Ensign: News Pages

Previous | Next

Click the News button from the main Toolbar or select File | News from the menu to display the news window.  

Ensign Windows collects, categorizes, and displays News stories received from the data-feed.  To subscribe to news services contact your data vendor.  News story titles can be displayed in sequential order, or by vendor and topic.  Other features include, setting news alerts, searching for stories that contain search keywords, and locking stories to prevent them from being overwritten.  A news ticker can also be enabled to display news story titles in the window title bar.

The news window contains a directory of news vendors, news topics, and news story titles. Click on a vendor to display or hide news topics.  Click on a news topic to view the news story titles associated with that topic.  Click on a news story title line to view and read the news story.  Click on the Up or Down arrow buttons to view the next or previous stories from the directory.  After reading a story click on the Directory button to return to the news directory screen.  Click on the Close button to close the news window.

Ensign Windows can collect as many as 10000 news stories at one time.  Select Set-Up | Computer from the menu to specify a maximum.  If necessary, reduce the News Archive maximum number to conserve hard disk space.

The left side of the news window displays the news vendors. The right side of the news window displays the news titles. A scroll bar on the far right edge is used to scroll down through the story titles and choose a story. The News menu item will appear on the main menu whenever the news window is open. To change the color of the news window select Window | Set Window Color from the menu or click the Color button on the main button bar. To change the font and font size of the news window text select Window | Set Window Font from the menu.

Searching News Titles
Click the Find button on the news button bar or select News | Find from the menu to search all the news story titles for a keyword. An entry window will appear that allows a search keyword to be entered. After entering the search keyword, click OK to start the search, or Cancel to abort the search. A list of all news titles containing the keyword will be displayed. This feature is used to quickly search all the news titles for information on a symbol or topic of interest.

The search process is not case-sensitive. Upper case and lower case words will match the search keyword. The search will also match on partial words. Example: If 'Stock' were the keyword, any story title containing stock, livestock, stockyard, etc., would match the search. After entering a search, any in-coming story that matches the search keyword will continue to post to the news titles list in real-time.
Note: See news on ‘eSignal’ datafeed below for additional ‘Find’ power for eSignal users.

News Titles Displayed In Order
Click the In Order button on the news button bar or select News | Titles in Order from the menu to view a sequential list of the most current 500 news story titles. The sequential list is based on the time a story was received. The 500 news story titles will be arranged in order from the most current news title to the oldest. After clicking on the In Order button, in-coming story titles will continue to post real-time to the news directory as they are received.

News Story Title Ticker
Select News | Show News Ticker from the menu to enable a news ticker tape. The news ticker tape causes in-coming news story titles to scroll on the window title bar. Select News | Hide News Ticker from the menu to disable the ticker. Since the news titles are displayed in the window title bar, a news window could be resized so that only the title bar was showing. This could help reduce the screen clutter of several open windows while still being able to view in-coming news story titles.

Locking News Stories
Locking a news story prevents the story from ever being removed or overwritten. The story will be skipped over during the normal wrap-around of in-coming news stories. To lock a story do the following: 1) Select and display a news story, 2) select News | Lock Story from the menu. The news title will be tagged with the word <Locked>. The <Locked> tag indicates that a story is in a locked status.

A vendor folder for locked stories is maintained in the news directory. Clicking on the Locked vendor folder will display all the news titles that are locked. To unlock a story, display the news story and then select News | Unlock Story from the menu. After a story is unlocked, it can then be overwritten by in-coming stories as part of the normal news wrap-around.

Printing News Stories
Select News | Print News from the menu or click the Print button from the main button bar to print the currently displayed news story to the printer. If the news titles are displayed, instead of a news story, then the first 50 titles in the list will be printed.

Copying News to the Clipboard
Select News | Copy to Clipboard from the menu to save the currently displayed news story to the Windows clipboard. Once the news story has been copied to the clipboard it can be pasted into a word processor or another Windows application.

Hiding the News Button Bar
Click on the Buttons button or select News | Hide Button Bar from the menu to hide the news button bar. Hiding the button bar will increase the window space for viewing news stories. To show the button bar again select News | Show Button Bar from the menu or press the ESC key on the keyboard while the news window is the active window.

Using the Keyboard on the News Window
The following keyboard keys can be used on a news window. Press ALT-N to access the news menu selections. Press the Page Up and Page Down keys to scan up and down through the news titles. Use the up and down arrow keys to select a specific news story, or to move up or down one row at a time. Press Home to jump to the first news story title in a list. Press End to jump to the last news story title. Press Tab to switch the active focus between the news vendors and the news story titles. Press Enter to read a selected news story. Press ESC to return to the news directory, after viewing a news story.

News on the eSignal Data-Feed
News story titles on the eSignal data-feed will accumulate in the News directory. Stories that have additional text (other than the headline) will include an ‘=’ equal sign at the beginning of the headline. This helps you to quickly identify which news stories have Story Content in addition to the headline. When a story is requested, your computer’s default Internet browser will launch. The news story will be displayed in the Internet browser window. Close the browser when finished reading the story.

Select News | Refresh Headlines from the menu, to request a download of the News Headlines on the eSignal data-feed for the past 24 hours. Several hundred story headlines will be received.  To download stories by Stock Symbol, click the Find button. Enter search words Symbol=SYMBOL to download all news stories pertaining to the indicated symbol. The past 30 days of news stories (or 500 stories, whichever comes first) will be downloaded for the selected symbol: Example: entering Symbol=IBM will download all IBM news stories for the past 30 days.

Gainers and Losers on the eSignal Data-Feed
The eSignal version of Ensign Windows includes a button labeled Gainers in the News window. The Top-10 Gainer and Loser stock issues, in several categories and exchanges, are displayed when this button is selected. The list of Gainers and Losers is updated automatically through out the day.

Previous | Next