Introducing the pane "hot spot" interface: getting easy access to both the Pane Element Menu and Chart Element Manager
The pane hot spot is a thin horizontal region 20 pixels wide by default that appears at the top centre of every pane of a regular multi-pane chart. Moving the mouse over the hot spot changes the mouse cursor to a pointing finger to visually indicate the mouse is over the hot spot; If you just do a standard (left) click, the regular Chart Element Manager pops up (Part 1). However, if you right-click on the hot spot, a simplified Pane Element Menu appears (Part 2).
Customization options:
- Hot spot dimensions: If you want the hotspot to be wider or more narrow, go to File > Preferences > Configuration and set PaneMenuHotSpotWidth to any number 4 pixels or higher. At minimal 4 pixel width, the hot spot is a tiny rectangle centered at the top of each pane. It is drawn black on light background charts and a lighter shade when the chart has a dark or black background.
- Turning off the hotspot: if you are used tio the regular Chart Element manager, you may turn the pane menu feature off (for a given chart) by accessing the Options Tab of the main chart preferences menu (and unchecking the box titled "Pane Menu Hot Spot")
1) The Chart Element Manager
Please refer to the Chart Element Manager support page for more information on the standard tool for managing the different components of a multipane chart. This is a powerful tool for managing either the element of a given pane, or searching across the chart as a whole a given element within a complex chart. The Chart Element Manager also allows chart elements to be shown and hidden. The selection assistant feature provides more options for selecting subsets of elements within any pane or the chart as a whole.
2) The Pane Element Menu
Right-click the hot spot and a menu of the elements in the pane appears. The visible instruments and indicators in the menu are checkmarked. Elements listed without a checkmark are presently hidden. Each chart element has its own submenu for selecting, editing, deleting, or revising the visibility state of the element.
This menu is used to quickly inspect a list of elements in any pane and operate on them. Hidden elements are chart resident elements that are temporarily hidden from view. Menu items enable you to quickly Show or Hide all indicators, drawing tool indicators or unselected indicators.
The pane elements menu is a convenient way to edit or select an indicator in a busy chart when it is not obvious where to click to do so. When you select an element from the menu, it will quickly blink to identify itself. This is useful when exploring Investor/RT chart setups imported from linnsoft.com or from an educator/mentor. Use the pane menu as an aid to discover which graphic renderings within the pane result from a particular indicator. This blink to identify feature is also available via the Identify button in the chart element manager window.
The pane element menu has a Show and Hide submenu that exposes some rich functionality in Investor/RT charts that in earlier versions was available only via a keyboard shortcut. The Show > Instrument Plus Selected menu item hides all of the elements in the pane except for the instrument(s) and any indicators you have pre-selected in the pane. This same functionality is available as Show Instrument Plus Selected (Briefly) with Minus key noted as the keyboard shortcut. This does a brief hiding of elements and shows them again automatically after N seconds. N is a configuration variable named HideIndicatorSeconds that defaults to 5 seconds. The pane element menu has a Show > All Elements menu item with shortcut Equals key. Use this menu item or strike the equals key to instantly show all elements again. If you are in the midst of a brief hiding of elements, either the equal key or the minus key terminates the hiding period.
The pane element menu is convenient and well suited for simple selections and edits of particular indicator(s). It quickly shows a list of what is in a pane for your review even if you have no need to operate the menu. To dismiss the popup menu, press the Esc key or click the mouse anywhere off the menu.
Note: about the PaneMenuElementThreshold configuration variable
When set to X (such as X=5), this variable allows the user to access the Pane Element Menu through a regular click when the number of pane elements is less than X. The current default value (in Inevstor/RT 16 and higher release) for this configuration variable is zero, i.e. any regular click on the hot spot opens the chart element manager while the pane element menu is available by right-clicking on any pane's hot spot. If you prefer to see the pane element menu regardless of the number of elements in each pane, go to File > Preferences > Configuration and set PaneMenuElementThreshold to a large number, e.g. 999.