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New Features, A/B volume, New Markers, QnA 1288, 1290, Second Chart TFs, Larger Fonts, Clock, Line Alerts for Fibs, Gann Square Enhancements, Hiding Chart Scale/Time, Changes to DYO Selections |
September 27 , 2006
16:30 Ensign Howard: Welcome to today's training class with Ensign staff..... this is Howard and I will be today's trainer.
16:31 Ensign Howard: The past month has seen major enhancements to the program as I have been on a huge creativity spurt. Some of the enhancements are requests that have been on the To Do list waiting for time and priorities to permit their implementation. Other enhancements are just plain new stuff, all of which hopefully makes the program more useful and attractive to current and potential customer.
16:33 Ensign Howard: Let me do a quick run down of the major areas.
16:33 Ensign Howard: Those who have been on the Beta version for the past month will be familiar with most of the new features, and we thank those who have helped provide feedback during the past 3 weeks of beta testing. For the most part, the beta testing has gone quite smoothly, and those with an issue to report we have tried to be prompt in having a fix implemented that same day.
New Features
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#Equi
16:37 Ensign Howard: This chart shows a couple of the new features, one of which is the 3-D shading available for the candle bodies and the volume bars. To enable this pleasing visual effect, click menu Setup | Charts and check the box for 3-D Candlestick Body Shading. This is a global property and will be in effect on all charts.
6:39 Ensign Howard: The 2nd feature illustrated by the chart is the Equi-volume bar wherein the body width of the candle is variable. It is wider on higher than average volume, and narrower on lower than average volume. The genius of our equi-volume implementation is we maintain a constant spacing bar center to center. This permits the use of studies and draw tools on all equi-volume charts.
16:41 Ensign Howard: The 3rd feature on the chart is the option to show the volume bars like candle bodies instead of just as narrow vertical lines. The body width for the volume bars allows a nice visual for their color bar shading, and also equi-volume if that feature is enabled.
16:42 Ensign Howard: The 4th feature on the chart is the volume bars can be independently colored using a Color Bar study. This coloring is independent of the color bar study used on the chart. In the example the chart has Dunnigan color bar study, and the volume bars have Volume Increase color bar.
16:43 Ensign Howard: A little later we will show how to select the color bar study to be applied to the chart, to the new ask/bid volume bars and to volume bars.
16:43 Ensign Howard: If you scroll the image down a bit you will come to the chart properties form.
On this form we point out a couple properties used by the equi-volume display. Since we want bar centers to be equally spaced, yet have wider candle volumes, we resorted to allowing the bodies to overlap their neighbors as needed. The property for Candle Minimum Spacing needs to be a negative number to permit this overlapping by a wide body candle. You can uncheck the Bar Equi-Volume box to turn the effect off, and/or you can change Candle Minimum Spacing to be a positive number like 1, and that really reduces the visual too. I quite like the settings shown of 20 for maximum width, and -8 for permitted overlap (min spacing).
6:47 Ensign Howard: I have seen lots of chart posts using the new 3-D shading, and the Equi-volume, so it looks like it will be a popular enhancement. Any questions so far....? any feedback by those who have used it?
16:48 mixer: Feedback: Have been using it since you released it -- man oh man do love it!
16:47 Lucky1: In determining volume bar width - how is the average volume calculated?
16:48 Ensign Howard: Good question..... the answer is we maintain a 20 period exponential average of the volume. We have basically created zones for the width, and the narrowest bar will be shown when the volume is less than 50% of average. 2nd width zone is from 50% to 100% of average. 3rd zone is 100% to 150% of average. 4th, 5th, 6th, etc as needed are every 50% of average vol, ie 150-200, 200-250, 250-300 and these zones have worked quite well to give the visual of when you have dried up volume and when you have very active volume. 20 is average for number of bars and so it works equally well on tick chart, range, volume, minute, daily, weekly etc After a globex session, there are always wide bars on the day session open.
