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Email within Ensign, Data Library, Debug version, 4 DYOs, Memory Report, Template tabs, QnA |
March 9 , 2005
16:33 @Ensign_H: Welcome to today's class with the Ensign team.
16:35 @Ensign_H: It never ceases to amaze me that with each passing week there is so much to accomplish
16:36 @Ensign_H: It is a good thing to have the weekly class just to disseminate information
16:36 @Ensign_H: Today we will spend an hour covering additions to the program you may not be aware of and may not be using
16:37 @Ensign_H: yet because you are not aware of the change to the program.
16:37 @Ensign_H: Please upgrade to the 03-09 Beta version to have the features talked about in class today.
16:38 @Ensign_H: Let me begin with some of the more minor changes, such as to the e-mail form.
16:39 @Ensign_H: Ensign has the ability to send e-mail from within the program and this is often used by those wanting to append a chart image to the e-mail..... This is done by pressing CTRL-E keys. That action will create the picture and take you to the e-mail form shown above.
:39 @Ensign_H: Of course you need to configure your address and outgoing server.
16:40 @Ensign_H: The enhancement is that the subject line will be auto filled
in by Ensign and some requested that a fixed suffix be added to the automatic
subject line. An example would be to have Larry Pesavento fill in the Subject
Suffix edit box with something like 'from Larry' and then as he sends charts
to his mailing list, every chart will show in the customer in-box with a subject
like Ensign: ES 2-Minute from Larry
16:42 @Ensign_H: The Ensign: ES 2-Minute
was the automatic part, and the 'from Larry' was the suffix to use with every
subject line.
16:42 @Ensign_H: This will help you identify valid e-mail you are expecting to receive from friends such as Larry.
16:43 @Ensign_H: any questions on how to make use of the Subject Suffix addition to the e-mail subject line?
16:44 @Ensign_H: of course you can always change the Subject line to be what ever you wish, but most just let Ensign fill in the subject line when you press CTRL-E keys to reflect the chart image that is attached to the e-mail.
16:44 @Ensign_H: ok guess there are no questions about the suffix, so I will move on to the next item of training.
16:47 @Ensign_H: on another subject, the Comex has a Friday afternoon globex session for HG, GC, SI and AL, so Ensign had to adapt to handle this. The latest version will treat this globex session like we do the Sun-Thur sessions where the globex starts the next day's daily bar.
16:49 @Ensign_H: So on Friday afternoon after 2nd session starts, Ensign daily charts will step sideways and begin the daily bar for Monday and timestamp this bar with Monday's date.
16:50 @Ensign_H: The eSignal refresh for GC daily charts has the correct range for Friday's bar. The quote page in Ensign will be showing the narrow High/Low range of the new globex session that started.
16:51 @Ensign_H: The next item to announce is that the eChat and the chat room in Ensign support the addition of 5 more chat rooms. We have increased from 20 to 25 rooms because of increasing demand for new rooms.
16:51 @Ensign_H: The 21st room is named Forex and is an open room for Forex traders to meet and discuss trading the forex. If you do not see these new rooms listed on the room selection list, that is an indication you need to upgrade.
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/data.htm
16:53 @Ensign_H: Ensign has some long term 30-min and daily continuation chart files available for download from out web site.
16:53 @Ensign_H: The page shown above is about this Data Library and how to use it to download 30-min and daily continuation files.
16:54 @Ensign_H: now that another quarter has passed, and it is time to roll-out March contracts to June contracts, we have updated our library yesterday so the files are current.
16:55 @Ensign_H: And while we are on the subject of continuation symbols, the IQFeed has introduced a set of continuation symbols - an example is @ES#
16:56 @Ensign_H: this symbol charts intra-day and tick type charts..... I believe the refresh for Daily, weekly and monthly is still yet to be implemented at IQFeed. You can start to use these continuation symbols from IQFeed if you have IQFeed data feed.
16:57 @Ensign_H: The eSignal web site has a web page documenting the eSignal roll-dates, and many will be shown as 3rd Friday - 8 days, which means tomorrow is the roll day for ES symbol.
