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Log of Changes and Improvements to Sierra Chart
This list contains major items of development, and changes and additions which users need to be informed about.
This is not a comprehensive changes and additions log. And it should never be relied upon for such. It only represents a very small percentage of the actual development being performed every day. The vast majority of development is not documented here. Or receives, one small comment after it is all complete. There are not version notes for each version. The main Sierra Chart documentation is updated as needed relating to the changes and additions.
The maintenance of this page has mostly been abandoned by Sierra Chart development for many years due to the difficulty of maintaining it and because users can be incorrectly misled by or misinterpret notes that are made here. This does not change, the development of Sierra Chart which is very active every day and new releases are made nearly weekly or several times a week. The Sierra Chart project is still very active, with extensive development and it remains a very high quality software in the world. The engineering is at the very top of the world.
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718 Release Date: 2011-06-15
- Various low-level improvements.
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716 Release Date: 2011-06-11
- Continued enhancements to the Trading DOM/Chart DOM.
- Improved the formatting of Position line on the chart and Trading DOM.
- Corrected issue with alert processing while downloading data for a chart.
- Solved a problem when using studies such as Study/Price Overlay which refer to other charts, where under certain conditions a full recalculation of the studies on the chart would occur at times that are not needed. This solution will reduce CPU usage.
- When the trading DOM is resized, the scale is no longer reset.
- Can change the symbol of a chart when using a remote chart data file to a different remote chart data file through Chart >> Set Remote Chart Data File.
- Various low-level improvements.
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714 Release Date: 2011-06-07
- The global Ignore Quantity For Position Profit/Loss Calculations option has been removed.
- In Chart >> Chart Settings >> Advanced Settings, there is now a new setting to display the Profit/Loss value on the chart and on the Trade Window using any of the following formats: Do Not Display, Currency Value, Ticks, Ticks - Ignore Quantity, Currency Value & Ticks, Curreny Value & Ticks - Ignore Quantity.
- The selectable quantities in the order quantity box in the Trade Window are now based on the Default Order Quantity in the Global Symbol Settings for the symbol.
- Continued improvements to the Trading DOM and ChartDOM. Columns can be customized through Global Settings >> Customize Trade DOM/ChartDOM Columns.
- Various low-level improvements.
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712 Release Date: 2011-06-02
- Various improvements to the Trade >> Trade Activity Log. There are now new controls on the top of the Trade Activity Log window to control filtering of what is displayed in the list below. There is greater internal efficiency with the management of data for rapid access to the data. Simulated data by default is now only held for 5 days. You can control how many days are kept in the log through Global Settings >> Trade Settings. There are different settings for non-simulated and simulated trade activity records.
- The improvements to the Trade Activity Log lays the foundation for an upcoming trade performance and statistics display.
- Included the latest TransAct price feed API files which connect to TransAct price feed.
- Various continued improvements to the Trading DOM and ChartDOM. The ChartDOM column order can be configured through Global Settings >> Customize ChartDOM Columns.
- Included version 4.3 of the Rithmic API.
- Improvements to the File >> Find Symbol window. A clearly descriptive month and year are now displayed for each futures contract. Other minor improvements.
- Added sc.GraphShortName to the ACSIL.
- Added a new study Draw Style to color the background in a chart region.
- Toolbar buttons for drawing tools now use a graphic representation rather than a text abbreviation.
- Various low-level improvements.
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711 Release Date: 2011-05-24
- Added a Synchronize Service And Internal Positions On Connect option to Global Settings >> Trade Settings. Unless there is a good reason not to, we recommend this option is always kept enabled.
- Added a Percent Change field to the chart header. This field can be added by selecting Global Settings >> Customize Chart Header.
- Added a new 64-bit floating point value Input type in the ACSIL. To set an Input to a value of this type, use the sc.Input[].SetDouble function, and use sc.Input[].GetDouble to get the value. Limits are also supported with this Input type, and can be set with the sc.Input[].SetDoubleLimits function.
- Various enhancements to the Point and Figure study. New inputs have been added. These enhancements and inputs allow better support for Numbers Bars when using the study for a reversal type chart.
- Added new Spreadsheet Quote Request fields for Buy/Sell Rollover Interest for the FXCM Trading service. This lets you see clearly the amount to be added or deducted to/from your account for carrying a position overnight.
