Auto Chart Scroll Stops Ocassionally

[Alfred]

Have noticed the auto chart scrolling will stop ocassionally....perhaps once or twice a day or so. It seems to be associated with placing graphics on a chart...but cannot put my finger on the exact cause.

The little scroll box in the scroll bar will start moving to the left and the price will become grayed out. Then when you grab the scroll box and move to the right everything will be OK again.

Thanks....

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks for pointing this out. Please let us know as you have a reproducible scenario.

[Alfred]

Dierk...

Here is an example that just popped up...this is a 6 second chart on the ER2...it was working OK (I had just removed all previous garphics)...then I added a line and rectangle to the chart and the auto scroll stopped ....(was on the phone and did not witness the actual stop)....then scrolling to the right with the scroll bar everything worked OK....the stoppage does not always happen when placing graphics...only occasionally.

I played with expanding and contracting...that does not seem to trigger scroll hang-ups...

I have noticed this behavior for some time now....but never bothered to post on this till now...

Thanks !...

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks for reporting. We'll look into.

[NinjaTrader_Christian]

Hi Alfred !

I tried quite a time to reproduce this, without success.

a few questions:
- can you somehow create a reproducable scenario ?
- does this happen 'often' ?
- did this ever happen without user action (e.g. drawing) ?
- does pressing the 'end'-button on the keyboard always bring the black label again and then it works ok ?

only thing i can imagine right now is a hardware defect of your left mouse button. that would mean that you can see a litte hand icon for a short time (the chart canvas drag & drag cursor). can you exclude this possibility ?

[Alfred]

Hi Christian...

I so far cannot come up with something that will always reproduce the auto scroll hangup.

It does not happen often...perhaps once or maybe twice a day or so....

It does not seem to happen without user action and since most of my actions are placing draw tools on a chart I thought it might be related to that. It does not seem to happen as soon as objects are placed, but maybe a few minutes or so after placement.

I have not tried the "end" button on the keyboard...I usually grab the box slider on the scroll bar and move to the right when I notice the price grayed out....that will fix it for me when it does hang.

I will keep playing around with this & see if I can come up with something more concrete....

Thanks ! ....

[Alfred]

Christian...

When I left click on the mouse when the pointer is showing, a little hand will sometimes flash up that enables scrolling the chart (depending on where one clicks on the chart...and if I hold down on the left mouse button the hand will then show continually).....moving the cursor around on the chart and left clicking (without holding down) ...the little hand will not always flash on...it depends on where the cursor is placed on the chart. Once the little hand appears I can see how it would be very easy to accidentally move the chart to the right 1 or 2 bars and gray out the price....this may be the root of the problem for me.
I am often left clicking on a graphic item on the chart to highlight it and then move it.

I checked with another identical mouse on Ninja on another computer and it behaves this way also...

Is that little hand supposed to appear and behave like the above upon left click ?

Thanks....

[NinjaTrader_Christian]

Hi Alfred !

This is how it's supposed to be. When you click with the mouse into the chart canvas, a little hand is shown and you can move pan the chart to left or to right. So, when you accidently move the chart away from the last bar, just press the button down again, and move the mouse to the left, to see the last bar. Or just press the 'end' button on the keyboard, which does the same.

Kind regards,
Christian

[Alfred]

Hi Christian....

Thanks for the info....

Here is a suggestion though....Would it be possible to activate the chart pan / scroll feature only after one holds down the left click for a second or two ?....perhaps something like that ?.... As it is now, when you are quickly left clicking to highlight and move a graphic object or to make a chart window the active chart or perhaps clicking to eliminate the highlight indications on an existing graphic object, it is very easy to accidentally scroll the chart one or two bars and deactivate auto scroll with that quick left click....so as it is now you have to keep checking on the current price box after every quick left click to make sure you have not deactivated auto scroll....and then correcting it if you have deactivated. Often I will accidentally deactivate auto scroll upon quick left click and not notice it until minutes later.