16:57 Huios1: I have a hole in my chart after getting data from data library
6:58 @Ensign_H: huios, what file? daily or 30min?
16:58 Huios1: daily euro... I'll post a chart
16:59 @Ensign_H: I posted a picture of the file I have on web site.
16:59 Huios1: I posted right before you
16:59 @Ensign_H: YOU NEED to not refresh so far back - you are corrupting the good data from me with the thin data from the DTN Market Access refresh for the H5 or M5 symbols we resolve to the DTN Market Access data is not continuation, it will be a specific month.
16:59 Huios1: that is an unrefreshed chart
17:00 @Ensign_H: Huios, I am sure it is refreshed and this is how that happened
17:00 @Ensign_H: click menu Setup | Manager and see the auto refresh selection you have for the History frame. You probably have it on the maximum setting and as such opening the chart fired off an automatic request to refresh. My suggestion is you need to change the setting for auto refresh to Disabled or to 2 Days. Then you will not corrupt the good data file from my site download.
17:01 @Buffy2: thanks you Howard makes sense and learned something
17:01 Huios1: set for 6 months - thank you, will try it again
17:02 @Ensign_H: ok, change it to 2 Day.... redownload file from my site and reopen chart and it will be better
17:03 @Ensign_H: on to another subject..... we have made concentrated efforts to find a couple of elusive access violations in the past couple weeks, and those users who were triggering these errors for the most part report we have made progress.
17:03 @Ensign_H: For any problems yet to be found, we have released a special debug version which can only be obtained by using one's web browser to download the debug version from the bottom of the Download page on our web site.
17:04 @Ensign_H: I thank the half dozen or so users who have been running the debug version for the informative reports that this version sends by e-mail to Ensign when an error happens. It give information about the Call Stack and the line number in the Ensign program code where the error happened.
7:06 @Ensign_H: These are excellent clues that help us figure out what might be done to make the program more robust in handling error conditions, and the occasional illogical way the user attempts to do something. If you have a problem that persists, we may suggest you run the debug version so we get better clues about the problem. If you run the debug version, we have an added menu of Help | Enable Debug Mode that needs to be checked so that if an error is triggered, an error log is prepared and you are given the opportunity to e-mail the report to Ensign.
17:09 @Ensign_H: so we have two 03-09 Beta versions for download, the one on the top of the form does not have the debug report feature compiled in, and the link on the bottom of the download form has the debug code compiled in. The debug feature adds around 200K to the program size, and that is why we offer the version without it being present.
7:10 @Ensign_H: The latest Beta versions also have a couple of useful new features.
17:11 @Ensign_H: One is menu Help | Memory Report which will scan through all open windows and estimate the memory being used by that window and show this information in a report.
17:11 @Ensign_H: This will be a useful tool to spot any lurking chart that you forgot about by it being hidden or minimized that is using excessive memory by having too many studies or too many bars
17:13 @Ensign_H: in this picture, the report shows I have the chat room open and it uses 2.2 Meg of memory. There are also 4 charts open and the symbol and time frame are shown. Along with the number of chart objects owned by the chart, the number of bars for Max Bar setting for each and the memory used by each to the nearest tenth of a Meg.
17:15 @Ensign_H: The 5 windows in the workspace use a total of 3.2 Meg of memory.
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/help.htm
17:19 @Ensign_H: we have continued to document some of the cool studies that can be created with the Design Your Own (DYO) feature.
17:19 @Ensign_H: so our list of examples continues to grow..... this Help page has links to the examples I have published.
17:20 @Ensign_H: if you are not to the DYO feature, please read the 3 articles under the Design Your Own section. That would be a mandatory starting point for understanding what a DYO can do and how it all works. Then read some of the DYO examples and download the templates that are available for the example.
www.dacharts.com/qtips-dyos/get-started-gvs-dyos.htm
17:22 @Ensign_H: thx buffy.
17:21 @Ensign_H: lets begin a discussion of 4 of the latest postings.
www.ensignsoftware.com/tips/tradingtips63.htm#Volatility
7:22 @Ensign_H: Had a user request last week for Volatility bands, which are based on volatility calculations. The original request or example used an average of the Implied Volatility for a near the money call and put.
