Volume Profile Usability  [SOLVED]

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
davewolfs
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Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 06 Mar 2013

A couple of usability issues.

1. Dependent on tick data. Why? If there are only minute bars use them. Yes the profile will not be as accurate but it is still useful.
2. Users should be able to display multiple profiles of different durations on the same chart. Eg, Daily, Weekly, Monthly or user defined profile. Give user a button where they can easily turn off/on these different profiles.
3. Allow user to set width and direction of profile.
4. Allow users to break up profiles into different sessions and have both be displayed on the chart eg. Daily and Overnight.

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arnie
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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby arnie » 07 Mar 2013

A couple of usability issues.

1. Dependent on tick data. Why? If there are only minute bars use them. Yes the profile will not be as accurate but it is still useful.
2. Users should be able to display multiple profiles of different durations on the same chart. Eg, Daily, Weekly, Monthly or user defined profile. Give user a button where they can easily turn off/on these different profiles.
3. Allow user to set width and direction of profile.
4. Allow users to break up profiles into different sessions and have both be displayed on the chart eg. Daily and Overnight.
1 - MC will on the near future build profiles based on minute data.
2 - You are able to to this using multiple data series. Not the best of ways but you're able to to it very seamlessly.
3 - Width and direction? Are you talking about draw it on the left or the right of the session the and actual width of each price block? Those options are available since day one.
4 - Again, use a second data series if you want to have an ETH and a RTH profile with different colors for better reading. If you don't need the profile to have different colors then just create a session template where you set the two sessions time periods, ETH and RTH. For example, using central time:
  • Sunday - 1700 Monday - 830
    Monday - 830 Monday - 1515
    Monday - 1700 Tuesday - 830
and so forth...

When applying a profile per each session you will get one for the ETH and another for the RTH.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 07 Mar 2013

I don't deny the base functionality is there, but there is a difference from software that does thing and software that does them well.

Some more points.

1. When adding multiple timeframes to the charts the profiles will overlay the existing bars. Not usable.
2. Using multiple data series is a cumbersome way to do this. Why can't I define my profile settings and have a seamless way to turn them on or off? If product management needs a good example, they should trial IRT.
3. When using a multiple session look back profile on a minute based chart, the height of the profile does not cover the min/max height of the previous n sessions, this is a bug.

I don't think that implementing these would be very difficult and it would make a huge difference in terms of usability.

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arnie
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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby arnie » 07 Mar 2013

I don't deny the base functionality is there, but there is a difference from software that does thing and software that does them well.

Some more points.

1. When adding multiple timeframes to the charts the profiles will overlay the existing bars. Not usable.
2. Using multiple data series is a cumbersome way to do this. Why can't I define my profile settings and have a seamless way to turn them on or off? If product management needs a good example, they should trial IRT.
3. When using a multiple session look back profile on a minute based chart, the height of the profile does not cover the min/max height of the previous n sessions, this is a bug.

I don't think that implementing these would be very difficult and it would make a huge difference in terms of usability.

I've used IRT for many months. I know how it works and I know the differences between them.
MC decided to do things a bit differently.

1 - you can change the visual order of the profiles/bars, sending them back or bring them to front.
2 - again, MC decided to do things a bit different. Volume profile in embedded inside the instrument settings, it's not a separate study. If it was then you could do with it what you do on IRT but in here you do things a bit differently.
3 - I'm almost certain that it's not. What you're mentioning is related to the width of the volume block, it's a visual thing. Half of the volume block will fall outside the max and min of the session, giving the notion that it's not measuring those prices correctly but if you plot the Price Range line and stretch the price scale price you will see that they are indeed correct.

Adding a second or third data series to plot different session templates or even plotting on the same chart daily, weekly and monthly profiles is not a big deal, it's just different from what others do. You get the same results.

