Drawing Tools - new Beta

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
Nick
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Drawing Tools - new Beta

Postby Nick » 05 Jun 2007

Well Done getting the new beta out - we appreciate it.

I am not sure how to put this tactfully - I am still enormously disappointed with the Drawing tools in MC. I am not sure how to convey how extreme this feeling is. This is the worst implementation of a set of drawing tools I have ever used (and I have used many many packages since the good old DOS days). Even TS (which has very poor drawing tools) is better.

Have they even had there overhaul yet? All I can see is the bug that was introduced last version that causes points to 'drop' without releasing the mouse has been fixed. Seems like all the other bugs that I have painstakingly reported over the last couple of years are still there? Also none of the small improvements that have been suggested by numerous people seem to have found there way in.

Let me give my top 3 wish list :-

1) More options for 'mirroring/refelecting lines'. Allow all tools where mirroring makes sense (most of them) to have reflections both +ve and -ve at the same time. And 'internal' divisions (50% 75% etc) Pitchforks in particular need this along with warning lines and lines P0 -> P1. P0 -> P2. with options to extend these lines. Pitchforks need lots of love.

2) Adopt the drawing method mentioned here http://forum.tssupport.com/viewtopic.php?t=3510 essentially left click place a point right click cancel a point. You could add shift click to snap as an option while you are at it so that its easy to snap some points and not others.

3) Introduce drawing templates (see Ensign) for object properties. (probably in a tab at the bottom of the properties dialogue. This would allow people to for example set up fib retracements just using major numbers in one colour. Gann style retracements using different styles and Fib retracements with minor numbers in different colours. You could quickly switch between them by applying another style template.

4) yeah I know I said 3 but if you ever have nothing to do :wink: (i.e. longer term) add lots more properties to drawings - line styles - label styles - endpoint styles etc. etc.

Please Please get the designer &/or developer responsible for drawing tools to spend a couple of hours messing with Ensigns tools. You can download a demo. It will alllow you to see what is possible with a bit of thought and will provide a much better design to use for inspiration than TS (which has hardly changed since 2000I and even supercharts).

There are two main reasons that Ensign has the largest number of subscribers when it comes to independent charting software. Firstly the large range of novel and unique built in studies. Obviously the huge range of public domain easylanguage studies will allow MC to give a run for the money here. Secondly is the wide range of easy to use flexible drawing tools they also have the bonus of a vast number of styles and attributes that can be use. As it is now MC can not compete with anything n this arena.

I honestly believe that a modest amount of development time in this area is likely to reap a much greater reward in terms of customers gained than things like genetic optimisation. After all what professional is going to use MC for this when you can't even filter out errant data from holidays or spikes? People wanting to go down this path are unlikely to choose MC anyway. Smartquant, Neoticker or coding your own (maybe using libraries) is much more likely.

Multicharts is charting software (according to your home page). Please devote time to making it good at drawing charts.

I hope you take this in the spirit is meant...to offer constructive criticism.

Thanks
Nick.

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Postby Pipscalper » 05 Jun 2007

I fully agree with Nick. Tssupport do yourself a favour and take a trial with Ensign, the drawing possibilities are one off the best, and if you can incorporate such drawing abilities in MC ,your software would be one of the best.

regards

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Postby Nick » 06 Jun 2007

Thanks pip,

I have to say I laughed out loud when I tried the new fib projections tool. I guess its better than crying.

Fib projections, Trend channels, and Andrews pitchforks all require A,B,C points to draw. These points are entered differently for every single one.

Now I don't know if you are hiring and firing programmers each week or the guy that produced it has multiple personality dis-order but didn't someone with a clue use the thing before it went out the door?

Words are starting to fail me what are you guys playing at? How do you expect to be taken seriously? I had already pointed out that channels and pitchforks work differently. (on 4 or 5 ocasions) Jesus give me strength. BTW pitchforks still completely lose the first click it does absolutely nothing. Then Andrew tries to claim this is working as intended. Is Andrew doing Quality Assurance(QA)?

