Issue 4/2001 (No. 12)
AmiBroker Tips weekly newsletter.
Issue 4/2001. No 12.
31 January 2001.
Copyright (C)2001 Tomasz Janeczko.
All back issues available from:
http://www.amibroker.com/newsletter/
IN THIS ISSUE
1 Welcome
2 Stocks & Commodities Traders' tips for AmiBroker
3 Tip of the week: A few more tips for using AmiBroker better
1 Welcome

Welcome to the 4th issue of AmiBroker Tips newsletter in the 2001. This week the newsletter is a little bit delayed and shorter than usual because I am currently working on a new version of AmiBroker. Hope you will excuse me.

Just a reminder: if you have any comments/suggestions or article ideas, please don't hesitate to drop a line to newsletter@amibroker.com

2 Stocks & Commodities Traders' tips for AmiBroker

As you probably know Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities magazine (S&C) has a Traders' Tips column in which various software vendors present the formulas for indicators described in the magazine. I have contacted the editors of that magazine asking for inclusion of AFL formulas in this column. We will see if they agree or not, neverthless I am going to publish the formulas on AmiBroker site. Traders' tips will be published monthly in the Members Area. Currently available are the tips for January and February 2001 issues of S&C featuring formulas for volume-weighted Buff Averages and Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan's range index.

As you noticed from this issue the newsletter will be available in Members area only. Apart from the newsletter and traders' tips this area will contain other valuable information for registered users of AmiBroker. I plan to put more indicators, commentaries and trading systems here. This will be brought to you as a benefit of your registration. Hopefully you will find your money well spent.

 
3 Tip of the week: A few more tips for using AmiBroker better

This week I will present some tips that will enable you to use AmiBroker better than before. So let's begin:

1. Finding appropriate stock quickly

Don't know the ticker but only full stock name? Or maybe you know that the ticker was something beginning with C...? The solution is using Stock Finder window (accessible by hitting F3 key or from the Stock->Find menu). Here you can switch between full name search and ticker search and type a few first letters of the name and the list of matching stocks will appear. For those of you who don't like the mouse :-) - hitting ENTER will automatically select and display the chart for the first found stock.

2. Sort by column feature

There are several places in AmiBroker where the information is shown in the form of a list view report. For example lists are used in Quick review window, Automatic Analysis window, Portfolio manager, Stock finder. In most cases these list have many columns. AmiBroker has an ability to perform sorting of items by given column by simply clicking on the column's header. When the items are sorted by given column the down or up blue arrow is displayed on the list's header. The arrow direction shows ascending or descending sorting order. Note that the feature described here is available in version 3.45 (and above :-))

3. Zoom it all the way from toolbar

As you probably noticed there is a Zoom icon. If you click on that icon the chart is zoomed in. But, not everyone knows that the very same icon could be used also to zoom out and reset the zoom (giving you default view range set in Preferences/Miscellanous). The trick is as follows: holding SHIFT key while clicking on the icon zooms out the chart, holding CTRL key resets the zoom.

4. Visually comparing the charts of two different stocks

If you want to view the charts of two (or more) stocks at the same time there is a simple way to do so: Just use Window->New menu. Choosing this option will create new window for simultaneous viewing charts of two stocks. Now you can change the selection in the stock tree and you will see that only the last active window chart has changed according to your selection. The second chart remains unchanged. If you have selected for example some index in this second window, you will be able to visually compare different stock charts to the chart of the index. You can repeat this operation if you want to see more stocks simultaneously.

5. Quickly reviewing multiple charts

Did you know that you can scroll thru ticker tree using arrow up and arrow down cursor keys. Just click once on the stock tree and use arrow up/down keys from your keyboard. This way you will be able to quickly visually scan thru the charts of the stock belonging to any AmiBroker group, market or just your favourite stocks.

6. Asynchronous design

Did you know that most of AmiBroker's windows work asynchronously in non-modal manner? This means that you can open multiple windows at once (for example Automatic analysis, Commentary, Indicator builder, Quick review, Portfolio) without blocking each other. This can enhance your productivity since you don't waste your time opening and closing windows all the time. This is superior to other typical Windows software packages that allow only one dialog to be open at a time.

.... and that's all for this week - hope you enjoyed reading

 

AmiBroker Tips weekly newsletter. Issue 4/2001. Copyright (C)2001 Tomasz Janeczko. All back issues available from: http://www.amibroker.com/newsletter/