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ADDEND22.TXT
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1995-08-01
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Stable Technical Graphs 2.2
User Manual Addendum Notes
August 1995
Copyright (c) 1990-1995 WINTERRA Software Group, Inc.
This information is provided as an addendum to your User's Manual.
Please keep these notes with your manual for future reference.
New Features and Enhancements
-----------------------------
Several important changes have been made to the program providing
greater usefulness of the product, and correcting bugs found in
previous versions of the product. Information contained within this
file adds to or corrects information in the User Manual 2.0.
Version 2.1 Features
Chart Templates
Group Indicator Selection
Program Startup Group
Program Display Improvements
Chart Configuration Options
Attachments and Drawing Tools
Technical Indicators
Other Program Improvements and Fixes
Version 2.2 Features
Candlestick Charts
Popup Data Window
Daily/Weekly/Monthly Charts
Printing Multiple Charts/Page
Space/Blank Delimited ASCII Files
Tour Guide
Other Program Improvements and Fixes
====================
Version 2.1 Features
====================
Chart Templates (Default Configurations)
----------------------------------------
You can now specify default chart configurations which are used
when you open new charts (charts which have not been previously
saved in a group). The chart configuration represents items such
as chart colors and selected technical indicators.
Default chart configurations can be established at both the program
level, and within your individual financial groups. The default
configuration you specify at the program level will be used when a
new chart is opened in an "untitled" group.
To specify the chart configuration you want to use at the program
level, select or open any chart. Configure the chart as you want
the other new charts to look when they are opened (including any
technical indicators). Then select File/Save Chart As Default...
from the menu. Click the Standard Default button.
To specify the chart configuration you want to use in a particular
group, open or create the group - then select or open any chart.
Configure the chart as you want the other new charts to look when
they are opened (including any technical indicators). Then select
File/Save Chart As Default... from the menu. Click the Group
Default button.
NOTE: The Group Default button is only available when you are
working within an existing group.
Group Indicator Selection
-------------------------
Whenever you select technical indicators for use on a chart, you
can now specify that all the charts in the current group are to be
configured with the same set of indicators. You do this by
clicking the Apply To All Charts button in the technical indicator
dialog. To configure only the current chart, click the Ok button.
NOTE: If a chart within the group cannot support one or more of
the selected indicators you have chosen to be applied, those
indicators will not be included in that chart.
Program Startup Group
---------------------
Generally, you will have one or more financial groups configured
within the program. You can now select any one of your existing
financial groups to be opened when the program starts.
To select the financial group you want opened at program startup,
select Group/Open... from the menu. In the "Group List:" box of
the Open Group dialog, select the name of the group, then press the
Save As Startup Group button. The next time the program is run,
this group will automatically be opened for you.
If you do not want a financial group opened at program startup,
select Group/Open... from the menu. In the Open Group dialog,
press the No Startup Group button. The next time the program is
run, no group will automatically be opened for you.
Program Display Improvements
----------------------------
In an effort to make better use of the display area for your
charts, there have been some changes you should be aware of.
Graph Titles
Graph titles have now been incorporated within the display area of
the associated graph. As a result of this change, much more space
is now available for your technical indicators. Additionally, you
will find that the title now includes a value enclosed within
square brackets. This is the value associated with the last
visible day for that graph.
The Program Toolbar and Status Bar
The program toolbar and status bar can now be individually removed
from the program window. If you normally don't use or need one of
these items, you can reclaim the display space occupied by these
tools for your financial charts.
To selectively add or remove the program toolbar and status bar,
select Options/Toolbar or Options/Status Bar from the menu. These
menu items are toggles represented by the checkmark indicator found
at the left of each item. If a checkmark is present, that tool is
used and visible in the program window. To remove the item, simply
select it. To add the item back to the program's window, select it
again from the menu.
Chart Configuration Options
---------------------------
Additional options have been added to the Chart Configuration
providing greater control over group study and line drawing
methods. The changes have to do with saving group information and
using the line drawing tools.
Program Notification to Save Changed Groups
-------------------------------------------
When any change occurs to a group - such as window resizing, color
changes, additions or the removal of charts - that group is tagged
as "changed". If you move to another group, try to create a new
group, or exit the program, you are automatically notified by the
program that the group has changed - allowing you to save or ignore
the changes you have made.
You now have the option of being notified of group changes by the
program.
To indicate whether you want to be prompted for group changes,
select Options/Chart... from the menu. In the Chart Options
dialog, there is checkbox labeled "Prompt When Group is Changed".
If this selection is checked, you will be notified by the program
that changes to a group have been made. If this selection is not
checked, you will not be notified by the program. In this case,
you are responsible for saving any changes you make to a group.
"Sticky" Line Drawing Mode
--------------------------
When using the line drawing tools (ie., Trend, Vertical,
Horizontal, and Resistance), the tool normally remains in the
selected mode so that you can freely draw to the chart without
having to continually reselect that tool. In some cases, this may
not be the ideal mode of operation.