16:51 ticks: Luv it
16:48 Lucky1: k
16:52 Ensign Howard: Typical to have dried up volume during mid day lunch and wider bars again into market close. But when you see a breakout bar with higher vol, you love it and it is very graphical.
16:54 mixer: If you trade trendline breaks, you'll love this cause you can clearly see when there's no volume to support the breakout
16:49 ae: It's wonderful, and adds a whole new textural element to my charts, great for tracking the big boys, and has produced a number of surprising patterns.
16:56 ticks: It is the bar appearance that counts -- Not the "Number"
A/B Volume Setup
16:58 Ensign Howard: On the property form are check boxes to Show the A/B volume which is the new Ask/Bid Volume window and the Volume Windows and for each of these volume windows we have options to enable the candle body style for the volume bars. When checked the volume bars will have width to them, like the candle body of a chart bar.
7:00 Ensign Howard: The 3rd row in this grouping is the Equi-volume option which can be enabled or disabled by window. So, you could have ask/bid bars not use equi-volume width, and yet have the Volume bars with the variable width. So there is individual control for the visual on the chart, of the Ask/Bid Volume window, and the Volume window.
17:01 Ensign Howard: On the right side top are drop down boxes where you can select the individual color bar study to be applied to the chart, bars, the Ask/Bid bars, and the volume bars.
17:03 Ensign Howard: In this example I have Flutes as the bar style and their coloring is Ask/Bid Volume color bar study. This combination will split the range of the bar according to the ratio of Ask volume to Bid volume. The ask ratio is coloring the top part green and the bid ratio is coloring the bottom part red. The middle panel shows Ask/Bid volume as a histogram with ask above the center line and bid volume below the centerline. The color bar selection for this panel is Normal. The bottom panel has Volume bars using the Equi-volume option for variable width, and the color bar coloring is Volume Increase.
17:06 mixer: Flutes and variable candle width don't seem to mix though in that the close of previous bars seems to be blotted out.
17:09 Ensign Howard: mixer, the flutes do work with equi-volume and we do show the close marker on the chart as needed. You can see the close markers in the overlapping bodies of the last example. Let me switch it to equi-vol and repost example.
17:12 Ensign Howard: So even on the fat bar at 12:45, the prior bar's close marker is still showing to the left of the overlapping fat boy
17:12 mixer: ah, nice, thanks
17:12 Ensign Howard: welcome
17:05 scooter4: Can the bars be colored by the net , either red for net sellers or green for net buyers and a brighter color for above average buying or selling?
17:06 Ensign Howard: Yes scooter you can have the coloring done as you have suggested. Since you are using different colors, use the DYO to implement with a color bar marker
17:06 scooter4: Cool,thx
New Markers
17:06 Ensign Howard: Which brings us to DYO color bar markers, we added one to do volume bar coloring and another to do ask/bid bar coloring
17:08 Ensign Howard: On the marker list you will see the 3 color bar markers. The A/B in blue and red is the color bar marker for coloring the ask/bid volume bars. The VOL in the 3 colors is the color bar marker that colors the volume bars. And the 3 bars in 3 colors is the original color bar marker that operates on chart bars.
17:12 Ensign Howard: Any questions about equi-vol or 3-d shading?
Ask / Bid Volume
7:13 Ensign Howard: As has been alluded to, another major change was to keep track of volume at the ask (up tick) and volume at the bid (down tick). This volume is part of the chart file and will be redisplayed when the chart is reopened.
17:13 biggo: Is the a/b data available from all data vendors?
7:14 Ensign Howard: a/b data is available for all vendor versions
17:13 virt5: Odd request: Howard would you show the center panel, the top sub window, in the same colors as the candles, ie, green ask/red bid?
17:14 Ensign Howard: Yes virt, just change the Volume (Ask) and the Bid Volume colors on the chart property form
17:14 virt5: ty
17:14 Ensign Howard: Did you want the Ask to be Green and the Bid to be Red?