Another thing to consider in this area....In another charting program one must hold down left click someplace on the price bars themselves in a chart to scroll / pan the chart....left clicking anyplace else on the chart window will not activate scroll / pan. Doing it this way would also eliminate many instances of deactivating auto scroll when quickly left clicking someplace else on a chart window.

Thanks....

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks for your suggestions. We'll add them to the list.

[Alfred]

Here are some further thoughts on the auto scoll feature I put together in a video...

Here is a link to play it...hope it works...this is the first time I have tried this...


http://www.screencast.com/t/H0VHprz69

Thanks

I checked the link after posting the above and it worked OK.

The program I used for this video is called Jing...it is in beta now and is free for the time being and it is also very easy to use. It's put out by the Snagit people, and they do first class work. I think this is a great way to communicate ideas back and forth....

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Thanks for the comprehensive video, its highly appreciated and will be taken into consideration.

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Hi Alfred,

We played around with a delay and I feel it not usable. The longer the delay, the less user friendly it is, the shorter the delay, we are just back at the same point we are at now. We have not had any other users suggest changes in this area so I am hesitant on adding a delay.

What we are going to do is add a thick solid arrow in the upper corner of the chart that is displayed when the current bar is off the screen. A user can then click on this which will reset the chart so the current bar is the last visible bar.

[Alfred]

Hi Ray...

You may not be getting other users too concerned about this until the graphic tools in Ninja are revised so they become really usable tools that can extend above, below and to the right of the chart...perhaps users are just not clicking around that much on charts revising tools etc. as yet ??

My feeling is that it is so easy currently to disable auto scroll a number of ways (as shown in the video) that one may be often clicking on the large arrow you suggest (though that could be helpful) to correct a scroll hang. I think a separate Icon to enable scrolling would perhaps be best, and as a second (perhaps) less desirable solution would be to enable auto scroll upon left click held down on the chart bars only, as the demo showed in the other program in the video....this would cut out probably 90% of auto scroll hangs caused by left clicking.

My idea on the delay was to have no delay on a quick left click itself for say left clicking to highlight graphic objects etc , but to have a delay of a second or two when the left click is held down constantly before scrowling /panning was enabled. That way auto scroll would not be enabled with the immediate quick left click....I'm not sure how difficult this would be to do though.....or ...fishing around for other ideas...what about a single left click for highlighting graphic tools to move delete etc but a double left click, holding down the second click, to enable auto scroll ??

This is not a super urgent problem for me...but I can see how it would become more so as graphic tools become more usable and one would be clicking around a lot more.
As it is now I will just occasionally place graphic tools after the fact to see how a technique would have behaved had they been able to extend....and I'm still in Sim mode too (!!)...

Thanks for all your time on this....

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

The delay we experimented with was exactly as you described. Since NT 6.5 has many enhancements around drawing objects I would rather wait and see what the feedback is on the issues you have raised and revisit it then.

[Alfred]

Hi Again...


Sounds good.

Have you already revised the drawing objects in 6.5 ?


Thanks....

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

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Added: Reload Historical Data menu to refresh current chart

Added: Clickable arrow icon is displayed in the top right corner that resets the current bar as the last displayed bar when it is off screen

Improved: Chart can be panned to the left

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Improved: X axis includes labels for day, month and year breaks

Improved: X axis formatting of labels and grid lines for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly charts

Improved: Draw objects have a configurable "Auto scale" property

Improved: Draw objects are no longer bound by the visual boundaries of a chart and can be partially moved off the chart canvas

Improved: Draw objects can extend into the chart's right side margin

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[Alfred]

Hi Once Again...

Is there as yet an approximate release date for the NT 6.5 revisions / enhancements shown in the 10-05 list below...??

Thanks... !

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

First beta targeting this week.

