Stable Technical Graphs 2.2 User Manual Addendum Notes August 1995 Copyright (c) 1990-1995 WINTERRA Software Group, Inc. This information is provided as an addendum to your User's Manual. Please keep these notes with your manual for future reference. New Features and Enhancements ----------------------------- Several important changes have been made to the program providing greater usefulness of the product, and correcting bugs found in previous versions of the product. Information contained within this file adds to or corrects information in the User Manual 2.0. Version 2.1 Features Chart Templates Group Indicator Selection Program Startup Group Program Display Improvements Chart Configuration Options Attachments and Drawing Tools Technical Indicators Other Program Improvements and Fixes Version 2.2 Features Candlestick Charts Popup Data Window Daily/Weekly/Monthly Charts Printing Multiple Charts/Page Space/Blank Delimited ASCII Files Tour Guide Other Program Improvements and Fixes ==================== Version 2.1 Features ==================== Chart Templates (Default Configurations) ---------------------------------------- You can now specify default chart configurations which are used when you open new charts (charts which have not been previously saved in a group). The chart configuration represents items such as chart colors and selected technical indicators. Default chart configurations can be established at both the program level, and within your individual financial groups. The default configuration you specify at the program level will be used when a new chart is opened in an "untitled" group. To specify the chart configuration you want to use at the program level, select or open any chart. Configure the chart as you want the other new charts to look when they are opened (including any technical indicators). Then select File/Save Chart As Default... from the menu. Click the Standard Default button. To specify the chart configuration you want to use in a particular group, open or create the group - then select or open any chart. Configure the chart as you want the other new charts to look when they are opened (including any technical indicators). Then select File/Save Chart As Default... from the menu. Click the Group Default button. NOTE: The Group Default button is only available when you are working within an existing group. Group Indicator Selection ------------------------- Whenever you select technical indicators for use on a chart, you can now specify that all the charts in the current group are to be configured with the same set of indicators. You do this by clicking the Apply To All Charts button in the technical indicator dialog. To configure only the current chart, click the Ok button. NOTE: If a chart within the group cannot support one or more of the selected indicators you have chosen to be applied, those indicators will not be included in that chart. Program Startup Group --------------------- Generally, you will have one or more financial groups configured within the program. You can now select any one of your existing financial groups to be opened when the program starts. To select the financial group you want opened at program startup, select Group/Open... from the menu. In the "Group List:" box of the Open Group dialog, select the name of the group, then press the Save As Startup Group button. The next time the program is run, this group will automatically be opened for you. If you do not want a financial group opened at program startup, select Group/Open... from the menu. In the Open Group dialog, press the No Startup Group button. The next time the program is run, no group will automatically be opened for you. Program Display Improvements ---------------------------- In an effort to make better use of the display area for your charts, there have been some changes you should be aware of. Graph Titles Graph titles have now been incorporated within the display area of the associated graph. As a result of this change, much more space is now available for your technical indicators. Additionally, you will find that the title now includes a value enclosed within square brackets. This is the value associated with the last visible day for that graph. The Program Toolbar and Status Bar The program toolbar and status bar can now be individually removed from the program window. If you normally don't use or need one of these items, you can reclaim the display space occupied by these tools for your financial charts. To selectively add or remove the program toolbar and status bar, select Options/Toolbar or Options/Status Bar from the menu. These menu items are toggles represented by the checkmark indicator found at the left of each item. If a checkmark is present, that tool is used and visible in the program window. To remove the item, simply select it. To add the item back to the program's window, select it again from the menu. Chart Configuration Options --------------------------- Additional options have been added to the Chart Configuration providing greater control over group study and line drawing methods. The changes have to do with saving group information and using the line drawing tools. Program Notification to Save Changed Groups ------------------------------------------- When any change occurs to a group - such as window resizing, color changes, additions or the removal of charts - that group is tagged as "changed". If you move to another group, try to create a new group, or exit the program, you are automatically notified by the program that the group has changed - allowing you to save or ignore the changes you have made. You now have the option of being notified of group changes by the program. To indicate whether you want to be prompted for group changes, select Options/Chart... from the menu. In the Chart Options dialog, there is checkbox labeled "Prompt When Group is Changed". If this selection is checked, you will be notified by the program that changes to a group have been made. If this selection is not checked, you will not be notified by the program. In this case, you are responsible for saving any changes you make to a group. "Sticky" Line Drawing Mode -------------------------- When using the line drawing tools (ie., Trend, Vertical, Horizontal, and Resistance), the tool normally remains in the selected mode so that you can freely draw to the chart without having to continually reselect that tool. In some cases, this may not be the ideal mode of operation. There is now an option for selecting "sticky" line drawing mode (as described above), or having the line drawing tool reset immediately after the line is drawn. To change the setting of the line drawing mode, select Options/Chart... from the menu. In the Chart Options dialog, check the selection labeled "Sticky Line Drawing Mode" to operate in the default mode, or clear this selection to draw individual lines. Attachments and Drawing Tools ----------------------------- There now is an additional feature of the Attachment dialog providing greater control over the attachments in a graph. Deleting All Graph Attachments To date, the program has provided the ability to individually delete graph attachments. While this worked adequately in many cases, there are some situations where you want to simply remove all the attachments in a graph quickly and easily. To remove all the attachments in a graph, set the focus to the graph in question by clicking the mouse anywhere within the graph area, or by pressing the Tab key until the graph is enclosed by a yellow border. Activate the Attachments dialog by selecting Graph/Attachments... from the menu, clicking the right-mouse button within the graph and selecting Attachments... from the popup menu, or by pressing Ctrl+A. Click the "Delete All" button to remove all the attachments, or the "Delete" button to remove individually selected attachments from the list. Parallel Trend Lines In addition to the Trend, Horizontal, Vertical, and Speed Resistance line tools - you can now create parallel trend lines using the Parallel Trend line tool. Access to this tool is from the Tools program menu. To create parallel trend lines, select Tools/Parallel Trend Line from the menu. Using the mouse cursor (which changes to the parallel trend line cursor), draw a trend line on the graph by positioning the cursor to the starting location, pressing and holding down the left mouse button, then moving the mouse to the endpoint for the trend line. Release the mouse button. A trend line has been drawn between the points you have selected. In fact, two trend lines have been drawn - one on top of the other. Move the cursor so that the arrow is pointing somewhere along the trend line you have just drawn - then press and hold down the left mouse button. Move the mouse and you will see that one of the trend lines follows your movement - while the other remains at the original location. Release the mouse button to anchor the trend line at the new location. Technical Indicators -------------------- The following information describes changes made to the technical indicator portion of the program. Relative Strength Indicator Previously, the Relative Strength indicator would not properly retain the name of the symbol being used for calculation purposes. For example, if a chart was created that had a Relative Strength indicator to say, the Dow Jones 30, and the group containing this chart was saved - reopening the group (and this chart) would result in the Relative Strength indicator being applied to the parent chart instead. This situation has been corrected. Tip: The Relative Strength indicator must always be based on a chart contained within the group. However, you may not want that particular chart displayed along with the other charts in the group. Try minimizing the chart so that the window is displayed as an icon at the bottom of the program desktop area. Volume Accumulation Indicator The Volume Accumulation indicator (devised by Marc Chaikin) is an alternative to the On Balance Volume indicator of Joseph Granville. It attempts to assign a percentage of the volume based on a more realistic interpretation of the day's trading range. The primary differences between Volume Accumulation and OBV is: Volume Accumulation is an intra-day measure of trading volume as it applies to the day's price action. OBV measures the change between two consecutive days closing values. Volume Accumulation assigns only a percentage of the day's volume to the calculation of the indicator. Consider; if a day spends most of the time on the downside, but closes slightly higher than the day before, should all of the day's volume be applied as a positive value towards the indicator (OBV method) or only a percentage (Volume Accumulation method). In determining the amount of the day's volume that will be applied to the indicator, Volume Accumulation calculates a percentage based on where the close is in relation the average price for the day. If the close is above the midpoint, a positive amount of the volume is used. If below the midpoint, a negative amount is used. Referring to the formula below, the only time the entire volume will be used in the indicator is when the close is equal to the high (positive value) or the low (negative value). VA = ( ( (Close - Low) - (High - Close) ) / (High - Low) ) * Volume As with the OBV indicator, look for confirmation or divergences between the indicator and price action for possible trend changes. Other Program Improvements and Fixes ------------------------------------ File Open Extension Is Now Saved Between Sessions The program reads ASCII files containing historical financial data regardless of the file name extension. Any file name extension that you enter in the Open Chart dialog box is now saved as the default for future use. Previously, the Open Chart dialog always defaulted to the .CSV extension. Drag & Drop Now Supports ASC, CSV, and TXT Extensions The program supports the opening of financial charts based on ASCII data files via Drag and Drop from the Windows File Manager. This version now recognizes as ASCII data files those files with an extension of .ASC, .CSV, and .TXT. Graph Labeling Improved Automatic price graph labeling has been improved to generate more common labeling values. Minimal Data Conditions The application of technical indicators to charts