The new features and miscellaneous enhancements outlined below were introduced in the 5.2 Version.

Product Enhancements for Version 5.2
Release Date: November 29, 2001

• Chart Buttons Enhancements  (more)
• New Options for "Scope" of Chart Indicators
• Chart Panning Tool
• Color Marker Indicator
• Pivot Point - Historical Viewing Option
• Fibonacci Retracement Enhancements
• Chart Button Enhancements

• Comprehensive "What's New Reference Guide"  Last updated:  March 2007 Download Zip File     View  PDF
  What's New In Investor/RT By Version
  									9.0
  8.9	8.8	8.7	8.6	8.5	8.4	8.3	8.2	8.1	8.0
  7.6	7.5	7.4	7.3	7.2	7.1	7.0	6.2	6.1	6.0
  5.9	5.8	5.7	5.6	5.5	5.4	5.3	5.2	5.1	5.0
  4.9	4.8	4.7	4.6	4.5	4.4	4.3	4.2	4.1	4.0
  3.9	3.8	3.7	3.6	3.5	3.4	3.3	3.0

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• New Options for "Scope" of Chart Indicators
  Prior to Version 5.2, every technical indicator added to a chart is specific to that chart window. Every chart window in Investor/RT is a "template". That is, you can switch a different instrument into any chart and all of the technical indicators within the chart are automatically associated with the new instrument. In Version 5.2 we have considerably expanded the flexibility of technical indicators by enabling them to be designated either as "instrument specific indicators" or "all chart indicators" (or both).
  
  An "instrument specific" indicator is one you wish to appear in your chart(s) only when a specific instrument is present in the chart. Trendlines, Gann Time Series and various Fibonacci indicators are good candidates to be made instrument specific since the settings of these indicators are very much dependent upon the price and time relationship of a particular instrument.
  
  An "All Charts" Indicator is one that you want to appear in all chart windows. The new periodicity and ticker buttons are excellent candidates to be designated as "all charts" indicators. The idea is you set them up only once, designate them as "All Chart" and from that point on, every chart window you open will automatically get the same consistent array of convenient push buttons and menu buttons. An "All Charts" indicator can be present in every chart regardless of instrument or in all charts that contain a specific instrument.
  
  You designate an indicator as "Instrument Specific" or "All Charts" by editing its settings in any chart window. In other words you have to first add the indicator to any chart window, get it setup they way you want it. Then you can right-click on the indicator to select it, or tab to it in the chart and press enter to edit the indicator. You will notice a four choice menu titled "Scope". There are four scopes to choose from:
  
  1. This Chart - Any Instrument
  2. This Chart - This Instrument
  3. All Charts - Any Instrument
  4. All Charts - This Instrument
  
  You should be familiar with choice 1, "This Chart Only, Any Instrument". This is the default setting when a new indicator is added to a chart. The indicator is not specific to any instrument, but it is specific to the particular chart window in which it resides. Prior to Version 5.2 all indicators behaved this way, there were no other options. Cases 2, 3, 4, new in Version 5.2, are discussed below:
  
  This Chart - Specific Instrument
  
  When only the Instrument Specific checkbox is checked, Investor/RT treats the indicator as specific to the particular chart window in which it was created and further, the indicator will appear in the window ONLY when a particular instrument is present in the chart window. Be sure to save your chart and assign it a permanent name before designating any indicators in the chart as instrument specific. Such indicators are not saved with the chart as they used to be. Instead, Investor/RT determines each time you open the chart or change the instrument in the chart whether to add the indicator. So for example, you might designate instrument specific trendlines in a particular chart window. Changing the instrument in the chart either removes or adds the indicator automatically depending on the instrument. The key benefit of this kind of indicator setup is that for the particular chart window, you can cycle through a series of tickers manually or using a slide show and the various instrument specific trendlines, Fibonacci indicators, etc. are shown with the instrument specific settings they had when the indicator was created.
  
  All Charts - Any Instrument
  
  Sometimes, an indicator is so generally useful that you wish it to appear in every one of your chart windows regardless of the instruments involved. The convenient ticker and periodicity buttons are a good example. Another would be a basic volume histogram and an accompanying volume moving average, or perhaps a few common moving average that always appear.
  
  All Charts - This Instrument
  
  Sometimes you may wish to designate an indicator as not only instrument specific but "All Charts" as well. This means that every chart window containing the particular instrument will get the trendline automatically. For example, you may have four chart windows open of the same instrument but of differing intra-day periodicities. You draw a trendline on any one of the intra-day charts. You can then call up the settings for the trendline and choose "All Charts, This Instrument" and click OK. All four charts will then show the very same trendline anchored at the same date/time positions. This applies to all price time based indicators in Investor/RT such as Fibonacci Arcs, Projections, and Retracements.
  
