SSChart™ - Quick Start

Setting up a Chart

Select { File | New } from the menu or select the New icon from the toolbar. This will open a new chart with no symbol assigned. The default chart type is "daily" , but this can be modified with { Chart | Properties }. Any time you enter a new symbol in a chart, either in the chart properties dialog, or using the shortcut of just typing a symbol in a selected chart, the program will attempt to retrieve to the data requested. This may cause it to connect to the internet site currently configured for retrieving historic data for the selected time unit (days, weeks, etc.). Depending upon your networking configuration this may initiate dialing, if you are configured for dial-up networking and have no current connection. If the connection can not be made, it may take up to two minutes for the program to "time-out" and give up trying. With your internet connection established, type any stock symbol in the chart and hit <enter>, at this point data will be downloaded and displayed.

Retrieving Data

Each time a new symbol is typed in a chart, the program first checks for data previously downloaded and saved in the .\Data directory. If there is any data for this symbol it is loaded. If the { Data | Auto Update } menu item is selected (checked) it will attempt to bring the data up to date with the latest available.

You can also manually initiate the update with { Data | Update }, or { <right click> | Update }.

The "update" operation attempts to retrieve data from the last day you already have, forward to today or whatever date is set in the {Chart | Properties }.

The { Chart | Reload } operation, discards previously retrieved data and attempts to refetch the full range requested by { Chart | Properties }.


About Retrieved Data

All data suppliers disclaim any responsibility for the accuracy of the data. This includes the live data streams you pay for, and even data feeds direct from the exchange. You should double check any data with multiple sources before relying upon it to make trading decisions. We do not offer trading advice, any decisions you make in this regard are yours alone.

Setting up Studies

There are three available display panes to each chart. By default, only the top pane is visible. The volume information will display in the bottom pane, to make this visible select { View | Bottom Pane }. Other Studies are selected with the { Studies } menu. Each study has a default group it belongs to for purposes of routing it to the desired pane for display. Experiment with the pane selections under { Chart | Properites } to get what you want. This area is still undergoing further development so some changes may occur between releases.


Setting Data Sources for Retrieval

The { Data | Data Sources } menu item can be used to select from available data sources. Note different sources may update their data at different times, and at any given time there may be errors. We have noted missing days on some sources, that get filled in after a few days, etc. If you do not seem to be getting good results from one source, try one of the others available. If you find additional web sites offering historic stock price data in either HTML or download format (usually denoted as spreadsheet download format), let us know the URL and we will attempt to add configurations for these sites to the program.

Setting Colors

The study colors are applied when the studies are created. Other color selections are made under the { Chart | Colors } menu. To change the background color select { Chart | Colors }, highlight the Item "BackGround", and either click the [Color] button or double click the item name. All other items shown may have their colors specified in a similar manner.

Once you have a chart setup to you liking, exit the SSChart program so the setting will be saved. When you restart, the entire layout with custom settings should be restored. This is the easiest way to maintain your chart setup. Type a new symbol in the chart to view a different stock. Another mechanism for saving your settings and applying them to new charts is Chart Favorites.

Chart Favorites

You can now save your favorite chart layouts and save them to a file. Once you have created a couple of favorite charts it is easy to create as many charts with the saved characteristics as you want. Create a chart to your liking and use the { Chart | Add to Favorites } menu item to save the chart settings to a file. The filename you chose will appear as a submenu item under the { Chart } menu the next time you look there. You can now create as many charts of that type as you want by selecting the favorite name from the { Chart } menu.

Printing

Some basic printing capabilites have been added. The chart windows can be printed but they are currently not scaled. The chart image is centered on the page and it's size is dependent on the resolution of the printer and the size of the chart window on the screen. For example, if your chart window on the screen is about 500 x 300 pixels, a resolution of about 100 dpi (dots per inch) on the printer should give a decent printed image. If the image is large (1000 x 800) a resolution of 180 dpi should work. You can view the chart window before you print it with { File | Print Preview }. If it looks OK on the screen it should also look OK on the printer.

Note that the chart window is colored in the Print Preview window. If you have a black and white printer and use candlesticks in your charts, then the up candles will print with a black outline and the down candles will print solid black. Also note that printing is disabled if the background is any other color than white.

Hints & Shortcuts

Use the favorites feature:

First and most important, after you configure a chart to look the way you like it, save it as a named favorite by selection { Chart | Add to Favorties }, it will be saved as a named file with the .fav extension in the FAVORITE directory and also its name will appear under the { Chart } menu. You will then save yourself the tedium of setting everything up again for a new chart of this type.

You can set a favorite as the default chart that gets created when you press the { File | New } or { Chart | New } button or the New icon from the toolbar. To do this, select { Edit | Favorites }, select the chart from the list you want to be the default, check the Set as default box and press [OK].

Load new symbols into the same chart

Whenever any chart window is the current window, you can just start typing a new stock symbol on the keyboard. The symbol appears in the upper left corner of the window while you type. When you hit the <enter> key, the program attempts to load data for the new symbol. You can open as many windows as you like, but each one takes up memory resources. Rather than opening 100 different charts for 100 different stocks, I tend to open 3 or 4 with different time frames, then type in new symbols in these.

Symbol List Files

An even better shortcut for scrolling through all the stocks you are interested in has just been added to release 1.30. This makes use of a symbol list file. A symbol list file is a simple text file containing only stock symbols, one per line.

To create a symbol list file:

Use Notepad to create the file (or another text editor). The file format needs to be plain text, do not use word doc format, as this contains binary information. (You can use Word however if you save the file as text with line breaks). Enter your symbols, one on each line, and do not enter any other text. Everything in the file will be treated as a stock symbol.

Save the file with the extension .slf (symbol list file) in the DATA subdirectory under where you installed SSChart.

To use a symbol file:

Select { File | Open } and set the Files of type field to .slf files. Find the file you saved and open it. The main window status line at the bottom of the main window should display a message indicating the file was loaded. (You can also see this message in the status message window, which will magically appear if you hit F4).

What it does for you:

Now for the neat part. Make any chart window your currently selected chart (i.e.; click on one of your charts so it becomes the active chart). You can now scroll through your list of stock symbols you loaded by using the <Page up>, <Page Down>, < Home>, and <End> keys on the keyboard.

Page Down loads the next symbol from the list into the chart
Page Up loads the previous
Home loads the first
End loads the last

When you first open the symbol list file, it does not affect the current chart. Start by hitting the [Home] key to load the first symbol from the list, then scroll through the rest with [Page Down].

Currently only one symbol list file at a time can be in use. If you open a new list file, it replaces the one previously open as the current list.

(We expect to be expanding on this feature in a later version of SSChart.)

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Copyright (c) 1999 Simian Savants LLC. All rights reserved
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