7:23 @Ensign_H: my experience is that this implied volatility is and should be near the historical volatility, so my implementation of the idea used historical volatile directly.
17:24 @Ensign_H: The band is created by calculating an offset which I call VB Delta, and then adding and subtracting this from a daily close price to calculate the Support and Resistance levels to use the following day.
17:25 @Ensign_H: The article shows the formula for calculating the Delta using Historical volatility, the square root of 1/365, today's close, and an amplification factor.
17:26 @Ensign_H: the size factors typically used are 1, 1.5 and 2, and possibly some Fib ratios too such as 1.28 and 1.618 - the DYO shows how I can accomplish the formula in lines A through D and then use E through G to plot the 1.5 pair of S&R levels and use H through J to plot the 2.0 pair of S&R levels.
17:28 @Ensign_H: I know this is too much to comprehend in this brief discussion, so study the article and see how things are done when you have more time.
17:29 @Ensign_H: I showed the example on a 5-min chart, but the idea is more appropriate for a daily chart where like the Support and Resistance tool, the values you calculate for today are then constant levels to use for all of tomorrows trading session.
www.ensignsoftware.com/tips/tradingtips63.htm#Ergodic
17:30 @Ensign_H: The 2nd example is the Ergodic Candle Oscillator.
17:30 @Ensign_H: The candle part means the author uses the Open-Close range part of a bar for the formula
17:30 hobo3: Howard could you make them channels instead of bands ?
17:31 @Ensign_H: The Ergodic part just means they are doing a double smoothed moving average in both the numerator and the denominator.
17:31 @Ensign_H: The numerator is the candle body (C-O), and the denominator is the bar range (H-L). The article shows the formula, and the DYO implementation.
17:32 @Ensign_H: Line A of the DYO deserves a little extra explanation. It reads Bar Value | Close + # and the # field shows -[$O]
7:33 @Ensign_H: A recent improvement to the program was to do look ups of bar values like we can do look ups of global variables in the number field.
17:33 @Ensign_H: So the Number field can have 3 types of entries:
17:34 @Ensign_H: 1) a number entered as a number, example 5.0000 is the number five as the field value.
7:34 @Ensign_H: 2) a global variable value can be used as the number, and the entry is the GV index in square brackets, example [1] looks up the number value for the field from the Global Variable [1]. [1] might have a value like 10.50 - in which case the number used is 10.50 when the field shows [1]
17:35 @Ensign_H: 3) a bar value can be looked up by using the square brackets like the GV but include a $ with the letter. So [$O] looks up the bar's Open price.
The following bar values can be inserted.
[$S] Chart symbol
[$O],[$H],[$L],[$C] Bar Open, High, Low, Close
[$V],[$T] Bar Volume, Tick Count
[$N],[$R] Bar Net, Range
[$%] (C - L) / (H - L)
[$I] Bar Index
[$M] Chart time frame
[$P]
Leverage to convert points to $
17:37 @Ensign_H: the - sign is the negative operator - so the minus will subtract
17:37 @Ensign_H: The Close is going to add the number field value, and the number is the negative Open price, which accomplishes a subtraction in this case.
7:38 @Ensign_H: so the line is Close + a negative Open price = Close - Open math
17:38 @Ensign_H: Thus line A is getting the C-O part of the ergodic candle formula
7:39 @Ensign_H: Line B does an average of Line A using 5 parameter
17:39 @Ensign_H: Line C does an average of the average of line B using a 26 parameter.
7:39 @Ensign_H: So lines A, B and C accomplish the numerator portion of the formula and then we do the same thing for the double average of the range for the denominator. The numerator and denominator are parked in global variables so they can be divided on Line G to give final formula result and plotted.
7:41 @Ensign_H: You can scroll the viewer down to see another example, the Average True Range Channel example which was the subject of a Futures magazine article a couple years ago.
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/dyo3.htm#Adaptive
17:42 @Ensign_H: I did the Adaptive Average example that has been on some user's wish list for a couple years.
