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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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119
- An option has been added to the "Chart Settings" window: Load Weekend Data. When the option is disabled, weekend data is not loaded. This also applies to real-time chart updating; therefore, if the option is disabled, Sunday night trading is blocked from the chart.
- Point and Figure charts are now implemented as a study. This study can be found by selecting Analysis -> Studies on the Menu. The study is named Point and Figure Chart. Your existing Point and Figure Charts will open up correctly with this new version. What you will find is that the Point and Figure Study will be automatically added to your chart.
- A scaling problem with Point and Figure Charts from a recent release has been corrected. This problem may have caused additional space to be shown above or below the chart.
- If you are using the Pivot Studies or the Previous Day OHLC study, please verify the input "Use this Intraday Chart" is set as you require.
- The custom DLL study API has been expanded to allow custom chart creation. Several new members have been added to the s_sg structure. For an example of a Point & Figure custom chart, refer to the PointAndFigureChart function in the Custom Chart.cpp file supplied with Sierra Chart.
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117
- Improvements with historical intraday data for TransAct:
- Corrected a problem from a recent pre-release where the first 50 minutes from the last date in your chart was not downloaded.
- Historical data is now compressed which means historical downloads should take less time, up to three times faster.
- The maximum number of days to download for historical intraday data is now controllable. This can be found by selecting Global Settings >> Data/Trade Service Settings on the menu.
- The download unit now is based on the Intraday Data Storage Unit setting in Sierra Chart. Previously, data has been downloaded in units of 2-seconds of trading. So now, if your Intraday Data Storage Unit is set to 60 seconds, data will be downloaded in 60-second units.
- Installed a backup historical intraday data server. This avoids any possibility of gaps in the data in case the primary server is unavailable.
- Collectively these improvements along with the already high-reliability of the historical intraday data service for TransAct, makes this historical intraday data service the most reliable one available.
- If you are a futures trader and looking for an alternative to IB backfill, we recommend using the TransAct service.
116
- In the Intraday Editor, when you press the Delete and Refresh... button and you are deleting less than 10 minutes, no confirmation is shown and the editor is closed.
- The Spreadsheet for the Stochastic Crossover System example (found on the Analysis menu) now shows a simple method for calculating the Profit or Loss of your system in order to allow you to back-test it. Refer to cells P3 and Q3 for the formulas.
115
- Corrected a bug in Renko, Kagi, Three Line Break charts that would cause charts to display extra bars during updates.
- Added a command in the Edit menu to simply Export an intraday file to a .txt. file without opening the text file in the text editor.
- Added the option to display VWAP lines historically.
114
- Added a new version of the Demand Index study that follows the more commonly used formula. The existing Demand Index study has been renamed to Demand Index (original).
- The number of study collections listed per menu column now depends on the screen resolution.
- A "Cancel Active Backfill Requests on Timeout" option has been added to the Data/Trade Service Settings window for IB. When this option is disabled, Sierra Chart will continue to try to make queued up backfill requests even if there was a time out. Use this option with caution because if the IB server continues to not respond, and our experience is that it will not, then this will lead to extensive delays with chart updating.
- Corrected a bug where Time and Sales data wasn't stored if the Store Bid & Ask data option was not checked.
113
- Daily data downloaded from IB now only covers the regular trading hours instead of all hours. This corrects a problem where the date of the daily bar may have been one day earlier. This earlier date referred to the starting date of the prior evening session.
- Support for Ameritrade has been added. Streaming data and Intraday Charts are now supported. Trading through Ameritrade is coming shortly.
112
- ADX and ADXR are no longer rounded to integer values. The fractional values are now shown as well.
- The Pivot Points studies have a new input named: Use this Intraday Chart. When this input is set to Yes , a daily chart is not required and the necessary values are determined from the Intraday chart itself.
- The Previous Day OHLC study has been reworked and now encompasses Open, High, Low, Close, HL Average, HLC Average, and OHLC Average all on the same study. Additionally, it also has the Use This Intraday Chart option as explained above.