There is now an option for selecting "sticky" line drawing mode (as
described above), or having the line drawing tool reset immediately
after the line is drawn.
To change the setting of the line drawing mode, select
Options/Chart... from the menu. In the Chart Options dialog, check
the selection labeled "Sticky Line Drawing Mode" to operate in the
default mode, or clear this selection to draw individual lines.
Attachments and Drawing Tools
-----------------------------
There now is an additional feature of the Attachment dialog
providing greater control over the attachments in a graph.
Deleting All Graph Attachments
To date, the program has provided the ability to individually
delete graph attachments. While this worked adequately in many
cases, there are some situations where you want to simply remove
all the attachments in a graph quickly and easily.
To remove all the attachments in a graph, set the focus to the
graph in question by clicking the mouse anywhere within the graph
area, or by pressing the Tab key until the graph is enclosed by a
yellow border. Activate the Attachments dialog by selecting
Graph/Attachments... from the menu, clicking the right-mouse button
within the graph and selecting Attachments... from the popup menu,
or by pressing Ctrl+A. Click the "Delete All" button to remove all
the attachments, or the "Delete" button to remove individually
selected attachments from the list.
Parallel Trend Lines
In addition to the Trend, Horizontal, Vertical, and Speed
Resistance line tools - you can now create parallel trend lines
using the Parallel Trend line tool. Access to this tool is from
the Tools program menu.
To create parallel trend lines, select Tools/Parallel Trend Line
from the menu. Using the mouse cursor (which changes to the
parallel trend line cursor), draw a trend line on the graph by
positioning the cursor to the starting location, pressing and
holding down the left mouse button, then moving the mouse to the
endpoint for the trend line. Release the mouse button. A trend
line has been drawn between the points you have selected. In fact,
two trend lines have been drawn - one on top of the other.
Move the cursor so that the arrow is pointing somewhere along the
trend line you have just drawn - then press and hold down the left
mouse button. Move the mouse and you will see that one of the
trend lines follows your movement - while the other remains at the
original location. Release the mouse button to anchor the trend
line at the new location.
Technical Indicators
--------------------
The following information describes changes made to the technical
indicator portion of the program.
Relative Strength Indicator
Previously, the Relative Strength indicator would not properly
retain the name of the symbol being used for calculation purposes.
For example, if a chart was created that had a Relative Strength
indicator to say, the Dow Jones 30, and the group containing this
chart was saved - reopening the group (and this chart) would result
in the Relative Strength indicator being applied to the parent
chart instead. This situation has been corrected.
Tip: The Relative Strength indicator must always be based on a
chart contained within the group. However, you may not want that
particular chart displayed along with the other charts in the
group. Try minimizing the chart so that the window is displayed as
an icon at the bottom of the program desktop area.
Volume Accumulation Indicator
The Volume Accumulation indicator (devised by Marc Chaikin) is an
alternative to the On Balance Volume indicator of Joseph Granville.
It attempts to assign a percentage of the volume based on a more
realistic interpretation of the day's trading range.
The primary differences between Volume Accumulation and OBV is:
Volume Accumulation is an intra-day measure of trading volume as
it applies to the day's price action. OBV measures the change
between two consecutive days closing values.
Volume Accumulation assigns only a percentage of the day's volume
to the calculation of the indicator. Consider; if a day spends
most of the time on the downside, but closes slightly higher than
the day before, should all of the day's volume be applied as a
positive value towards the indicator (OBV method) or only a
percentage (Volume Accumulation method).
In determining the amount of the day's volume that will be applied
to the indicator, Volume Accumulation calculates a percentage based
on where the close is in relation the average price for the day.
If the close is above the midpoint, a positive amount of the volume
is used. If below the midpoint, a negative amount is used.
Referring to the formula below, the only time the entire volume
will be used in the indicator is when the close is equal to the
high (positive value) or the low (negative value).
VA = ( ( (Close - Low) - (High - Close) ) / (High - Low) ) * Volume
As with the OBV indicator, look for confirmation or divergences
between the indicator and price action for possible trend changes.
Other Program Improvements and Fixes
------------------------------------
File Open Extension Is Now Saved Between Sessions
The program reads ASCII files containing historical financial data
regardless of the file name extension. Any file name extension
that you enter in the Open Chart dialog box is now saved as the
default for future use. Previously, the Open Chart dialog always
defaulted to the .CSV extension.
Drag & Drop Now Supports ASC, CSV, and TXT Extensions
The program supports the opening of financial charts based on ASCII
data files via Drag and Drop from the Windows File Manager. This
version now recognizes as ASCII data files those files with an
extension of .ASC, .CSV, and .TXT.
Graph Labeling Improved
Automatic price graph labeling has been improved to generate more
common labeling values.