Come on guys I know you are working hard and all but some of these things would be far easier to do right than wrong. Which reminds me if MC is indeed object orientated don't these tools share the same parent? How can this happen?

In summary I fail to see how this can happen from a common sense point of view, a QA point of view, or a OOP point of view. I'm staggered. Really.

Guest

Postby Guest » 06 Jun 2007

TSSUPPORT is started by former TS programmers, you shouldn't expect anything less.



(can't promise anything more though)

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Andrew Kirillov
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Postby Andrew Kirillov » 06 Jun 2007

Nick,
The tone of your statements is indicative of the fact that you have no respect for the developers that spend their time on the cosmetic improvements to the drawing tools that in no way are our priority among other functionalities of the product.
Your continuing in such a tone will not encourage us to meet your wishes of making corrections to the drawings.
We admit that we may not always understand all the peculiarities of how to make the drawings' behavior convenient. That is due to the fact that they aren't our priority.
We cannot understand how can drawing tools turn a loosing trader into a money-making one. In response to your very general statements about doing everything like Ensign does we can recommend you to use Ensign and not use our product again.
If you want proper changes to the drawing tools then please take time to explain in detail how a certain tool should operate and why do you think this will make the tools better than those of TS8. Personally I wouldn't say Ensign's drawings' behavior is better than the TS8's behavior.

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Januson
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Postby Januson » 06 Jun 2007

Nick.. I agree with Andrew.

I don't like your tone either, personally I don't have such strong demands for drawing tools as you apparently have.
I'm more into a better PLEditor and better integration with Easylanguage as TS support.
However I still ask politely and never call the programmers stupid... I've been working as a developer for the last 8 years and have a very good feeling for the effort TSSupport provides into their customers feature request. And I actually think they are doing a great job.

Nick-> And yet none of my requests are full filled, but maybe next time :)

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Postby Guest » 06 Jun 2007

Nick,
The tone of your statements is indicative of the fact that you have no respect for the developers that spend their time on the cosmetic improvements to the drawing tools that in no way are our priority among other functionalities of the product.
Your continuing in such a tone will not encourage us to meet your wishes of making corrections to the drawings.
We admit that we may not always understand all the peculiarities of how to make the drawings' behavior convenient. That is due to the fact that they aren't our priority.
We cannot understand how can drawing tools turn a loosing trader into a money-making one. In response to your very general statements about doing everything like Ensign does we can recommend you to use Ensign and not use our product again.
If you want proper changes to the drawing tools then please take time to explain in detail how a certain tool should operate and why do you think this will make the tools better than those of TS8. Personally I wouldn't say Ensign's drawings' behavior is better than the TS8's behavior.
Nick's tone may not be polite... but Andrew you must understand that customers have put up with some frustrations for a long time.....

Its not up to you to define what features will make a losing feature a profitable one..... i for one find the backtesting a waste of effort.. i prefer better UI.. better charting tools.. better data management facilities ( which MC lacks now )
But there'll be others who find backtesting essential.. and i respect that.

Any feature as long as they are provided have to be of a certain usable standard... you cannot just because customers complain hide behind the excuse that they are low priority to justify the lack of usability.....

Lastly you as a product provider do not have the right to ask customers to leave your product ...are you going to do a refund ? IF you want to make money selling a product.. this are just some of the things you have to put up with.. even if some of the complains are deem unreasonable to you.. if you cannot take the heat then don't enter the kitchen.

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Postby Nick » 07 Jun 2007

I sincerly apologise if I have caused offense, that was not my intention. I did however want to try and convey how frustrating some of these things are and try to get you to see things that are glaringly obvious to some of your users but appear not to be to you guys.

I would say that my tone on the whole has been polite however as the years drag by and the same things are not dealt with I find it harder and harder to not put things bluntly. I am no longer 'sugar coating' things but I am trying hard to not be rude. Again I apologise if I have been.

