Re: [amibroker] AmiBroker 5.21.0 BETA released, AmiBroker Email List Archive

Thank you for providing all the new charting capabilities. I have much praise and also some other feedback from my first hour of use and adding the new AFL features to my program already.

• Plot, PlotForeign and PlotOHLC now have new parameter zorder which defines the Z-axis position of given plot

• All drawing tools now can define Z-order (from -5 to +5).

This is great, but it would be even better if it were -10 to +10 layers, though I could get by with 8. 5 are enough layers for groups of plots, but not quite enough for my individual plots, so I still have to break my plotting routines from my modular function generation code. With 10 layers above and below, I could have enough layers to make my functions truly modular.

I absolutely love that the default study lines are below the Gfx plots. My studies no longer obscure my on-chart button arrays and information tables.

• new AFL functions ColorBlend

This is great! A way to select colors by stepping through values in a way that makes sense to the eye. I will have to think of a way to include this in my charts.

• Rectangle and Ellipse drawing tool now are by default SOLID, with default fill color being a blend between background and selected drawing color, they are use ZOrder = -1 (behind regular plots) by default

This is a great improvement! Though I must not understand what you mean by blend between the background. I changed chart background colors and it did not change the color of the oval I was testing... Wait, I just figured it out. It uses the color of the background when you create the object only and does not change it dynamically after that.

• Blank area past last available quote can be now enlarged on the fly by simply using > arrow in the scroll bar or using mouse wheel

This one is causing me some difficulties. I both love it and hate it.
I love that I can increase the space easily.
I hate that it has no limits and once increased, it becomes the new default for the position thumb all the way to the right.
I hate that if the symbol is switched, it does not remember what it was last set to, though that seems to be the only way to reset it back to the default.

If I want to increase the space, it is usually to a constant PIXELs of blank space so that I can fit objects that are pixel based to the right of the chart in the blank area. So being able to increase the blank area if I am zooming out to many bars is a good thing.

However, I very often use the scroll wheel to move back an forth in the chart during real time trading. I move left to see some last support level for setting a study point, then I give the scroll wheel a quick zip to get back to the right default position again for trading the current bar. With this new mode, I zip right past all the bars to a blank chart and am lost in white space.

So this feature is causing me more problems than not having it at all. I don't really need the ability to add unlimited white space.

What I need is one of the following:

1a A way to turn this feature off, or
1b A maximum amount of white space preference that the scroll wheel can't exceed -- preferably with either bars or pixels options.

1a A way to turn this feature off, and
2b A preferences checkbox that allows pixels rather than bars of default white space, or
2c An AFL function to set the amount of future bars that overrides the default.

Thank you for being such a great developer that listens to your customers!

Best regards,
Dennis

On Feb 13, 2009, at 9:52 AM, Tomasz Janeczko wrote:

Hello,

AmiBroker 5.21.0 BETA is released now:
http://www.amibroker.com/devlog/2009/02/13/amibroker-5210-beta-released/

Best regards,
Tomasz Janeczko
amibroker.com