a separate DYO for each font size used in a section. Well, the new Ensign has an improvement in that area where you can set a section font size directly using the Global Action statement, and the trick here is to identify the section in the line label using the |x| notation.
Line A is setting the font size to 6 for section |1| and also putting the message Hello in that section. Now the |1| had to be on Line A for use by the Global Action | Section Font Size statement but the Hello did not have to be on that line. It might have been on some other line later in this DYO or even in a different DYO. The |1| in the label was the direction to use section 1. Line B operates on section 2 with the |2| tag in the label, and Line C is the control of the 4th section. You can see the Hello in different sizes in the chart example above the DYO property form. So, this ability to set the section font size in any of the 7 sections directly on a DYO row should simplify the custom implementation some are trying to achieve. Any questions about the font size?
This example was for messages in the section window, and not labels for showing in the chart margin columns. An earlier example used Label Font Size and not Section Font Size as in this example. So they are two different font controls for 2 different locations. Line B has a negative number for the size and the negative is the control for making it BOLD. So 16 would be different than -16. The -16 is size 16 that is also BOLD
Yes, vertical line character on both sides of a single digit in the range of 1..7. A square bracket would have been a GV look-up. So [1] would have been the content of GV[1] and |1| is section 1 reference. There is also a change (and improvement) on how we handle messages that are too long to fit in a section. In the past, we would center the text and let it overflow in both directions. The improvement was to start the long message at the left edge of the section and let it overflow in just the rightward direction. This means it affects its right side neighbor instead of both neighbors and it makes it much easier to build big fat messages in the section by putting them in the 1st section.
In the past the leading and trailing spaces would be stripped. In the new Ensign, they are no longer stripped and serve as a way to horizontally change the centering that is being done. If you pad to the left side, you shift the centering rightward. If you pad after the string, you shift the centering leftward. Last modified 6/26/08 11:32 AM |
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