17:15 virt5: Yes, to make it the same as the other two "candles"
17:15 Ensign Howard: like that?
17:15 virt5: yes, thanks... Just wanted to see better (for me)...thanks. Now, in my mind, it "matches"
17:16 Ensign Howard: Welcome, that is why we have the training class, to show you how to use it all.
17:17 Ensign Howard: The ask/bid volume has an associated color bar study, and is available in various flavors to use a study Data Point selections and in DYO Bar Value category and in DYO look-up tags.
17:18 Ensign Howard: Here is example list of new bar value choices.
17:19 Ensign Howard: Ask Volume + Bid Volume will equal bar's total Volume.
17:19 Ensign Howard: Ask Ratio is Ask Volume / total Volume
17:19 Ensign Howard: Bid Ration is Bid Volume / total Volume
17:20 Ensign Howard: So ask ratio and bid ratio are values between 0 and 1 and if you want to plot these on a familiar 0..100 scale use the selection for Ask Ration * # with # set to 100, etc.
17:21 Ensign Howard: While we were at it, I had a brain storm idea of how to estimate the buying pressure and selling pressure using bar prices. So similar selections are available for Buy Pressure, Sell Pressure, and their ratios. A plot of the buy pressure/sell pressure is quite similar to the plot of ask/bid volume which is excellent to have such a high correlation.
17:22 Ensign Howard: Therefore, when you have Ask/Bid volume panel showing on a daily, weekly and monthly bar chart, we will auto substitute to show Buy/Sell Pressure graph since I do not have actual ask/bid volume values to show on those charts. The label on the chart property form will change to show B/S in place of A/B
17:23 Ensign Howard: Let me show B/S on the ES #F daily chart
17:25 Ensign Howard: Here is a chart with some equi-volume enabled for the 2 panels. I see I should also relabel the center line of the middle panel to be Buy/Sell instead of the current Ask/Bid.
17:27 Ensign Howard: Now, we have had huge interest in the ask/bid capabilities particularly in plotting a spread of this, or plotting an accumulation of the ask-bid volume spread. So we have posted great examples complete with templates to our Q&A Knowledgebase
17:28 Ensign Howard: Let me post a couple examples.
QnA 1288
http://www.ensignsupport.com/email/1288.mhtml
17:29 Ensign Howard: This is showing an average of the ask-bid vol spread. Line A reads the Ask Volume and subtracts the Bid Volume using the Bid Volume look-up token of [$B]
17:30 Ensign Howard: Line B does the average of the spread created by Line A.
7:30 Ensign Howard: See the DYO Property Form page on our Help page for a full list of all the lookup tokens
17:30 Ensign Howard: Any questions about this example?
QnA 1290
17:32 Ensign Howard: This next example show an accumulation of the Ask/Bid volume spread, so Ask volume adds to the sum and Bid volume deducts from the sum.
http://www.ensignsupport.com/email/1290.mhtml
17:33 Ensign Howard: The use of the visual is not so much where it crosses from red to green because that is all relative to when you started the sum. Instead, look as whether the curve is ascending or descending. As would be logical, it follows quite closely the ascending or descending price bars. Price ascends when there is more trading volume at the ask, etc.
17:34 Ensign Howard: Any questions?
17:35 T!H0: I have a request regarding the "flutes" bars
17:36 T!H0: Can we have the color of the frame matching the color of the content? Because on black background it is not very clear using white or black frame IMO
17:37 Ensign Howard: tiho, I can investigate and consider
17:36 bg: Howard no problems on my end -- great job
17:37 Ensign Howard: Lets move on with the class
Volume Charts have Equi-volume based on Tick Count
17:37 Ensign Howard: When a constant volume chart is shown, the equi-volume will be based on the variable tick count, since the volume does not vary
17:37 zbullzbear: Howard will all templates (old) work with Sep 27 ver?