  A few things to note about these new indicator types:
  
  When you insert a new ticker into a chart window, all instrument specific indicators for the new instrument will be added to the chart. You can still have chart specific indicators in addition to the automatic indicators.
  
  When you delete an "All Charts" indicator from any chart, it is deleted globally. It disappears from All Charts in which it current resides. The indicator will not appear again when you open new chart window.
  
  If you have an All Charts indicator in a particular chart and you edit it's properties so it is no longer an "All Charts" or an "Instrument Specific" indicator, the indicator will be removed from all charts, just as it you had selected and deleted it.
  
  If you have an indicator, e.g. a Fibonacci retracement, and you make it an "All Charts" (when it was not before), the indicator will then appear automatically in all open chart windows unless it is instrument-specific in which case it only appears in those charts holding the same instrument as the original indicator.
  
  When you drag and drop an indicator within the chart to adjust its settings, the update is reflect in all window in which the indicator appears. For example, if you drag and either end of a trendline, or Fibonacci retracement, or a reference line or vertical reference line, the drag operation is immediately reflected in all chart windows showing that indicator.
  
  If you use the keyboard shortcuts for adjusting certain indicators, like trendlines, the updates are immediately reflected in other charts when appropriate. When a technical indicator is selected (highlighted) in the chart, the 4 arrow keys can be used to move the indicator. Shift key and Ctrl key can be used in combination with the four arrow keys to reposition either the left or right end of trendlines, retracement swing lines, etc. When an indicator has a scope of "All Charts" and is visible in two or more chart windows, the indicators move in tandem as keyboard positioning takes place.
• Chart Panning Tool
  In Version 5.1 we introduced a vertical scale option that calls for a chart pane to be auto-scaled considering only the data values of the instrument. Auto-scaling based on all graphic elements in the pane, including all technical indicators, is also available. When instrument-only scaling is in effect, it is common for reference lines, trendlines, and other technical indicators like long term moving averages to be "off screen" since the vertical scale only spans the range of prices realized by the instrument itself. Version 5.2 introduces a new tool on the charting toolbar, the pan tool. The pan tool allows you to easily move the graphic elements in the chart up or down, left or right, using the mouse, in order to bring off-screen indicators fully into view.
  
  Activate the pan tool by clicking on the "hand" icon in the chart toolbar. The mouse cursor turns into a hand. Place the mouse pointer anywhere inside a chart pane, mouse down and hold the mouse down while moving the pane in any direction. Vertical movements cause the price scale to move as you glide the mouse up or down. Similarly, horizontal movements shift the time axis as you glide the mouse left or right. The panning tool remains active as long as the "hand" icon is depressed in the toolbar.
  
  Panning the chart in this way is very useful for temporarily bringing a reference line or trendline, or some other indicator that lies outside the normal price scale into view. Notice that after completing a pan operation, the vertical scale is always in "Manual Scale" mode, that is, the price scale has been set to particular values based on your mouse movements. We have added a visual indicator to the upper right corner of every chart pane to quickly inform you of the scaling status. The visual indicator is simply the letter M for manual scaling, A for full auto scaling, and O for Only Instrument scaling. After a pan operation, the indicator letter will always read M for manual scaling. To return to auto scaling, simply click the mouse on the indicator letter. Each click will alternate between Auto (A) scaling and (O) Only Instrument Scaling. This new feature eliminates the need to use the Vertical Scale preferences panel to turn on auto or instrument-only scaling. The scaling indicator also tells you at a glance whether more than once scale is available in the pane. For example, if you had an RSI and an a candlestick chart inside the same pane, Investor/RT would use two scales. When more than one scale is in effect the letter indicator has a plus sign after the letter, e.g. A+ means auto-scaling, multiple scales in effect. 
  
  Panning the chart is also available, even when the panning tool is not activated on the toolbar. The key is to mouse down in a "white space" area of the chart so your mouse down will not be misinterpreted as a click to select a particular graphic element in the chart. When you mouse down in white space and keep the mouse down, you will notice that the arrow cursor changes to the hand cursor. Keep the mouse button down as you glide the mouse to pan the chart window. 
  