- Efficiency improvements with the creation of the underlying data for the new Ask/Bid Volume Difference Bars and the Cumulative Delta Bars studies.
- Various enhancements to the visual appearance of the Trading DOM. The background for the area at and above the Ask price can be set a custom color the background for the area at and below the Bid price can be set another custom color. These are set through Chart >> Graphics Settings. Market depth is now in a single column.
- Various low-level improvements.
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709 Release Date: 2011-05-20
- Added the Ask/Bid Volume Difference Bars study. This study works with Intraday charts. It uses the Bid Volume and Ask Volume data. It displays candlestick bars indicating the Open, High, Low, and Close the difference between the ask volume in the bid volume for each bar in the chart. When you add the study to the chart, the chart may reload to allocate the necessary arrays.
- Added the Cumulative Delta Bars study. This study works with Intraday charts. It uses the Bid Volume and Ask Volume data. This study displays the difference between the cumulative AskVolume and BidVolume for a symbol during a trading day as High-Low CandleStick bars. This is commonly known as Cumulative Delta in many trading forums on the Internet.
- Improved the display of gridlines on the Trading DOM Mode windows. They are now solid lines drawn between the price ladder numbers.
- Various low-level improvements.
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706 Release Date: 2011-05-15
- Simulated orders can only be filled with data from the originating chart when doing replays. This eliminates an ongoing issue where when you are replaying multiple charts and they are not in synchronization, you can have an order fill unexpectedly or have a wrong fill price. This has now been solved. If you see any further issues do let us know.
- An option has been added to the Trade menu named Only Orders From Chart. This option applies to each individual chart. It applies to the active chart when enabling it or disabling it. When this option is checked, then only orders that originated from the chart are displayed. All other orders from other charts or Trading DOMs are not displayed.
- Updated the Rithmic software interface files to the latest files provided by Rithmic. We are told that this now will allow a connection to succeed to Rithmic when running Sierra Chart under Wine on Linux.
- You can now change the background color of the Trade Window and the Chart Trade Mode box at the top left of the chart to a different color to indicate you are in Trade Simulation Mode . This color is controlled through Global Settings >> Trade Settings >> Chart Trade Settings >> Chart Trade Mode Box Color. There are going to be a few changes with this in the next release to improve the customization further.
- Eurex symbols can now be used with the PFG Best Trading service.
- Various low-level improvements.
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704 Release Date: 2011-05-09
- Improved the Study/Price Overlay study when used on a fixed time period per bar chart, where it will filter out data from the source chart which is beyond the ending time of the last bar in the chart. This is useful when performing back testing.
- The Color Bar Based on Alert Condition and Color Background Based on Alert Condition studies no longer have the ability to reference Alert Condition formulas from other studies and instead must contain their own Alert Condition formula. The input Use Alert Condition From has been removed. This is meant to simplify the study and eliminate confusion. This feature has caused some users confusion. So therefore when updating to 703, if you are using one of these studies and they refer to Alert Condition formulas defined in other studies, you will need to put the formula directly on the study itself and make the necessary changes to the references to other studies (Example: SG1 will need to become ID1.SG1 assuming it is referring to the study with ID1).
- Resolved an issue with the mapping of Volume at Price data from a one tick underlying chart to a custom chart. This resolved an issue when using a Point and Figure chart on a 1 tick underlying chart with a Numbers Bars Graph Draw Type.
- Various low-level improvements.
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702 Release Date: 2011-04-29
- Added a new Renko Chart study named Renko Chart Enhanced. This is an enhanced version of the existing Renko Chart study that includes many user requested enhancements.
- Added the ability to fully reset the Global Symbol Settings to defaults. Select Global Settings >> Symbol Settings. Press the Full Reset button and press OK. This will delete all existing Global Symbol Settings and download new settings for the currently selected Data or Trading service. The related settings you already have set on existing charts, will not be affected by this. If you wish to update a particular chart to the standard default settings for a symbol, then go to the chart and select Chart >> Chart Settings and press the Apply Global Symbol Settings button.
- On the ChartDOM, when the order quantities for a price exceed 1000, they are abbreviated with K. So the ChartDOM does not become too wide.
