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Symbol and Time Grouping Each chart, Time and Sales, Level II, and Snap Quote window has a color box. Click on the color box to change its color using a small color dialog panel that opens near the color box. Windows that have the same color box will be in a group. A symbol change to any one of the windows in the group will cause a symbol change on every window in the group. When a symbol change is made, the chart's time frame remains the same. For example, you might have a Red group that includes a daily chart, a 5-minute chart, a Time and Sales, and a Level II window. All four windows as a group can be changed to a different symbol, while other windows not in the Red group are left alone. A white color box is a wildcard. White changes when anything else changes. White will be a member of every color group. A black color box is a hermit. Black does not belong to any group and can only be changed when the window has the focus. Symbol changes can be made by double clicking a row on a quote page, double clicking a symbol on the big S drop down list, pressing CTRL-S when a chart has focus, editing the symbol field on a Level II form, clicking the New Symbol button on a Snap Quote page, or using the ESPL ChartReplace statement. Each chart has a 2nd color box for a time frame grouping. Those charts in the same time group will change when the time frame is changed on any member of the group. For example, you might have a JNPR and an IBM chart in the Blue time group and both would change to a 5-minute chart or to a daily chart. When a time frame change is made, the chart's symbol remains the same. Time frame changes can be made by pressing a key on the 10-key pad, pressing keyboard keys like T, D, W and w, clicking a button on the big T times panel, or using a ESPL btnTimexx.click statement where xx is replaced by the actual button name. Charts have two color boxes shown in the lower right corner of the window. The left side box is the symbol group and the right side box is the time frame group the chart belongs to. Set the colors to black if you do not want the chart to be associated with any group. When a window gets focus, its symbol or time frame group colors will become the current group colors. The current colors will be used to color the big S and the big T on these two buttons. If the S is Red, then you know a symbol change will affect the Red group. If the T is Blue, then a time frame change will affect the Blue group. Workspaces will remember and restore windows to their color groups. Back to TopSchedule automatic printing of a few charts The Scheduler and a Workspace can be used together to automate printing of charts. Select Set-Up | Scheduler to display the Scheduler form. Make an entry like this x 18:00 Layout=PrintSet This will schedule the PrintSet layout to execute at 6 p.m. Next we will create the PrintSet layout. Close all child windows, and click on the Workspace button. In the past you have relied on EW to write the workspace script automatically. In this example, we are going to write it in manually. Click the Show Script button. Type in the right hand side of the workspace form the following script, minus my comment at the end of each line.
Orientation Landscape 'printer orientation Now, click on the SaveAs button and enter the name PrintSet. You get the idea. You can repeat the sequence of opening, printing, and closing a chart. If you need to pause between charts to give your printer time to print, include the PAUSE 120 statement. This will delay the script execution for 120 seconds. Background processing continues during the pause. Back to TopResize study window Click the left mouse button down in the study window and drag the cursor vertically to change the size of the study windows below the chart. Back to TopBar spacing The number of bars on a chart is affected by the bar spacing. At the very bottom of a chart are labels for the chart's grid. Click the left mouse button down in the grid label area and drag left or right. Dragging leftward will widen the bar spacing. Dragging rightward will decrease the bar spacing. Back to TopOverlay chart scale After putting an overlay, spread, or ratio on a chart, you can change whose scale is displayed by double clicking on the chart scale. The scale for an overlay will use the overlay's color. Back to TopKeyboard control We get so comfortable using a mouse, that we often overlook using the keyboard. When a chart has the focus, upper case letters add studies to a chart. Press R for RSI, S for Stochastics, and N to remove all studies. Lower case letters select Color Bar studies. Press t for the Trends color bar, and n for Normal color bars. Press T for a Tick chart, 1 for a 1-minute chart, and 5 for a 5-minute chart. Press D for a daily chart, W for a weekly chart, and w for a monthly chart. Read about other key assignments in Help | Ensign Contents. Search for Keyboard Reference. Back to TopFull screen chart Windows, by its nature, takes up screen real estate with its headers, menus, and button panels. To maximize the size of a chart, select Chart | Full Screen. All menus and button panels are then removed. To return the screen to its normal display, press the ESC key, or select Normal Screen on the pop-up menu (click right mouse button). Studies and color bars can be added to any chart by using the keyboard. Back to TopSequence through a series of charts After displaying a chart from a custom Quote page, press the End key to display a chart for the next