17:38 Ensign Howard: zbullz, old studies and template should work with new release
17:38 Ensign Howard: There is a conversion that Ensign does on the DYOs because some major redesign of the DYO categories so old can be used by the new release
17:39 Ensign Howard: BUT DYOS saved by the new release cannot then be used by older Ensigns, so that will be motivation for old Ensigns to join the band wagon and upgrade so the templates and workspaces they get from new users will work for them too.
17:40 zbullzbear: Thanks Howard. Ensign will do the conversion automatically re DYOs?
17:40 Ensign Howard: yes, conversion is automatic when Ensign loads the old DYOs
Chart Time Frames in Seconds
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#Seconds
17:43 Ensign Howard: The next major feature enhancement was to support chart time frames in Seconds. So you can have a 15 second bar if you want, or a 90 second bar
17:44 Ensign Howard: Seconds charts will refresh from the tick refresh, therefore you are better off using a 1-min chart instead of a 60-second bar. Both charts look the same, but the 1-min refresh has more data and refreshes faster
Ensign on New Computer
17:45 parrothead: I'm switching computers, does anyone know how to get Ensign running on new system,
17:45 Ensign Howard: I do -- put it on, and e-mail Kimball@ensignsoftware.com the Ensign ID number from the Setup | Security form
17:45 parrothead: are you the main man Howard
17:45 Ensign Howard: and give him your name and address so we can find you as a customer
17:46 parrothead: oh ok, support was closed figured I couldn't get it done today,, thanks
Using Larger Font Size
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#Font
17:46 Ensign Howard: Next major feature is ability to use larger and bolded fonts on the DYO labels and section text messages.
17:47 Ensign Howard: This chart example shows larger font used for the current price and Ask Volume above and Bid Volume below. Another excellent example of the use of larger label font is in the WoodieCCI template example, scroll down to see it. The font sizes are set by new DYO Global Action | Label Font Size = # selection
17:48 Ensign Howard: See example DYO forms in the documentation
Clock
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#Clock
17:51 Ensign Howard: Ensign has a new clock toolbar that you can set with a large font size and it can also be a time period count down clock showing time remaining. When the count down time is under 30 seconds the clock background changes to a warning color. When it is under 5 seconds, the background flashes. The clock can be dragged off of the docking toolbar, and positioned anywhere, including outside of Ensign
17:53 Ensign Howard: However, the clock can become hidden when outside of Ensign by other applications
7:53 ae: I love the clock, and maybe greedy, can I have 2 clocks? 1 current, 1 off a fixed time, say 5 minute countdown?
17:53 Ensign Howard: For now answer is no. You can show 2 times on the 1 clock. The current time will show in smaller font on the clock caption line
17:54 ae: That will work, thanks
17:54 Ensign Howard: See examples of such in the documentation by scrolling down. You would have a check in both sections of the side menu for Clock Type
17:56 virt5: thanks, Howard
Line Alerts for Fibonacci Levels
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#alarmed
17:59 Ensign Howard: next major area of improvement was to offer ability to alarm lines on the Fibonacci Levels, Fibonacci Retracement, and Daily Price Lines tools and increased flexibility of the alarms that can be done on Line and Linear Regression draw tools. The alerts messages for the lines will be automatic, such as Cross Above Today's High and to support all this new information from alerts, we enhanced the form for showing price alerts to also have alert logs for Study Alerts and Line Alerts.
18:01 Ensign Howard: any questions about line alerts?
Gann Square Enhancements
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#gann
18:02 Ensign Howard: In our class on Sep 6th, we showed off the new features for Gann Square enhancements, such as ability to fill the chart will multiple squares and have diagonal line, in addition to the horz/vert lines and fan lines. See some of the examples in the documentation for these features
Hiding Chart Scale and Time Stamp
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#hide
18:04 Ensign Howard: Another cool feature is ability to hide the chart scale and time stamp areas, so that you can make charts really tiny. This is a pop-up menu setting that also has an associated hot key to invoke or to undo.