- The Download Historical Daily Chart Data and Cancel Download commands have been removed from the File menu. There is no longer a reason to download historical daily chart data for all of your chart data files at once. Support for this has been discontinued. When you open a Historical chart, the Historical Daily data will be downloaded at that time for that symbol if necessary. Also, when using the Chart >> Associated Symbol List, as you iterate through that symbol list either manually or as part of a Scan, historical data will be downloaded even if you do not already have a data file for a particular symbol. When scanning through all of your data files, historical data will be downloaded for each one if necessary during the Scan. If for some reason you want to update a large group of your data files at once, then what you need to do is add those symbols to a Associated Symbol List for a chart and then initiate a Scan on that chart based on the Associated Symbol List. The download will be done for all of the symbols in the list.
- Continued improvements to the File >> Find Symbol feature and Global Settings >> Symbol Settings.
- Additional improvements to the new Compact Tool Values Window. This can be enabled and disabled with Window >> Show Compact Tool Values Window. This window automatically displays when you use a tool or the Chart Values tool. The main improvement is that it is a single window for all charts that can be moved anywhere on your desktop.
- Various low-level improvements.
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700 Release Date: 2011-04-26
- We have developed a new Compact Tool Values Window which is intended to replace the OHLC and tool data displayed in the status bar. The status bar did not display information clearly as could be and within the context of individual charts. The longer-term plan is to remove the Status Bar and to eliminate dependency on it. The data feed status and the currently selected tool, will be relocated. This version includes various updates to the Compact Tool Values Window.
For information about the Compact Tool Values window, refer to the Viewing Chart and Tool Data section. Here is an Example. The new Compact Tool Values window is very easily grabbed and moved anywhere on the chart.
Based on feedback some users have not become completely accustomed to the new Compact Tool Values window and all of the functionality available with that window, the Tool Values Window and the Chart Values tool which is more than suitable as a replacement. Therefore, we have temporarily restored the Chart Values data to the status bar for now.
You can customize what is displayed by selecting Chart >> Chart Settings >> Advanced Settings >> Settings. You can uncheck the fields you do not want. - Various low-level improvements.
- We have developed a new Compact Tool Values Window which is intended to replace the OHLC and tool data displayed in the status bar. The status bar did not display information clearly as could be and within the context of individual charts. The longer-term plan is to remove the Status Bar and to eliminate dependency on it. The data feed status and the currently selected tool, will be relocated. This version includes various updates to the Compact Tool Values Window.
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698 Release Date: 2011-04-21
- Corrected a problem with Trading Technologies (TT) Position Data processing where if there was no market data subscription for a symbol, the position data was being ignored. This has now been resolved. This would occur if you did not have a chart or Trading DOM open for the symbol at the time position data was received for that symbol.
- Corrected a closed trade event processing issue with the FXCM Trading service, that occurred under certain conditions.
- Various low-level improvements.
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697 Release Date: 2011-04-20
- Continued development of the new File >> Find Symbol window and General Settings >> Global Symbol Settings window.
- Continued development of the new File >> Find Symbol window and General Settings >> Global Symbol Settings window.
- Resolved an issue with the Right Side Fill Space from a recent prerelease, where it would not always be maintained when it is locked and you scroll the chart.
- Resolved some minor issues with the Right Side Fill Space when using the Hand tool and when scrolling charts and the scroll position is linked between multiple charts.
- Solved an issue with the FXCM Trading service integration with the formatting of Symbols that caused exception messages with trading.
- Various low-level improvements.
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692 Release Date: 2011-04-14
- Continued development of the new File >> Find Symbol window and General Settings >> Global Symbol Settings window.
- Added a Strict Evaluate on Bar Close input to the Spreadsheet System for Trading study. When this is set to Yes, then only at the moment when a bar closes when a new bar is added to the chart, will an evaluation of your Spreadsheet formulas from the Buy/Sell Entry/Exit columns be evaluated for TRUE conditions. This might be helpful for some types of automated trading.
- Solved an issue with FXCM Trading where Attached Orders would not become active from the Pending Child state when the parent order fills.
- Various low-level improvements.