symbol listed on the Quote page. Press the Home key to sequence through charts in the reverse direction. Back to TopIndicators plot, but no bars show Apparently the bar visibility has been toggled off. The bar visibility is toggled by pressing on the keyboard a lower case letter b. If CAPS Lock is on, then press Shift-b. If CAPS Lock is off, then press b. Back to TopIntra-day chart volume For futures, transaction volume is not broadcast, so instead of showing nothing for intra-day bar volume, we show a count of the number of transactions. So a 3 for volume means three trades took place in that time period. You do not know the volume of those three trades, only that three trades occurred. For stocks, on the other hand, the intra-day volume is the sum of the tick volume for each transaction since tick volume is broadcast with each trade. You might see a volume of 11,500 which for 3 trades might be the sum of 10,000+500+1,000 shares traded. Back to TopCombine day and evening sessions Create a composite symbol by clicking menu SetUp | Custom Symbols. On this form, check the Composite box.
Fill in the market hours something like: After entering the custom formula, click the Add/Resave button. Then plot the custom symbol you see on the Futures page called SP0ZZ which was the name you chose. This symbol will be composite and accept ticks from either symbol, but only during that symbol's market hours as entered on this form. Back to TopChart scale parameters This is what the scale choices will do as selected on the chart's personal properties form which is displayed by double clicking the chart background. Automatic: Range high and low are determined from the set of bars to be shown. Grid intervals will be as many as comfortably is possible using an interval that is natural. S&P intervals will naturally be some multiple of 5, 10 or 25. This is the default setting most people use for most charts. Data Set: Similar to automatic, except range high and low are determined using the entire data set. Thus the range will typically be bigger and the chart would never need to rescale as one shifts the chart backward in time to look at prior bars. All bars would would be able to plot on the range that is shown because the range considered the extremes for them all. Range: The range is the values from the High and Low entry boxes on the parameter form. The interval is the natural multiple determined the same way as in the Automatic setting to use as many grid lines as comfortably possible. If the prices trade above or below the present range, the range will shift up or down as needed but maintain a constant high low spread so the bars sizing is not changed. Interval: The range is determined from the set of bars to be shown as in Automatic, but the grid interval will be a multiple of the interval entered on the parameter form. Of course, the high and low range will be sized to be a multiple of the interval so all scale labels will be a multiple of the interval. If the range is narrow, this can lead to very few grid lines being labeled. A better solution would be to choose a smaller interval such as 100 instead of 200. If the range is wide, and the number of grid lines would be excessive, then the interval used would be a multiple of the intended interval. This means we might have to use 500 point intervals though 100 point was asked for. If you want to see grid lines for the S&P always end in 00 then you should use an interval of 100 and let Ensign Windows then revert to 200, 300 ... 500 intervals as needed. Back to TopChart limit If there is a limit to the number of charts simultaneously displayed, I do not know what it is. We have tested having 96 charts open simultaneously, and thought that was overkill. Back to TopBad tick filter I got the exact same bad ticks on both AOL and YHOO on my system. Therefore, they were broadcast to us by the data vendor. Ensign Windows has filters which catch obviously bad ticks. Part of the logic for detection is if the bad tick is off the chart's current chart scale. The ticks we both got happened to be within the chart's low scale. So, I do not have any suggestion on how to keep the particular type of bad tick off that we both received. To fix your charts, move the mouse to the spike bar and position it where it visually looks like a good point to clip the tail. Then press CTRL-L to clip the bar's low to the mouse point. Press CTRL-H to clip the bar's high to the mouse point. The bad ticks in your pictures are all lows, and so you would position the mouse and press CTRL-L to edit the low of the spike bar. Back to TopeMini day session only To chart the day session only, press CTRL-P to show the chart's private properties. Check the Day Session Only box on this form to follow only the day session. Close the property form. Back to TopS&P future and cash spread The spread is obtained in this manner. Display a S&P Future chart. On the drop down list for studies, select the bottom entry Overlay Chart. In the parameter form, enter SPX (or INX) as the Chart. Click Spread Chart for the Chart Type. Click Hidden for the Chart Scale. Now, click OK. Back to TopPersonal chart properties Select the Properties menu or double click on the chart background to display a personal properties form for a chart. The properties set on this form will be used when ever this chart is displayed. Charts which do not have a personal properties file will use the global properties from the SetUp | Charts form. The chart properties files will be stored in a new folder C:\Ensign\Props.