It is hugely hugely frustrating when what has potential to be a great product is let down by so many infuriating little bugs and features which are just not quite implemented right, with just a small bit of polish many things could be great rather than mediocre or poor. It would be foolish to ignore the facts that I (and many other users) have presented just because of the tone they are presented in btw.

I started with a great deal of respect for MC and the developers. I still respect what you are trying to do however as I am sure you know respect is earned. As I have said before if I didn't care (and quite passionately) about MC I would simply leave it and move on. (I know some sad people enjoy 'bashing' things I can assure you I don't). Actually I suspect a lot of early adopters have already moved on. I dont see the same guys in the forum any more.

I have spend many many hours in the past testing things and emailing details of issues or improvements that could be made to Alex or Stanley. I tend not to bother now as when well reasoned, well researched, well tested, observations are dismissed in a sentence that hardly shows respect either. This is an important point you have raised however. If MC is not respected by its customers it will fail. If Tssupport do not respect there customers it will fail. So lets show some respect all round. Probably a group hug moment hehe.

A lot of the stuff is not just cosmetic btw but let me ask which would you rather drive? A Ferrari where the gear knob came off in your hands, the windscreen wipers sometimes didnt work, the headlights pointed into the hedge, oil leaked if you parked on a hill. - Or - a nice Toyota saloon that worked flawlessly. I'm not sure that was a great illustration but you see where I am coming from. On the same subject, you only get one chance to influence peoples firsts impressions. First impressions are pretty important.

Andrew, we all want the same thing here a top class product. I am trying to be particularly polite now and hope you will take this in good spirit. To dismiss users views (which I have noticed on a few threads) is not going to help achieve this. Also it is your prerogative what you work on and when you do it (if indeed ever) but from a commercial point of view I would have thought you would want to sell as many licences as possible. That really should dictates what gets attention not your feeling towards particular customers.

At least read that first post carefully about what makes Ensign commercially succesful. I appreciate that MC follows a slightly different model but there are lesson to be learnt from Ensigns success. I am 100% confident you would sell more units if you made improvements in some of the areas I have suggested.

Finally I apologise to all the users who have been patiently waiting for drawing tools to get a very needed overhaul. I hope I haven't set the cause back to far.

Cheers,
Nick.

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Postby Nick » 07 Jun 2007

Hi Andrew (again :) )

BTW I would just like to clarify am not and have not suggested 'making everything like Ensign'!! I do think by examining how there drawing tools are implemented you would gain insight and inspiration. Similarly looking at say Neoticker would yield some great ideas (things like there tick precise technology and tick replay for example). They also allow you to 'program' custom drawing tools in script language but that's another story.

Myself and other users have made several suggestions on how drawing tools could be enhanced a search here should reveal some. The first post in this thread gives a couple. I could expand on them if they are not clear?

Incidentally Tim Morge who was head trader at First National Bank of Chicago and now manages Blackthorn Capital uses simple drawing tools (Mainly Andrews but I believe some fib now). Victor Sperandeo, (trader Vic) who managed some phenomenally successful funds (I think he runs Alpha Capital now) and is a highly respected trader, uses trend lines with simple swing high swing low price patterns. The list is pretty endless. Actually I would hazard a guess that most of the 'big boys' either use some sort of quantitative analysis or basic supply/demand stuff which is well described by lines/channels and support/resistance.

At the end of the day isn't it about providing a feature set that will attract customers and sell copies rather than whether trading against lines works for you or me or anyone else for that matter?

Cheers,
Nick.