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691 Release Date: 2011-04-9
- Corrected a problem where orders could not be submitted when using a mix of upper and lowercase characters for a Symbol when using the Open E Cry Trading service. Added support for Account Balance when using the Open E Cry Trading service. The account balance is displayed on the Trade >> Trade Positions window. The Account Balance is based on the Net Liquidating Value for your account. Corrected an issue when using the Open E Cry service where the Symbol for Trade Service positions may have included additional data rather than only the symbol. This would affect synchronization with the Internal Position data and also the display of the Trade Service position on charts due to symbol differences.
- Added new inputs to the Pivot Points-Daily study to support manual entry of the previous days High, Low, and Close values and the current days Open value. When these are used, the Pivot Points lines for the latest day will be based upon these manually entered values rather than internally determined by Sierra Chart.
- If there is an error with a Simple Alert formula, a more detailed message about the error will be added to the Window >> Show/Hide Alerts Log. In the past, only when a formula was considered completely invalid, would an error message display in the log. Now any type of error with a particular Simple Alert formula, will cause a message to display in the log with more information about it.
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690 Release Date: 2011-04-6
- Added the following new variables to the ACSIL: SupportTradingScaleIn, SupportTradingScaleOut.
- Resolved some issues with price multipliers with the new Global Symbol Settings. And issues with duplicate symbols.
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688 Release Date: 2011-04-02
- Corrected an issue with advanced multi-monitor configurations where the Chart Values tool drawing may not have been properly positioned along the y-axis when using the Global Cursor feature on other chart windows on other monitors.
- Corrected a problem with the setting of the real-time and historical data multipliers from the Global Symbol Settings, that arose from the prior prerelease.
- Various low-level improvements.
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687 Release Date: 2011-03-24
- When performing a scan, Chart >> Start Scan, it is no longer necessary in the case of Historical daily charts to perform a download of data for all Historical Daily data files by using File >> Download Historical Daily Chart Data, ahead of time or have Intraday charts for the Intraday data symbols you are scanning, already open. When the symbol of the chart is changed during the scan, a historical data download will be performed if necessary and will be allowed to complete before the scan goes on to the next symbol, either in the data folder or in the Associated Symbols List.
- Corrected a problem where sometimes order fills when using the FXCM Trading service are not always processed and update the Internal Position. This issue is apparently due to changes with the timing of FXCM order updates and issues with trade reporting from their server. The Service Position display was not affected.
- Solved some price formatting issues for Bonds and Grains when using the PFG Best trading service. Solved an issue where canceled orders which resulted from an order modification would update the latest associated order during an update of all orders, they are now ignored.
- Implemented an improved Global Symbol Settings window. This can be opened with Global Settings >> Symbol Settings. The symbols in this window will be used by an updated Find Symbol window to be released in the next version.
- Worked around an issue with Interactive Brokers TWS where it does not send the latest hour of historical data when using certain time zones. You will now get this latest hour of historical data with this version.
- Various low-level improvements.
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686 Release Date: 2011-03-24
- Restored the ability to set Attached Order offsets using a percentage.
- Solved a memory leak problem when using the Rithmic trading service. There is also more efficient processing of market data.
- Various low-level improvements.
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684 Release Date: 2011-03-16
- Added support for the PFG Best data and trading service.
- Added a new input to Volume Value Area Lines named New Period At Day Session Start When Using Evening Session. When you are using a one-day period and seperate Evening Session Times in Chart Settings, then setting this to Yes will create separate lines for each session within the day.
- Added a new Period Type to the Volume By Price study called One Period Of Fixed Bar Count to draw one volume profile at the end of the chart based on the specified number of bars.
- Various low-level improvements.
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683 Release Date: 2011-03-10
- Corrected a problem with the Closed Profit/Loss calculations arising from version 681.
- With the Rithmic trading service, added support for Market if Touched orders and historical tick data.
- Added various new Numbers Bars related calculations which can be displayed underneath a Numbers Bars graph. To display these, you need to be using a Numbers Bars Graph Type. To display the calculation results, select Chart >> Chart Settings >> Advanced Settings 2 and enable the options in the Numbers Bars Graph Options frame.