Minimal Data Conditions
The application of technical indicators to charts containing
minimal data has been improved so that these situations do not
create fatal program errors. If the amount of data in a chart is
insufficient for the selected technical indicator, the indicator
will not be created. Additionally, if an attempt is made to change
an indicator's parameters such that the chart's data cannot support
it, the change will be ignored.
TeleChart 2000 Data Files on a Different Drive
There was a situation where TeleChart 2000 (TC2000) data files
could not be accessed if the files resided on a different drive
volume from that of the program. This has been corrected.
Error Selecting A Chart Area For Zoom
In the previous version, if you selected an area to zoom into that
resulted in a single point, the program would generate an error and
terminate. This has been corrected.
====================
Version 2.2 Features
====================
Candlestick Charts
------------------
Candlestick charts have been added to Stable Technical Graphs to
compliment the current set of High/Low Bar, Line, and Histogram
charts. In order to use the Candlestick option, the underlying
financial data must contain Open, High, Low, and Close information.
Note that the creation of weekly or monthly charts from daily
information always provides the information necessary to generate
Candlestick charts.
To create a Candlestick chart, select Graph/Candlestick or click
the right mouse button on a Price Graph to invoke the popup window,
and select Candlestick.
Popup Data Window
-----------------
A Popup Data Window has been added to the product - replacing the
individual graph data windows of earlier versions.
This window is directly tied to the vertical cursor of the active
chart window. When activated, the data window displays all price
and technical indicator graph values associated with the current
position of the vertical chart cursor.
To activate the Popup Data Window, select Options/Data Window or
press the F4 key to toggle the activation of the window.
Daily/Weekly/Monthly Charts
---------------------------
An important new feature is the ability to produce both weekly and
monthly financial charts from your daily data. Creating a weekly
or monthly chart helps to remove much of the data "noise" from the
displayed output.
When a weekly or monthly chart is generated from daily data, the
resulting data consists of open, high, low, and close information
regardless of the daily source.
If the daily data contains only closing values, the calculated open
is the close at the beginning of the week or month. If the daily
data contains only high/low/close values, the open is calculated as
the midpoint between the high and low at the beginning of the week
or month
To select a daily/weekly/monthly chart, select Graph/Daily,
Graph/Weekly, or Graph/Monthly from the menu bar; press Ctrl+D,
Ctrl+W, or Ctrl+M, or click the right mouse button within any graph
and select the data style.
Printing Multiple Charts/Page
-----------------------------
A new feature is the ability to print 1, 2, or 4 financial charts
per printed page. This capability is available when printing all
of the charts in a group by selecting the Group/Print All Charts...
option. When printing individual charts from the File/Print Active
Chart... option, or from the toolbar, the chart will be printed to
the entire printed page.
To select the format for printing all the charts in a group, select
File/Page Setup... and make a selection from the Chart Layout
group.
Space/Blank Delimited ASCII Files
---------------------------------
Support has been added for importing ASCII data files formatted with
spaces (blanks) as the field delimiter. This is in addition to the
comma and tab delimited support currently available in the product.
This support has been added to the program in such a way that space
delimited files are automatically supported. If you require support
for ASCII files containing fractional value representations
(ie, "34 7/8"), you will have to indicate this by selecting Options/File
Import... and checking the box "Support ASCII Fractional Values
("34 7/8")". As long as this selection is active, you cannot reliably
read standard ASCII files using space delimiters.
Tour Guide
----------
A Tour Guide feature has been included in the product to assist you
as you perform basic program functions.
The Tour Guide can be enabled or disabled by choosing the Help/Tour
Guide menu item.
Other Program Improvements and Fixes
------------------------------------
Low Resources and Chart Creation
In some situations where a large number of charts were created
within a single chart group, Windows resources could become
depleted resulting in unexpected program crashes.
There is now a check within the program for available resources
when creating each individual chart. The default amount of Windows
resources required to create a chart is 15%. This value can be
modified by editing the STABLE.INI file, section "[Main]", and
modifying or creating the line entry "LowResources=n" where "n" is
equal to the percentage of available system resources that must be
available before a chart is created.
Options/File Import... ASCII Format Validation
In previous versions of the program, the File Import configuration
dialog would report a data format validation error when there was
no error. This has been fixed.
ASCII Files Containing a Ctrl+Z Character Generated a General
Protection Fault
Some ASCII file text editors use and place a Ctrl+Z character at
the end of an ASCII file to mark the end of the file. When the
program processed financial ASCII files containing this character,
a General Protection Fault would sometimes result. This has been
corrected so that Ctrl+Z characters are ignored.
Graph Line Style For Mutual Fund Charts
In some cases, the program would default to displaying mutual fund
charts using the High/Low Bar style - resulting in a series of dots
to represent the Price graph. This has been fixed so that mutual
fund charts use the Line style as the default.
Negative Volume Trend Indicator Crash
This technical indicator would occassionally generate a "Divide by
Zero" error in situations where the volume data contained zero (0)
values. This has been resolved.