18:05 Ensign Howard: Any one used this feature recently or regularly?
18:07 amg: the tiny scaleless charts are very handy
Changes to DYO Selections
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#DYO
18:06 Ensign Howard: Over the past 2 years, our library of DYO selections has continually grown bigger, and it was finally time to split a couple of the huge categories into smaller parts. This is the primary change that keeps DYOs created by the new version from being useable by folks running older Ensigns. They will just have to upgrade too.
18:07 Ensign Howard: It is a work in progress for me to groom all of the DYO examples on my web site and in the Q&A Knowledgebase to show examples using the new statements.
18:08 Ensign Howard: The category of Global Value no longer exists and was replaced by categories named Expression and Function. All the selections are still available in one or the other categories. This is the conversion that takes place automatically if the new Ensign loads an old DYO or template with an old DYO
Playback Added Days
18:10 Ensign Howard: Last big feature to mention is the when you do Playback, the DEMO charts will now initialize with up to 8 prior days instead of just yesterday if the playback files for the prior dates are found in the \Playback folder. It does take longer to generate the additional days of image for the DEMO chart, but the slight delay is worth the new feature.
18:11 Ensign Howard: We have a more complete listing of all the changes in the new version on the What's New page of our web site. That is both a long list as well as an impressive one for this recent creativity spurt.
www.ensignsoftware.com/whatsnew.htm
18:12 Ensign Howard: Ensign Windows was already a great program, but it just got a major face lift and a host of new capabilities.
18:12 T!H0: Ensign is getting greater and greater
18:13 Ensign Howard: Wow, sniffy, you have a great example with lots of the new capabilities showing
18:14 Sniffy: Thanks to you Howard
18:13 Ensign Howard: I hope you enjoy all of the new stuff, use it, make more money being a better trader, and tell your friends about your excitement with Ensign if you have those kind of feelings about our efforts.
18:13 bg: Thanks Howard
18:13 mixer: Thank you Howard
18:13 ticks: Thanks Howard for the great program
18:14 Ensign Howard: You are all welcome.
18:14 Twell: Really is a great program I'm enjoying it
18:14 bg: Ensign is fantastic
18:14 Ensign Howard: The highest complement back to me is to use the program, enjoy it, and help with advertising by word of mouth. We do not buy magazine ads, and instead of charging you a higher price to pay for ads, we instead depend on your word of mouth promotion and it has been a good way of doing business in my opinion.
18:15 ticks: Your software is the highest rated of all software on Elite Trader where many traders hang out ...
18:16 Ensign Howard: Yes it is ticks, and possibly those who can post to elitetrader by putting in a current update of what is happening over here at Ensign. Lots has happened in Sept
18:17 ticks: will do that H right now....
18:16 Klaas: Now a good translator for the European Market ,and we take allover the world :)
18:14 bg: Howard you posted a chart on dacharts today -- I'll post it if u don't mind
18:16 Ensign Howard: go ahead bg, ask about the chart
18:16 bg: just curious on what ur doing- bol band on the tick? not bad - you have out done yourself Howard
18:17 Ensign Howard: bg, you are correct, the question form a user that generated the example was putting $TICK overlay on the chart, and then doing a bollinger on the tick overlay. The answer he needed was to select Tick in the Data Point on the bollinger band property form
18:19 bg: Fantastic work Howard
18:19 bg: Got to run thanks for all the info
18:17 T!H0: Would it be possible to implement a highlighting the current price according the B/S pressure or having a large tall B/S Pressure bar in the scale itself ?
18:19 Ensign Howard: tiho, the stuff in the scale is not controllable, but you could show a price label using a different font size like we did in one of our examples and you could change the color used and/or the font size.
18:19 T!H0: ok
18:19 Ensign Howard: Let me repost the example.