- Heikin-Ashi Study has been added.
111
- Corrected a problem where chart data downloading and updating may not occur after reconnecting to the Transact service when disconnected during an active download.
- Corrected a minor TPO/Volume Profile bug that would sometimes cause the chart to freeze when volume is not present or too large.
- Added the %B and Band Width study both relating to the Bollinger bands study.
110
- Supports Software Service Level 10.
- Improved the downloading of Sierra Chart Historical Daily Data.
- Improved Chart Downloading and Symbol Status display.
- Added the Cumulative Sum of Study Line Study.
- Corrected a problem with TPO/Volume Profile end dates not incrementing on new days.
109
- Sierra Investment Software now offers Historical Daily Data as an option. For complete details, see the Historical Daily Data page. 5 years of Historical Daily Data for Sierra Chart is provided. This option is great for TransAct users, as an alternative to IB Historical Daily Data, or for users who just need daily historical charts.
- *Chart Download status and Symbol Errors are now displayed directly on the chart window. This is a major improvement in the communication of these messages. If you have ever experienced a chart not updating for a moment with real time data, now it is very clear why this can happen. This is usually due to a download in progress.
- A new Options Format is supported for IB. An Example is: ZN-FOP-200612-107-P-ECBOT.
- A new setting has been added to the General Settings window. You can now choose to display the Alert Log when a Study Alert is added.
- The Kagi, Renko, and Three Line Break charts have been enhanced. You can now add other studies to them.
108
- Changes to Getting Quotes on a Spreadsheet: When a # instead of a / precedes a symbol in a Quote Request on a Spreadsheet, the Number Formatting for the cells are ignored. The Quote Values are currently formatted to 5 decimal places. It is planned shortly that the formatting will be based on exchange specifications. If you precede the symbol with a /, then the cell number formatting is applied. Number formats can be controlled by selecting Spreadsheet >> Number Format on the menu.
- TPO and Volume Profile has been greatly enhanced with new customization options. Additionally, a new dialog window has been created to make it easier when customizing the TPO and Volume Profile study.
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- Corrected a problem from version 106 with downloading historical intraday data when using the TransAct service.
106
- Corrected a problem where alerts would only play once.
- Corrected a problem where not all tick data was downloaded from DTN IQ Feed.
- Corrected a minor problem where a single day of data was lost when downloading historical daily data from MyTrack.
105
- Added the Zig Zag Study.
- Corrected a problem where tool lines/text would not display in the correct location after a chartbook was reopened when a non-zero time offset was set in the data/trade service settings window.
104
- Added the Three Line Break Chart Study (Special Feature).
- Made some internal improvements to the TPO and Volume Profile study.
103
- Corrected some problems with downloading Historical Intraday Data when using TransAct.
- Added the Renko Chart Study (Special Feature).
102
- Added the Kagi Chart Study (Special Feature).
101
- Made some internal improvements to the TPO and Volume Profile study.
100
- A Lock Scale feature had been added to the interactive scale menu. This simply prevents the scale from being modified while it is locked.
99
- A new color input has been added for TPO/Volume Profile. As a result, you may have to re-add the study or reconfigure your colors to get correct colors.
- Volume Profile Gridlines can now be hidden by setting the gridline distance to a negative number. Note that the distance of the gridlines (and ultimately the bars) are still controlled by this number.
- When using a solid color for TPO's, TPO POC/VA Bar Colors now controls what the POC and VA TPO colors are when the Use Different Colors for POC/VA option is turned on.
- TPO/Volume Profile Periods are able to be significantly closer to each other than before, this is still controlled with bar spacing.
- In the TPO/Volume Profile Chart Study, the 1 Day/Custom Days Time Increment (in Minutes) option can now be set to 1440 to represent a whole day increment. For more information on this see the TPO/Volume Profile Study Inputs Documentation Page.