17:43 @Ensign_H: This is basically an exponential moving average where the averaging parameter changes or adapts to the momentum of the price action.
7:44 @Ensign_H: The momentum using a summation of the absolute values of the Net
17:44 @Ensign_H: I think my implementation is correct and the line that is plotted looks realistic for a moving average.
7:45 @Ensign_H: I do not fully understand why the author chooses to use some of the values, such as 0.6022 and 0.0645 in the formula - where those came from I do not know
17:46 @Ensign_H: again, you can download the template for use with the 03-09 Beta version and have to tool as a study if you want this new study.
17:46 @Ensign_H: Because we are getting to have so many templates implementing all these new ideas, we added a new feature in Ensign to help manage the templates you are accumulating.
17:47 @Ensign_H: We added 7 more template folders named \Template2 though \Template8 Each folder will relate to a new tab button on the Templates panel.
17:48 @Ensign_H: the template panel shows 8 tabs. Clicking a tab shows the templates in that tab's folder.
17:48 @Ensign_H: The 1st tab is the current \Template folder you have always had.
17:49 @Ensign_H: If you want to organize your templates, we provided two white arrow buttons you can use to move a template to a neighboring folder.
17:49 @Ensign_H: For example the picture show the WoodieCCI3 template is selected, and it is now in folder 1 - it can be moved to folder 2 (tab 2) by clicking the right white arrow button. or it can be moved to folder 8 by clicking the left white arrow button.
17:50 @Ensign_H: some possible uses of the different folders is to put all templates from Ensign in a single folder. Use another folder for the template you have designed and are finished. Use another folder for templates you are still working on and not finished. Use another folder to templates you get from other users, such as from the folks in the B-Line chat room or dacharts web site... or break them out alphabetically, or possibly by the symbol the were designed for.
17:52 @Ensign_H: how you organize them is up to you...at least the feature is there for those who now have hundreds of templates to manage
7:54 @Ensign_H: the reason for saving as a template is the DYO might be referencing other studies and you should distribute the other studies too so the references to the other studies does not become a broken link in the DYO property form.
17:55 TOC: @Ensign_H, great enhancements Howard....as usual
17:57 @Buffy2: If anyone wishes a template made available to friend they may email the template to me and I will upload it to the template/charts folder in archives - it would be nice to also include a link to the posted chart that goes with it
17:57 @Ensign_H: how about it buffy, do you know if we should try to implement on the Template panel an upload button to send the template .Dat and .Doc files to your dacharts site???? (Looks like this is coming at some point in the future.)
17:58 @Ensign_H: so we need to be grateful to dacharts for this wonderful resource.
18:00 @Ensign_H: rice, possibly use a separate folder for those templates that are a building block with the Replace unchecked
18:00 TOC: Rice, have mine broken down like that...makes refinement easier and then rebuilding is a snap
www.ensignsoftware.com/help/woodies.htm
:01 @Ensign_H: one last thing about templates, this user submitted a great template for Woodie CCI concepts
18:01 drwar: Howard I can ask a question on the Degrees used on this template ?
18:02 @Ensign_H: we have a page on web site for the picture and discussion and the template can be downloaded using Internet Services too.
18:06 @Buffy2: the quicktips section is up to 81 posts with lots of information in there - thanks to those that contributed
8:10 tt2: Are the chart beeps, not alert beeps, supposed to sound on each tick or just changes in price? I'd prefer they beep on all ticks and not just price changes if possible
18:10 @Ensign_H: ok, lets handle questions this way - put the cursor on your name in the list on the right - right mouse click and select the Long color selection to make your nickname green and then I will call on you to post your question
18:11 taku: can we ask a question about that last template. I found that sometimes the degree numbers are right on the money. but upon review it appears that the angles need to be computed on a fewer number of bars. not only will the 34 ema shown by woodie be correct but also the total shown in the Sidewinder. but at other times way out of line. Packard has also made some other improvements which he will forward when he gets the degrees corrected as much as possible. the degree can not be expected to be the exact same as woodies.
18:12 @Ensign_H: tt2, alert beeps will be on each price change.