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/features.htm#font
18:20 Ensign Howard: The 1324.75 could be in different size, but preferably just use a different color based on the logic you want.
18:20 dagobaz: I have done my best to insist all in my room use the software. It is the least we can do to thank you for the chatrooms. besides .... it's cool :)
18:20 Ensign Howard: Thx dagobaz
18:21 Ensign Howard: Lots of good info gets posted every day to the Q&A knowledgebase, so please take time to read through recent postings many of which show new features users ask about how to do something
18:22 NeWbie: So, does the new version come with the Holy Grail already built into the system? :)
18:22 NeWbie: Great Job Howard!
18:22 Ensign Howard: holy grail has been in the program for years....lol
18:22 NeWbie: hehe ;)
18:23 Klaas: The system calls "Everybody Rich" ???
18:23 Ensign Howard: But the knights cannot pick it out of the crowd of other choices on the table...lol
18:23 NeWbie: Training, lots and lots of training.
18:24 Ensign Howard: True, have been adding features faster than they can get properly documented and users trained. So don't be upset if you feel a bit overwhelmed recently. With time it will all become more familiar and fortunately there is the chat room resource where you can talk shop with other users and with me or my staff and the Q&A Kowledgebase is a great resource of examples.
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/dyo-cross.htm
18:26 NeWbie: I would love to see more templates
18:26 Ensign Howard: This resource is growing bigger as well, and I am working on grooming the examples to use the new features, and have templates available. When a template for an example exists, it can be downloaded using Internet Services form on the Q&A template list
18:27 ticks: Posted the new "Rave" about Ensign Software on Elite Trader and would suggest others do the same...
18:28 Ensign Howard: This list is growing and there are several great examples. Note the number that is part of the template name. That is your cross reference back the particular Q&A Knowledgebase article that talks about the template. So 1290-CumulativeVol goes with article 1290 in the knowledgebase.
18:28 NeWbie: great, I will check out the new ones.
www.ensignsupport.com/cgi-bin/ensign/bb.cgi
18:27 al_gorithm: Howard, have a question on the new refresh count in the title bar. Before, when the refresh was done the clock reappeared. Now, a refresh message stays and it's had to tell when the refresh is over. If refreshing an overnight chart it's obvious, but intra-day, I can't tell when it's ok to start the next refresh. Can we get a "Refresh Done" message or something like that?
18:30 Ensign Howard: al_gorithm, I will investigate and try to have a Done message
18:30 al_gorithm: tkx Howard
18:27 T!H0: Howard is it possible to have a marker arrow in the newly designed labeling?
18:30 T!H0: before this version > showed the arrow marker
18:31 Ensign Howard: The answer is the font for the label needs to be the default, then we substitute the arrow image for the < and >. Problem is when you change the font size to a larger font, then the < and > are treated as literal characters with a TextOut string. Feature still works when the font is not changed to a larger size.
18:33 Ensign Howard: Thanks for attending class. It has been over 2 hours. So I think we will wrap up the class and call it a day.
18:33 dagobaz: :) Thanks
18:33 T!H0: Thanx great new features
18:34 al_gorithm: Just had a thought....maybe if a second refresh request was made before the 1st was finished, subsequent refresh requests could be put into a queue and execute when the first was finished. Then we wouldn't have to even bother waiting/watching. Gotta run....nice work Howard
18:34 terry: GN. ty
18:34 T!H0: Please improve the visibility of the Flutes especially on the black background
18:36 Ensign Howard: tihi, so you did not like the example of a frame color to match the background color or nearly the same color. The black frame with the black background looked pretty good on flutes. I will investigate and see what improvement can be done with flutes
18:37 Ensign Howard: GN, and thx for attending bye
18:35 ticks: Thanks Howard -- Your "Creative Spurts" are just to Brilliant !!!
18:38 T!H0: bye
18:38 PA: Thank you Howard
18:38 @Buffy2: Thank you Howard
18:12 Twell: Thx and G