- With the Volume Study, when there is no difference between the open and close, the bar color is now colored as the average of the 2 colors.
94
- Corrected minor synchronization and timing issues with replay. If any problems are found, let us know.
- Documentation for TPO and Volume Profile Charts has been added, refer to the TPO and Volume Profile Chart Documentation for more information about this study.
- When adding a Spreadsheet Study to a TPO and Volume Profile Chart, the TPO and Volume Profile Details are now listed in the X and Y Columns starting at row 10.
- Corrected a bug in TPO and Volume Profile Charts that sometimes caused values right of the decimal to be slightly inaccurate.
93
- Interactive Scaling other than for the constant range scale type now requires software service level 4.
- Corrected a bug concerning the POC (Point of Control) for TPO and Volume Profile Charts. The POC is calculated based on the following rules: 1) POC is the maximum number of TPO's/Volume. 2)If more than 1 exists, POC is the price that is closest to the mid point of the range [ (HighestPrice+LowestPrice)/2 ]. 3) If there are 2 prices equal distance to the mid point, the side that has more TPO's/Volume is the POC. 4) If both sides have equal TPO's/Volume, the lower price is the POC.
- Corrected a problem with "Import and Load Intraday Data" with the interpretation of time when the hour for a time was 0.
- Corrected some problems with the TransAct service integration.
92
- The Spreadsheet System/Alert study supports Bracket Trader integration. For more information see the Systems and Alerts Documentation.
- TPO and Volume Profile charts now require software service level 5 or 6.
- Made some changes to downloading historical daily data from IB.
- This version is a pre-release. However, it is known to be stable with DTN IQ Feed, myTrack, and IB. Some issues are being worked out with TransAct still.
91
- Various improvements related to data feeds. This version is still considered a pre-release.
- Time and Sales data is now maintained and accessible between data feed connections.
- Internal improvements to the Ask Volume vs. Bid Volume study.
- Daily historical data can now be downloaded from IB. To do this, select File >> Open Historical Chart on the menu. This is still a new feature. Please advise support if you encounter any problems.
- A new interactive scaling feature has been added to allow you to move the chart up and down. To use this new feature, right click in the price scale area and select the Interactive Scale Move option. Then just click and drag in the price scale area to move the chart up and down.
90
- Corrected issue with IB timestamps not using the local time.
89
- Resolved some issues related to the data feed services.
88
- Added a Difference line to the Ask Volume vs Bid Volume study. This study also now supports Time Offset settings in the Data/Trade Service Settings window.
- Added support for the DTN IQ Feed data service. For more information see the DTN IQ Feed page.
- There have been major internal changes with this version to support additional data/trade services. It is considered a pre-release. It should only be used by experienced users or those who wish to use DTN IQ Feed. It is recommended that you install this version in a folder different than where your current Sierra Chart is installed. If any problems are encountered, please advise support about them.
87
- Added options in the Chart Settings window to hide the Time and Values scale areas.
- Corrected some bugs concerning the "TPO and Volume Profile" study. Additionally, the study now has the capability to extend VA lines. It is strongly recommended that the TPO and Volume Profile study is not in any default chartbooks on the first run of Version 87, please be sure to remove the study before you upgrade Sierra Chart.
86
- The "TPO and Volume Profile" study has been significantly improved. As a result, to use this study you must remove and re-add the study. It is strongly recommended that the TPO and Volume Profile study is not in any default chartbooks on the first run of Version 86, please be sure to remove the study before you upgrade Sierra Chart.
85
- Made a change to the Time and Sales data structure used by custom studies. The date of the record is now stored. This change requires custom DLL studies that use Time and Sales to be recompiled to work with this version. If you are using Time and Sales related studies, please wait until the developer of those studies updates them to support this version before installing this version.
- Corrected a problem with Point and Figure charts that would cause an abnormal shutdown
- Added Ask Volume vs Bid Volume Study. (Special Feature)
*Last modified Thursday, 25th April, 2024.