A useful feature.

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
bowlesj3
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A useful feature.

Postby bowlesj3 » 22 Apr 2009

With screen space limited for those of us who use 8 or so charts on our workspace (in my case 10 second bars up through daily bars) a very useful feature which I had submitted to Marina before would be short cut buttons that can expand all subchart #2s on all charts at once to a fixed percentage size. My normal size for subchart #2 which has the RSI is about 33% of the total chart size. If there were three buttons to set all subcharts (let me repeat ALL SUBCHARTS AT ONCE) to either 33% size or 50% size or 100% size that would be a big time saver when you consider just how much work it takes to do that. To make it even better, the ability to select the charts to have this done on. So it would be a little database inside the program which is stored with each workspace. The short cut keys would stay the same and the percentages would stay the same. Only the effected charts would be stored with the workspace. Maybe the trader could adjust the percentages of subchart increase. Maybe if they have two subcharts they could select the one they want to expand and thus maybe another set of 3 buttons could be assigned to this overall idea. As an example ctrl+F1 would do subchart #2 and Alt+F1 would do subchart #3 if the trader has this subchart. If there are plans for these keys then a simple tiny popup tool bar would be the solution. It would stay up if the trader did this often. One added benefit of this is it would help the trader keep all his subchart #2s or #3s at exactly his chosen percentage with a single button sequence.

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arnie
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Postby arnie » 22 Apr 2009

Hi.

Couldn't those buttons be placed near the close button of each subchart?

So imagine that you want to expand your subcharts. You would only need to click in one of the buttons to resize the window at a fixed % of the total chart as you want.

So if you had 2 subcharts you would click on one of the buttons and the chart would resize itself based on your selection.

I've just noticed that MC has a study template :oops: similar to what Metastock does :) .
As far as I could see, when you apply a template, all studies are plotted with the same size, despite the way they were when the template was created.

Maybe one solution would be this template to retain the size of each subchart when it was created. This way we could have always the same size everytime we applied the template.

regards
Fernando

bowlesj3
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Postby bowlesj3 » 22 Apr 2009

Actually having buttons on the chart itself for adjusting subchart sizes quickly for that specific chart is an added idea and a good Idea. I would use that. It does not replace my idea however since I often want to scan the RSI very quickly for patterns and I do not know which chart I will find it on. Therefore I want to scan RSI with the RSI expanded on all charts. Your Idea Fernando I would use if I noticed something after doing the larger scan then I thought of something else and wanted to go back and do a double take on that specific chart.

Thanks,
John.

bowlesj3
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Postby bowlesj3 » 22 Apr 2009

Of note, the only place to put such buttons is in the blue area of the chart window at the very top. I don't know if this is easy to do or not. For me all I need in that area is the symbol, bar size (1min, 5 min, whatever). Some traders may want a short form of where the data is coming from. So to squeeze buttons in this area would require short forms for the source of that data. Currently the long form of "Interactive Brokers" is up there.

Now if it was a tool bar that could be lock in that area this would work.

On second thought if one needs to do a double take they could always just expand the whole thing again. After all, their double take may involve 2 or 3 of the 8 charts they have on their screen.

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Postby bowlesj3 » 24 Apr 2009

Here are some design ideas for this idea that may help if it ever gets on the feature list.

Each workspace would have its own database. The databse would be blank to start. Each row would contain these columns.

Chart name
key assignment (nill as default so no key effects this chart)
subchart #1 and its percentage of total chart space for this key assignment
subchart #2 and its percentage of total chart space for this key assignment
subchart #3 and its percentage of total chart space for this key assignment

Therefore there would be a combo box (drop down) for the chart name field and it would have the list of all charts in the workspace. When the trader selected one it would fill out the key assignment as blank. It would also figure out what subcharts were on that chart and fill them out on that row (probably just unprotect the field pairs depending on what was in that chart).

MC would edit to ensure the percentages for all subcharts always came up to 100%.

They key assignments may be a drop down of a limited range of keys that are resevered for this function. Otherwise maybe buttons #1,#2,#3,#4 on the special tool bar. (or both if they are linked together)

When the trader pressed the key they had chosen (or the tool bar button maybe) the database would be searched and if that chart had that key assigned then all subcharts on that chart would be adjusted to the percentage sizes he/she had chosen.

If the trader changed a chart (added a subchart or removed a subchart) it might set the key assignment as nill or maybe it could present this database and ask for guidance on what to do (only if this chart was in that database).

Thats it, Seems like a no brainer. Give me 5 minutes :-) Okay that is after they hire me and train me for 10 years and give me that superman cape they have. Minor point. :wink:


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