18:12 tt2: ty
8:13 @Ensign_H: if you press CTRL-P and uncheck the Optimize Speed check box then they will be on every tick - the Optimize Speed option saves recalculate cycles for ticks at the same price
18:13 tt2: wow double thanks, I like that trick
18:13 @Ensign_H: we figure you will not have any change in formulas or graphics on a equal price tick, so that is what the option does, either skips or executes study recalculations
18:14 @Ensign_H: we encourage Optimize Speed to be checked so the CPU processing of recalculating for an equal price tick does not happen because are not going to see any change on the screen
18:15 @Ensign_H: ok drwar, your turn
18:15 drwar: Howard I have a question on what is being calculated as degrees or angle on the woody CCI template. I am looking to just calculate the angle of any indicator, like a ma or stoch. but I find the angles all over the place using that template.
18:15 drwar: So I don't understand it
18:15 @Ensign_H: I do not know about the CCI template without studying it.
18:15 drwar: OK
18:16 @Ensign_H: basically there are 2 selections for degrees for the DYO
18:16 @Ensign_H: the one selection is related to the framework seen if you put on a Pyrapoint draw tool
18:16 drwar: That's what the woodie template uses
18:16 @Ensign_H: the pyrapoint has a parameter for Degrees of rotation which affects the vertical interval of the horizontal line spacing
18:17 @Ensign_H: you want to adjust adjust this parameter until the diagonal lines are good looking channels for the price to walk up and down - when it looks good, you have the right setting
18:18 @Ensign_H: buffy reshow the picture of the pyrapoint you posted at start of class please.
18:18 @Ensign_H: now if the diagonals are 45 degrees, the DYO selection for degrees based on pyrapoint will use the same method of calculation and a study line that is moving parallel to one of the pyrapoint diagonal lines will be declared to be 45 degrees or minus 45 degrees and of course when it is going horizontal it will be at zero degrees.
18:19 @Ensign_H: in buffy example the diagonals really encase the trends as great channel lines.
18:20 drwar: So if the pyrapoint tool is not correctly setup the angles will be funky ?
18:20 @Ensign_H: now the other selection for degrees is protractor degrees.
18:20 @Ensign_H: this setting is just using a protractor to make the reading, what you see is what you get. This of course is subject to the price scale and bar spacing changes. If you change either the line you are reading degrees for will either increase or decrease in steepness - this means the protractor angle changes
18:22 drwar: Is there anyway to lock or set the bar spacing and price spacing for the dyo ?
18:22 @Ensign_H: I do not like values that are determined by the arbitrary selection of scale range and bar spacing - so I prefer to have a mathematical Pyrapoint basis for the calculation so degrees returns the same value independent of the scale range or bar spacing I happen to be using at the time.
18:22 @Ensign_H: however, the other is not a bad quickie
18:23 drwar: I was using the woodie template and was watching the angle go positive and negative while the line slope was obviously negative
18:23 @Ensign_H: and often the scale range you end up using is pretty close to the pyrapoint 45 degree lines.
18:23 @Ensign_H: in the example buffy posted this is the case
18:23 @Ensign_H: the pyrapoint lines are 45 degrees mathematically and happen to be near 45 degrees on a protractor too - so either selection would return similar degrees values on that particular chart.
8:24 drwar: I will have to play with it now that I understand more about what is going on.
18:24 @Ensign_H: you can lock bar spacing to price scale by using the Scale Mode of Square Chart found on the chart property from
18:25 @Ensign_H: press CTRL-P keys to see property form
8:25 @Ensign_H: you need to have a good ratio for the 45 degree definition in points per bar for that setting. And the pts/bar parameter for the square chart mode is entered in a box in the scale mode area.
18:26 drwar: what do you consider a good ratio? Tks
8:29 @Ensign_H: drwar, ratio all depend on the chart in use.... for ES intra-day try 0.50 or 1.00 as the points per bar
8:29 @Ensign_H: ratio for squaring a chart is typically some multiple of the unit the symbol ticks in for a minimum tick size.