containing minimal data has been improved so that these situations do not create fatal program errors. If the amount of data in a chart is insufficient for the selected technical indicator, the indicator will not be created. Additionally, if an attempt is made to change an indicator's parameters such that the chart's data cannot support it, the change will be ignored. TeleChart 2000 Data Files on a Different Drive There was a situation where TeleChart 2000 (TC2000) data files could not be accessed if the files resided on a different drive volume from that of the program. This has been corrected. Error Selecting A Chart Area For Zoom In the previous version, if you selected an area to zoom into that resulted in a single point, the program would generate an error and terminate. This has been corrected. ==================== Version 2.2 Features ==================== Candlestick Charts ------------------ Candlestick charts have been added to Stable Technical Graphs to compliment the current set of High/Low Bar, Line, and Histogram charts. In order to use the Candlestick option, the underlying financial data must contain Open, High, Low, and Close information. Note that the creation of weekly or monthly charts from daily information always provides the information necessary to generate Candlestick charts. To create a Candlestick chart, select Graph/Candlestick or click the right mouse button on a Price Graph to invoke the popup window, and select Candlestick. Popup Data Window ----------------- A Popup Data Window has been added to the product - replacing the individual graph data windows of earlier versions. This window is directly tied to the vertical cursor of the active chart window. When activated, the data window displays all price and technical indicator graph values associated with the current position of the vertical chart cursor. To activate the Popup Data Window, select Options/Data Window or press the F4 key to toggle the activation of the window. Daily/Weekly/Monthly Charts --------------------------- An important new feature is the ability to produce both weekly and monthly financial charts from your daily data. Creating a weekly or monthly chart helps to remove much of the data "noise" from the displayed output. When a weekly or monthly chart is generated from daily data, the resulting data consists of open, high, low, and close information regardless of the daily source. If the daily data contains only closing values, the calculated open is the close at the beginning of the week or month. If the daily data contains only high/low/close values, the open is calculated as the midpoint between the high and low at the beginning of the week or month To select a daily/weekly/monthly chart, select Graph/Daily, Graph/Weekly, or Graph/Monthly from the menu bar; press Ctrl+D, Ctrl+W, or Ctrl+M, or click the right mouse button within any graph and select the data style. Printing Multiple Charts/Page ----------------------------- A new feature is the ability to print 1, 2, or 4 financial charts per printed page. This capability is available when printing all of the charts in a group by selecting the Group/Print All Charts... option. When printing individual charts from the File/Print Active Chart... option, or from the toolbar, the chart will be printed to the entire printed page. To select the format for printing all the charts in a group, select File/Page Setup... and make a selection from the Chart Layout group. Space/Blank Delimited ASCII Files --------------------------------- Support has been added for importing ASCII data files formatted with spaces (blanks) as the field delimiter. This is in addition to the comma and tab delimited support currently available in the product. This support has been added to the program in such a way that space delimited files are automatically supported. If you require support for ASCII files containing fractional value representations (ie, "34 7/8"), you will have to indicate this by selecting Options/File Import... and checking the box "Support ASCII Fractional Values ("34 7/8")". As long as this selection is active, you cannot reliably read standard ASCII files using space delimiters. Tour Guide ---------- A Tour Guide feature has been included in the product to assist you as you perform basic program functions. The Tour Guide can be enabled or disabled by choosing the Help/Tour Guide menu item. Other Program Improvements and Fixes ------------------------------------ Low Resources and Chart Creation In some situations where a large number of charts were created within a single chart group, Windows resources could become depleted resulting in unexpected program crashes. There is now a check within the program for available resources when creating each individual chart. The default amount of Windows resources required to create a chart is 15%. This value can be modified by editing the STABLE.INI file, section "[Main]", and modifying or creating the line entry "LowResources=n" where "n" is equal to the percentage of available system resources that must be available before a chart is created. Options/File Import... ASCII Format Validation In previous versions of the program, the File Import configuration dialog would report a data format validation error when there was no error. This has been fixed. ASCII Files Containing a Ctrl+Z Character Generated a General Protection Fault Some ASCII file text editors use and place a Ctrl+Z character at the end of an ASCII file to mark the end of the file. When the program processed financial ASCII files containing this character, a General Protection Fault would sometimes result. This has been corrected so that Ctrl+Z characters are ignored. Graph Line Style For Mutual Fund Charts In some cases, the program would default to displaying mutual fund charts using the High/Low Bar style - resulting in a series of dots to represent the Price graph. This has been fixed so that mutual fund charts use the Line style as the default. Negative Volume Trend Indicator Crash This technical indicator would occassionally generate a "Divide by Zero" error in situations where the volume data contained zero (0) values. This has been resolved.