The problem comes with the custom profiles and here I agree with you, multiple data series is not a solution for it. Like I already said on the forum, sooner or later MC will need to add the manual profile tool so we can just draw the profile wherever we want on the chart.
And for this to happen, users really need to step in and start requesting it because if there's no demand for it then it makes no sense spending resources and money in developing it.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 07 Mar 2013

A general tool where one could draw and get something like volume or delta between a specific range would be useful.

For some reason before plotting multiple sessions was definitely not covering the range, it seems to be fine now.

Within the profile there should be an option for coloring and options on VAH and VAL rather than just value area, these should be treated differently. The work around is to use extended for Value Area.

The visual ordering works quite well. Didn't see that.

I thing the biggest thing here is being able to easily disable a profile without having to go through 3 menus. A drop down or button linking to the profile of choice to disable/enable would be good. Obviously adding the ability to use minute data or whatever periodicity is available is important.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 07 Mar 2013

Adding to this. On instruments like EUR/USD profile is barely visible.

Also, there is a setting for hologram, if set to 100 on ES, shows a line around the profile with nothing inside of it (I use this for my weekly+ profiles). If I try this on EUR/USD it display completely differently.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby arnie » 07 Mar 2013

Adding to this. On instruments like EUR/USD profile is barely visible.

Also, there is a setting for hologram, if set to 100 on ES, shows a line around the profile with nothing inside of it (I use this for my weekly+ profiles). If I try this on EUR/USD it display completely differently.
Can you post an image of the chart and of your settings for the profile? It would facilitate to see what is happening.

By the way, are you plotting total volume or buy x sell volume?
When you say Eur/Usd are you talking about spot forex, right?

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 07 Mar 2013

ES and 6E.
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ES.png
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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby arnie » 07 Mar 2013

ES and 6E.
Yes, I did have that same problem as you.
Check Euro decimal places. You have five. There should be only 4.

Check QM settings for the symbol. You got something wrong there.

These are mine:

Image
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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 08 Mar 2013

That helped, so how do we get these changes in front of someone at MC so that they consider improving the volume profile implementation?

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby arnie » 08 Mar 2013

That helped, so how do we get these changes in front of someone at MC so that they consider improving the volume profile implementation?
Well, you can use the forum like you did, exposing your ideas, doubts, but if you want to request very specific features it's preferable to use the Project Management so other users can vote on it.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 09 Mar 2013

Please vote. This is related to being easily able to hide/show profiles.

https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1276
Last edited by davewolfs on 09 Mar 2013, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 09 Mar 2013

Please vote, this is related to adding and removing profiles for different duration.

https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1277

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby davewolfs » 09 Mar 2013

Please vote. Minute bar + TPO (Time Price Oportunity) data.

https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1278

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby waveslider » 14 Mar 2013

I voted for the ability to access volume profile on minute bars.
Also I feel it is critical to be able to access this data from code.
For example, the ability to call a function that would return "Value Area High", "Point of Control", etc.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby arnie » 14 Mar 2013

I voted for the ability to access volume profile on minute bars.
Also I feel it is critical to be able to access this data from code.
For example, the ability to call a function that would return "Value Area High", "Point of Control", etc.
Yes, that would be interesting to have on the regular version since you already have access to it on the .NET version.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability  [SOLVED]

Postby Henry MultiСharts » 15 Mar 2013

Please vote. This is related to being easily able to hide/show profiles.
https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1276
We are going to add a status line button in the next version of MultiCharts.
Please vote, this is related to adding and removing profiles for different duration.
https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1277
We will probably add that in one of the future versions, no ETA yet.
Please vote. Minute bar + TPO (Time Price Oportunity) data.
https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1278
Build Volume Profile out of minute data- we are going to add this functionality in the next version of MultiCharts.

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Re: Volume Profile Usability

Postby andrei » 28 Jul 2014

Please, vote:

MC-1310 - Volume Profile integration with Playback
https://www.multicharts.com/pm/viewissu ... no=MC-1310

allowing users to trade the Playback of previous trading sessions:
MC-362 - Playback Trading, Please

MC-694 - Support of Google Finance - Real-time and Delayed minute Feeds

thx


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