These are the properties that can be customized for individual charts: Items 6), 7), and 8) are significant improvements to the program in response to the requests that were made customers. I think I have incorporated every good idea or request mentioned by our customers.
Dominance
1) All properties are initialized to the global properties set on the SetUp | Charts form.
Scale Preference Be careful when providing the Range that it includes the current price action. Be careful in providing the Interval so that it is NOT too small and the grids on top of each other so tightly that the scale cannot be read. Giving more control to you does make it possible for things to look unusable. Back to TopPinning notes to a chart The first checkbox on the parameter form for a Note is labeled Pinned. If this box is checked then the note is pinned to the chart and will move left or right as you move the chart. If the box is not checked, then the note floats above the chart and will remain in the same position on the screen while the chart slides underneath. Back to TopAdjust for split Occasionally a chart will have a dramatic change in price caused by a Stock Split or by a Decimal Shift in the chart price. Select Adjust for Split from the chart pop-up menu to correct the chart data. The pop-up menu is obtained by clicking the right mouse button. The software will automatically determine the type of price split that occurred and adjust the chart data accordingly. One can also press CTRL-Z to initiate the automatic adjust for split when the chart has the focus instead of using the chart's pop-up menu. Ctrl-Z has a few built in ratios that is looking for to proceed with the performance of the adjust for split. If the prices on either side of the gap do not fit the limits of tolerance for the ratios that are tested, then we do not proceed. In this case you can try the chart's pop-up menu and select one of the adjust for split ratios. If this does not work, then you will have to use the File | File Manager | Merge tool and give file names, ending dates, and multipliers to be applied to the old data to make it into the new data. To quickly edit a spike on a chart, move the cursor to touch the bar at the price where you would like to clip the tail. Then press CTRL-L to edit the bar's low to the cursor location. Press CTRL-H to edit the bar's high to the cursor location. Back to TopDefault location The location of where a new child window opens is controlled by the Windows operating system. We have no control in the application. Windows is opening the next window as if the windows are being cascaded. So the location is always a little more to the right and a little lower, until it starts over again at the top left. When you use the chart's personal properties form and check the box to remember the location, then Ensign Windows will resize and reposition just this chart when this chart is reopened. This is a personal property for just this chart. Other charts may or may not have a personal property, and when lacking the same 'remember location' property, they would open in the next default location as determined by Windows. Back to TopDelete bars tool Ensign Windows has a tool in the program to delete a group of bars. The delete bars tool is the button which has a hand holding an upside down pencil. Select a chart, and then click on the Delete Bars tool. The hint on the button says 'Delete Area'. On the chart click and drag the rectangle around the bars you want to delete. Any bar which has any part of it inside the rectangle will be deleted. Bars completely outside the rectangle are left alone. Back to TopInclude image in an e-mail Here are instructions on how you can include a snap shot of a screen image in an e-mail using Microsoft programs. The easiest way is the display your chart and use menu Charts | E-mail Image or press the hot key CTRL-E. This writes a PNG file using the chart symbol in your C:\My Documents folder, and attaches the file to an e-mail, and displays the built in e-mail form. Fill in the Subject, Text, and Recipient address. Click the Send button.