- Added a new Input type to the Advanced Custom Study Interface and Language which allows you to create your own custom selectable list of options that can be selected by the user of the study. The new functions are: sc.Input[n].SetCustomStrings("Zero;One;Two;Three"), sc.Input[n].SetCustomStringIndex(0), sc.Input[n].GetIndex(). The list of text strings are mapped to a zero-based index.
- Various low-level improvements.
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682 Release Date: 2011-03-07
- Included new interface files for the Open E Cry service. This is necessary to work with the latest OEC Trader software. Otherwise, you may not get streaming real-time updates for charts and quotes.
- Various low-level improvements.
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681 Release Date: 2011-03-04
- Improved the internal calculations used for trading positions Average Price and Open and Closed Profit/Loss. This considers the actual fill price of each individual fill. One thing to keep in mind is that we use an averaging method in the calculations. This gives a precise end result. However, the Average Price of the position is not necessarily always going to be to the exact Tick Size.
- Corrected a problem with the integration to the Trading Technologies platform service where Trailing Stop orders and Move to Breakeven Stop orders would not display the new price they were adjusted to. The orders were being adjusted, but at a slower rate, and the new adjusted price was not displaying in Sierra Chart. This has all been resolved.
- Various low-level improvements with the integration to the FXCM Trading service.
- Added the Parallel Trendlines and Parallel Extending Trendlines tools.
- Various low-level improvements.
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678 Release Date: 2011-02-23
- Added the ability to open charts from other running instances of Sierra Chart. This can be done using the File >> Open Remote Chart Data File command on the menu.
- Improvements with the Internal Position updating when using the FXCM Trading service. Various low-level improvements with FXCM trading support. In order to use the FXCM Trading service with this version and higher, it is necessary to download the latest FXCM API Client Software and install it. This will update any existing installation you have.
- The Internal Positions are synchronized to the Service positions on a connection to the server when using FXCM Trading or Trading Technologies.
- With the Trading Technologies platform service, market data now uses the timestamp provided by the Trading Technologies FIX server. This means that an incorrect Date and Time setting on your computer will not affect the charts. However, any problems with the timestamp with the server will.
- With the Trading Technologies platform service, Daily Net change is now supported.
- Increased the number of study inputs.
- There are now 2 Send Attached Orders order types. One sends the defined Attached Orders relative to the specified price. This can be the price you right-click at on the chart before selecting Send Attached Orders by Price . The other one sends Attached Orders relative to the Average Position Price.
- Various low-level improvements.
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677 Release Date: 2011-02-14
- Corrected a problem with the TPO Value Area Lines study arising in version 676.
- Various low-level improvements and new features.
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676 Release Date: 2011-02-11
- Improvements with chart printing. This includes even margins and more exact adjustments to bar spacing to print the nearly identical number of bars on the printed page as compared to the chart window.
- Added an input to Volume By Price study for extending Value Area lines.
- Fixed an issue where values in the Values Scale would get cut off when using a fractional Price Display Format.
- Aligning the Volume By Price profiles to bars differently based on the graph draw type of the base graph.
- Changed the behavior of automatically snapping trendlines to the high/low of bars when holding down the Control key on the keyboard to draw horizontal lines, and also fixed issues with drawing vertical lines.
- The TransAct price engine API has been updated.
- When using IB Financial Advisor account related settings, the Financial Advisor Account Number is used when requesting real-time position updates.
- Corrected a problem with the TPO Value Area Lines study and the TPO Profile Chart study involving the Value Area calculation which could cause an error message in the Message Log for the study and could also result in an incorrect Value Area calculation under certain less common conditions.
- Filtered out trade fill events with the FXCM Trading service that are not the result of real-time fills. This was causing an incorrect Internal Position when these events occurred. In our testing, these events which were not the result of real-time fills, did not commonly occur.
- Various low-level improvements and new features.
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675 Release Date: 2011-02-04
- Corrected a problem with study precedence calculation arising in version 674.
- The FXCM Trading service now use asynchronous functions. Order quantities can be modified.
- Various improvements to the Volume By Price study, including new Period Types.
- Added the ability to switch between Ticks and Price for Attached Order offsets.
- Improved the speed of loading intraday data when there is a an extremely high number of bars in the chart such as when using a 1 Tick chart with a symbol with heavy trade volume and loading 30 days of data.
- Various low-level improvements and new features.