8:26 @Ensign_H: ok lets move on to Hobo3, your turn
18:26 hobo3: on the 1st template today, can you change from bands to channels? ie a fib channel
www.ensignsoftware.com/tips/tradingtips63.htm#Volatility
18:27 hobo3: is the curved line? as a choice?
18:27 @Ensign_H: I see I showed one type of marker on the chart example and yet the DYO form shows another type of marker...sorry about that confusion
18:27 @Ensign_H: to make the plot look line a channel, use the marker shown on the DYO Line G. I had it as a channel most of the time when I was developing it...makes a great channel
8:28 hobo3: great thanks, this is great
18:28 @Ensign_H: all you do is edit the Marker selection on line G to be the curve line (bottom of the marker list) instead of the horizontal short line.
18:28 hobo3: I got it
18:29 @Ensign_H: ok Randy your turn for Q&A
18:30 Randy_NC: Lets say I 'm an IB user, If someone emails me a file (built from Esignal's Data source) can I change that file name to the IB format and continue to add (build) data to this file?
:30 @Ensign_H: yes randy, all Ensign data files are interchangable with other users regardless of the data source or the time zone in which they live.,
18:30 Randy_NC: Sweet.. thx
18:31 @Ensign_H: The files we post on our Data Library are an example of that... makes no difference to Ensign where the user lives or how the file was created from one of the supported data suppliers.
18:31 @Ensign_H: the file is a file..... all intra-day and tick bars are time stamped with the Seconds from Jan 1st 1970 using Eastern zone time.
18:32 Randy_NC: any back data for the Spot markets?
18:32 @Ensign_H: we then change the visual of the hours on the chart time grid for the time zone you prefer to see and as selected on the Setup | Computer form. But internally, we do all calculations using a standard zone of Eastern
18:32 @Ensign_H: sorry, I do not have spot market data.
8:37 @Ensign_H: TOC your turn
18:37 TOC: @Ensign_H, regarding the Volatility Bands DYOS...it appears the calculation is being done for the current bar, but doesn't that calculation really apply to the next bar...so would it be possible to shift the results one bar to the right?
18:38 @Ensign_H: correct, the S&R level is to apply to the next bar - the way to shift it all right one bar is to change the bar offsets in the DYO all to -1 - which can be a bit tricky
8:38 @Ensign_H: I think the example is sufficient as presented but you get the idea to calculate for this bar, do readings for prior bar values and averages. I have not tried it myself, so not sure if some issue comes into play in so doing
18:40 taku: I find that changing the value of line b Momentum line A(#) in your degree computation had little change to the degree number. so my thought is the line "a "study value for the moving average is for to long of a time period. is there a way to choose a shorter time frame for the moving avg. Also can the two number blocks for 20 degrees be removed. they look like they are not used any where. other than to paint the screen
18:41 @Ensign_H: taku, which template are you talking about?
18:42 taku: your degree from two weeks ago...protractor.
18:42 @Ensign_H: sorry I do not remember 2 weeks ago as well as you do, show me a picture please
18:46 taku: I posted I hope the class session that had the new candles in it. do I need to post again.
18:47 @Ensign_H: ok taku, here is picture of the DYO you are asking about, now which Line do you want help with?
18:47 @Ensign_H: Line A is the 34 EMA study
18:47 @Ensign_H: Line B is a 1 bar momentum, so it is just the slope of the last line segment of the EMA study line.
18:47 taku: line B changed do not seem to make much difference to the degree - have tried 10 and others....have tried 10 and other numbers.
18:48 @Ensign_H: Line B number can make a huge difference
18:48 @Ensign_H: just a matter of coincidence if the change made little difference
18:49 @Ensign_H: this example worked will on a particular chart because the Pyrapoint degree parameters were set to 1.4062 which may be wholly inappropriate for use on another chart or even same symbol but different time frame...to make the template more generalized, you can have the number fields on Lines E and I be 0.0000 and then Ensign will realize you are asking for Ensign to make a best guess selection like we do with Pyrapoint when tool is first applied.
18:51 taku: thanks
18:52 @Ensign_H: welcome....