Back to TopInvert a graph Question: Is there a way to invert a graph using Ensign? This feature would help neutralize the up or down bias that most of us have when we are considering a long or short position. Answer: Well, let me answer with both a Yes and No. Here is what you do to invert a chart and you can decide if it helps or not. On a chart, such as ES #F.5, click on the study button and select Overlay Chart. On the overlay parameter form set the following:
The key parameters here are that the chart name is the same, and the Invert Pattern box is checked. When you click OK to close the form, the chart will show two images: the original non-inverted and the inverted overlay. You can hide the original non-inverted image by pressing the lower case B key which toggles the view of the bars off and on. So far, this is what you have asked for. The problem is that while the image is inverted, the scale is not inverted. Because the scale is not inverted I hesitate to claim that this is a complete or satisfactory solution. Use it if you want to. Another approach might be to create a custom symbol using the Ratio format, and then plot the new symbol. The problem with this approach is that the scale would be unfamiliar because it is plotting 1 / price. Back to TopSignature file printed with chart If you create a file in the C:\Ensign folder called Message.txt Ensign Windows will read that file and print up to four lines of text on the bottom of a chart about three inches from the left margin. The text can be anything you want it to be such as:
1) A disclaimer This message block will be in the same font size as the 'Chart by Ensign Software' which is printed below the chart on the left margin. A message.txt file can be created using Notepad, using ESPL, or copied from the console at a DOS prompt. To create a file from a DOS prompt, get a DOS prompt from Windows and enter CD C:\Ensign to change to the Ensign folder. Type in this DOS command: Copy CON: Message.txt to copy from the console to a file named message.txt Type in 1 to 4 lines of text. After the Enter key is pressed to complete last line of text, press the F6 function key to close the file. Then type Exit to return to Windows. Back to TopConstant tick bars Intra-day bar charts can be either a constant time period per bar, such as each bar represents a 5 minute period, or it can be a constant number of ticks per bar, such as 10 ticks per bar. The file extension is used to indicate the difference between these two types of bars. A 5 is used for the 5-minute bars, and a -5 is a 5 tick bar. So, the -10, -20, -30, and -40 are used to select bars with a constant number of ticks per bar. -50 is fifty ticks per bar. 50 without the minus in front would select a 50-minute bar. The tick count that is displayed for a constant tick chart bar is a count of the number of ticks in the bar. The volume displays the sum of trade volumes for those ticks. Thus, the tick count for a -50 tick bar should always be 50. The volume for a tick chart (1 tick per bar) will be the trade volume for the tick if the trade volume is available. There are two characteristics of how constant tick bars are created that should be understood. A 50 tick chart is chunking 50 sequential ticks together to make a bar. The boundary for slicing the ticks into chunks can be random or it can be synchronized to start a new bar at the day session open. Click menu SetUp | Charts and check the property box 'New Tick bar at Open' to start a new constant tick bar at day session open. Unless two customers synchronize at day session open, they have a 1 chance in 50 of chunking the tick stream at the same point in the tick sequence for a 50 tick chart. The boundary for chunking will be when a chart is opened. Ensign Windows loads bars already built from a chart file, and then brings the chart current by building bars using ticks from the tick pool or from the data vendor's server update. Back to TopCandlestick colors In Ensign Windows the built in default is to color the candles with the Close vs. Open color bar setting whenever the chart's color bar setting is Normal and candlesticks are selected. This is the only built in override we do. Otherwise, Normal will always be normal. But when candlesticks are selected and Normal is the setting, then we override to automatically color the candlesticks which forces you to click Normal in the Color Bar list if you want them in the Normal yellow color. Back to TopLast modified 8/7/08 2:39 PM |
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