  The only difference between using the pan tool in this way vs. activating the pan tool using the toolbar, is that when the pan tool is active on the toolbar you can mouse down anywhere at all in the chart to pan the image. When the pan tool is not explicitly active on the toolbar, then a mouse down inside the pane causes I/RT to first determine if the mouse down is on a particular indicator or instrument graph and if so that element becomes selected and available for dragging where appropriate. If I/RT cannot select any element in the pane based on your mouse down, panning becomes active automatically as you keep the mouse down and drag.
• Color Marker Indicator (more)
  This new indicator provides a flexible, colorful, compact method for displaying signal markers on charts. The signals can be based on the results of Scans, Trading Signals, or Custom Indicators. For Scans and Trading Signal, color options are given for both TRUE and FALSE results. For Custom Indicators, color options are given for three different user specified price ranges. Four shape options are currently available, including rectangle, oval, up arrow, and down arrow. The color marker for each bar has the same width as the bar. The height and position in the window is user customizable. The markers can be offset any distance from the top or bottom of the pane, or it can be drawn the full length of the pane. If the marker is offset from the top or bottom, it can also be given a user-specified height. Height and offset options can be specified in three units: pixels, percentage of the bar width, or percentage of the window pane height.
  
  Color Markers can be dragged between panes, maintaining their relative position in the pane. Markers can also be adjusted using the keyboard. To move the markers up or down, select the marker by clicking on it, and then use the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard. To adjust the height of the markers, hold down the shift key while hitting the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard. These shortcut keys make it much easier to tweak your markers to the correct height and position.
  
  Color Markers give the user the ability to place multiple signal markers into a small amount of space. The markers can be stacked at the top or bottom of the instruments window pane, can be stacked in their own window pane, or can each have it's own pane. To stack several markers on top of one another, you would just add them in succession, increasing the offset each time. For instance, you may choose a height of 8 pixels. You could then add your first marker at an offset of 0 pixels from the top. Your next marker would then be added at an offset of 8 pixels from the top, the third at an offset of 16 from the top. This would stack 3 markers on the top of the pane, each with a height of 8 pixels. You can add as many markers to each pane as you wish, or you may choose to add only one marker per pane that is relevant only to the indicator in that pane.
• Pivot Point Indicator Historical Viewing Option
  A new option has been added to the Pivot Point study to allow for the viewing of historical daily pivot levels on intraday charts. When the "Use Daily" options is selected, you can then specify how many bars back you would like to base the calculation of your pivot levels. For instance, if you chose 1 bar back, you would see yesterday's pivot levels. Conversely, if you specify -1, you would see tomorrows pivot levels. You will only be able to view tomorrows pivot levels if you pivot level calculations do not rely on the current days data (only previous days data). This historical option also works with weekly and monthly options.
  
  You can adjust the day on which the pivot levels are based using the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard. To move one day back, simply select your pivot indicator in the chart and hit the left arrow on your keyboard. The Pivot Point line will give feedback as to which day the pivot levels are based upon. To move the pivot study back towards the present, simply select and use the right arrow key on your keyboard.
• Fibonacci Retracements - Absolute Price Retracement Option
  A new checkbox in the lower right hand corner of the Fibonacci Retracement preferences allows the user to setup the study to use absolute price Retracements as opposed to percentage Retracements. Typically, the Fibonacci retracement interprets the levels as percentage levels on which to draw retracement lines. With the absolute price retracement option checked, the retracement lines will be drawn at absolute price distances from the endpoint. This option in combination with the Price Projection option gives the user to draw multiple horizontal reference lines at specific price levels throughout the chart.
  
  Fibonacci Retracements - Maintained Across Periodicities Fibonacci Retracements now maintain their high or low prices and positions properly when switching periodicities, regardless of the price sources specified. In the past, when using the "Use Bar" option, switching intraday periodicities could sometimes result in slightly altering the price of the endpoints. Now, when switching from a 10-minute chart to a 1-minute chart, for instance, the endpoints will maintain their high and low positions, and attach themselves to the proper 1-minute bars which contain those highs and lows. Switching back to a 10-minute chart will again maintain the original 10-minute prices and endpoints.
• Chart Button Enhancements
  Chart buttons have been further enhanced in version 5.2 to allow buttons to be "small, medium, or large". This is a global option specified in Setup: Preferences: Charts: Technical Indicators: Buttons. The "large" size is the size used universally in Version 5.1. We have removed the restriction that ticker symbol buttons (and menus) use capitalized ticker symbols. If the small button size is used, lower case ticker symbols are recommended. The first letter of the periodicity (daily, weekly, monthly, or tick) maybe be capitalized or now as you like. If you have a series of button indicators that you wish to appear in every chart, designate each button as "All Charts, Any Instrument" using the new indicator "Scope" feature discussed in item #1 above. Once you do this, any chart you open or create in the future will have the these ticker and periodicity buttons.