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673 Release Date: 2011-01-26
- Added support for FXCM Trading. This service can be used by selecting File >> Data/Trade Service Settings, and setting the Service to FXCM Trading. It is important that you set your FXCM account to a non-hedged account. If you are using an FXCM demo account, know that order submission may not always function properly. Sierra Chart is designed to work on an account that does not support hedging. There are some improvements that need to be made and additional testing that needs to be done. However, at this time the trading integration works reasonably well based on our testing. We may also require that you be assigned to our referral account at some point in the future, to be able to use this service. This may also allow you to receive free Sierra Chart usage time. For complete information and the instructions to use the FXCM Trading service with Sierra Chart, refer to the FXCM Trading Service page.
- Corrected a problem with the Zig Zag study where it could go into an endless loop and freeze Sierra Chart, under certain unusual conditions.
- Renamed the various arithmetic studies that use 1 or 2 subgraphs. New names:
- Study Subgraph Add
- Study Subgraphs Add
- Study Subgraph Subtract
- Study Subgraphs Difference
- Study Subgraph Multiply
- Study Subgraphs Multiply
- Study Subgraph Divide
- Study Subgraphs Ratio
- Added new color settings in the Graphics Settings window for greater independent color control of the ChartDOM elements.
- Added a function to the ACSIL called TimeZoneConversion. This function converts the given DateTime from the given time zone to the time zone that is set in the Data/Trade Service Settings window.
- Revision 2: On the Attached Orders tab of the Trade Window, Attached Order offsets are now always specified in Ticks. This simplifies the user interface and the internal management Attached Order offsets.
- Revision 2: Added two new Period Types to the Volume by Price study. They are One Period From Start Date-Time and One Period From Start Time. These let you create a single Volume Profile at the end of the chart from a specified Date and Time, or from the specified Time on the last day of the chart. Keep in mind the Volume by Price study can be added to the chart multiple times for different volume profile configurations.
- Various low-level improvements and new features.
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672 Release Date: 2011-01-22
- Added Inertia 2 study.
- Fixed an issue with the Dash draw style with zero values and DrawZeros disabled.
- Added the ability to scroll up/down using the mouse wheel on a chart in the Trading DOM mode.
- Added support for the Google Financial Data service. This service supports historical intraday data and historical daily data.
- Added separate colors for the highlight boxes in the Chart DOM. These colors are named DOM Buy Highlight Box and DOM Sell Highlight Box.
- Resolved a problem with the Rithmic trading platform service where you may unexpectedly see non-simulated orders appear that you may not have entered. These were simulated orders from the Rithmic system that were rejected. When using a Rithmic demo account, you must use Sierra Chart Trade Simulation Mode for trading.
- Improvements to the calculations to set the starting times for chart bars for more specialized conditions.
- Various low-level improvements.
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670 Release Date: 2011-01-11
- Combined the Chart Number and Study Number inputs with the Study/Price Overlay study into a single new Input which displays the full Chart names and the Study names on the selected chart. This was completed in a recent version. However, there was an issue with the selected Study name not mapping to the correct study. This now has been resolved.
- Corrected market depth processing problem with the Rithmic trading platform.
- Corrected data processing problem with the Rithmic trading platform.
- Various low-level improvements.
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658 Release Date: 2010-12-28
- Added futures and stocks market depth support for the DTN IQ Feed data service.
- The Market Depth window has a cleaner appearance. It no longer uses scrollbars and the lines are now shaded based upon the depth level.
- Updated the Volume by Price study to draw separate profiles for the day and evening session under the following conditions: The Volume Profiles are fixed by time and set to 1 Day. You have defined separate Evening Session Times in Chart Settings.
- Added sc.ExternalServiceUsername to the ACSIL. This is set to the username for the currently selected data or trading service.
- Added the ability to customize ten toolbar buttons to set a specific time period per bar for intraday charts. To customize the buttons, select Global Settings >> Customize Toolbar. In the list of Available Toolbar Commands, you will find ten buttons starting with the name Custom Bar Period. Add one of these buttons. With the button highlighted in the Selected Toolbar Commands list, press the Set Period... button to configure it to the period that you want.
- Various low-level improvements.
*Last modified Thursday, 25th April, 2024.