Guest

Postby Guest » 07 Jun 2007

Nick,
The tone of your statements is indicative of the fact that you have no respect for the developers that spend their time on the cosmetic improvements to the drawing tools that in no way are our priority among other functionalities of the product.
Your continuing in such a tone will not encourage us to meet your wishes of making corrections to the drawings.
We admit that we may not always understand all the peculiarities of how to make the drawings' behavior convenient. That is due to the fact that they aren't our priority.
We cannot understand how can drawing tools turn a loosing trader into a money-making one. In response to your very general statements about doing everything like Ensign does we can recommend you to use Ensign and not use our product again.
If you want proper changes to the drawing tools then please take time to explain in detail how a certain tool should operate and why do you think this will make the tools better than those of TS8. Personally I wouldn't say Ensign's drawings' behavior is better than the TS8's behavior.
I, along with many users, believe you and your team have put in a valiant effort to develop this product.

We want you to be successful. Nobody wants to invest in a trading platform, just to see it disappear in a few years. Your success is our success.

Nick has many good contributions. He has pointed out areas that are overlooked by you, and by many users.

Maybe you can host a conference of all interested parties ? (on Skype or vyew to start?)

You would never know, one day, this conference might become the size of MacWord or the like ?

I think this is the beginning of something good... something big... and something exciting.

I am looking forward to a long and prosperous relationship with MultiCharts.

Guest

Postby Guest » 07 Jun 2007

Nick,...In response to your very general statements about doing everything like Ensign does we can recommend you to use Ensign and not use our product again....
that's not a very good attitude.
you can set the product's features, you can tell people certain features will be in this product, certain features will not be in this product... but you can't tell a customer to take a hike. This is a no no.

nick and all the customers deserve an apologize from you.

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Postby Nick » 09 Jun 2007

Andrew,

I re-read your post after leaving it a few days so I could approach it fresh and level headed. Unfortunately it still appears ill informed and offensive.

I find it offensive that you dismiss the hundreds of words I have written with detailed suggestions and ideas as vague and general, further you dismiss them in single sentence.

I find offensive that you tell me to abandon a product I have invested money and 100's of hours work with.

I find it offensive and laughable that you resort to attack me as a trader rather than deal with the valid issues I have raised. (the quip about drawing tools not turning a losing trader into a winner)

I really have only one question doe what you said represent the view of TSSuport or is it your personal view? Who runs TSsuport is it Dennis, I'll call on Monday to discuss the matter and whether TS are prepared to offer a refund if you really no longer want my custom.

I have to say having invested so much in MC its not really the path I want to go down but c'cest la vie.

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Andrew Kirillov
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Postby Andrew Kirillov » 10 Jun 2007

I believe my reply will be final in this thread since I don’t think it makes sense to continue.

1. My statements reflect opinion of the company.
2. You disrespectfully treat our labor and staff on this forum which is not moderated to listen to all opinions but it seems it is too much.
3. We put lots of efforts and made dozens of improvements in drawings, but all we get is mockery. It looks like we spend significant efforts and time for nothing.
4. You make statements that are not true. It is obvious for anyone that our drawings tools are not best, but not worst as well as TS tools are not bad (at least).
5. We don’t believe that our current drawing tools don’t allow you to analyze markets. It was out point when we were talking about your trading success. So most of things you said are just personal attitude.
6. We are not going to copy Ensign drawings, because we think it is not a way to go.
7. If you are not going to provide useful, well-founded feedback instead of emotional criticisms we are not going to continue collaboration.
8. You have no moral and legal right to request a refund for the product you have been using for years. Moreover we invested thousands of $$$ to make it right for you, but you are dissatisfied. I assume you will be always dissatisfied.

Guest

Postby Guest » 10 Jun 2007

I re-read Nick's post. I don't think he is disrepectful, on the contrary he was being very helpful to MC.

What MultiChart needs is a ticket system, where each issue is logged and dealt with independently.

MultiChart should make a stand on each requested issue, whether MC will accept it as a point to follow up, or to dismiss it as something that MC will not implement. (i.e. case closed.)

This forum is not a healthy environment to discuss a product's development. 99% of the issues raised are not acknowledge. They might have been dealt with or fixed at some later point, but they were NOT acknowledged when first raised, which creates customer uncertainty and frustration.


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