[Alfred]

I have kept a running tabulation for four days on the number of times I inadvertently triggered an auto scroll hang by attempting to left click on a graphic object or clicking on a chart itself....this has worked out to be an average of 15.25 times a day that I accidentally disabled auto scroll and had to correct it...(this was for typical market hours). And...I will swear on a stack of health food books that this 15.25 figure is accurate.

Also...now with perhaps overlapping charts in workspaces one has additional opportunities to disable auto scroll as one left clicks back and forth between overlapped charts......

Suggestions....as one option keep things exactly as they are and by clicking the arrow in the upper right corner one can get things back to normal when you may get an auto scroll hang for whatever reason. But here is a second option to consider (that also might would work concurrently in addition to the existing method).... Enable in properties the ability to disable left click to scroll of a chart. However...also add an icon in the tool bar which one could click on to enable left click scrolling of a chart....and when you wanted to return things to normal, just click on the existing arrow in the upper right corner which would also disable left click scrolling (and this would also disable the highlighted new icon) and return the chart to normal position. This makes the scrolling of a chart a definite choice and will eliminate all of the accidental left click auto scroll hangs, for users who choose this method. Also suggested...the color of the existing correction arrow be enabled to be the same as ones color choice for inactive price markers in properties.

My feeling is that this second option would be viable for some users...

Thanks....

[NinjaTrader_Chris]

Hello,

Thank you for your suggestions and comments. I will forward them to development and have them add it to our future enhancement list.

[Alfred]

Hi...

Here is another video with some ideas to perhaps consider
on the auto scroll hang problem...along with possible suggestions to improve the way data is displayed in Ninja...

Link to video...
http://www.screencast.com/t/EVU54onVw

Thanks... !

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks Alfred. However, we are deep into addressing 6.5 issues these days and likely will have little chances to do implementation changes.

[Alfred]

Thanks too Dierk....

Perhaps worth a look sometime for future considerations...

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Certainly will do...

[Alfred]

Here is another possibility that might more easily solve the the problem of one so often accidentally triggering an auto scroll hang when left clicking on a chart or working with Draw Tools....

Instead of being able to left click & hold down anyplace on a chart to enable scrolling to the left or right....
What about enabling left click scrolling only in the small horizontal bounded area where chart session times are shown (below the chart body itself)....this way one could easily move to that chart area for quick left click & hold down scrolling back and forth...and the body of the chart itself would now be free from triggering accidental movement to the left or right (and triggering auto scroll hangs) of the chart whenever you left clicked on the chart or when one may attempt to modify or move a draw tool etc....

Update....Just noticed for the first time (!) that left click & hold in that small margin area at the bottom can be used to expand or contract the chart 1 level...so what about right click & hold in this area to enable scrolling ?? ....or perhaps the revese of right & left click for a combo of these two functions in that area...??

Another update...looks like this may not be such a hot idea afterall...right click & hold in that margin area could bring the chart menu box....

Back to the drawing board I guess...!!....

Thanks ! ....

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Alfred]

Thanks for the reply below Dierk....

Now...here's my latest (minor) brainstorm...what about *click* & hold down the middle mouse button in the lower chart margin (where chart times are shown) to enable scrolling / panning of a chart back & forth...?? This seems like a possibility... (??)

Clicking on the middle mouse button in that chart area currently (even even when Chart Trader is enabled) does not at present bring any other functions up ...so no possible conflicts if this were enabled ? ...

Also...this way users may become naturally comfortable using that window area for horizontal chart manipulation ....for both expansion / contraction & also scrolling back & forth...

Many thanks as usual...

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Thanks as usual. Please don't forget that we will not change NT6.5 behavior shortly before release. Thus, usability changes "only" could make it into NT7 (beta end of this year).

[Alfred]

Thanks as usual. Please don't forget that we will not change NT6.5 behavior shortly before release. Thus, usability changes "only" could make it into NT7 (beta end of this year).

Wondering if a fix on this problem could be considered now in NT 7.

Some charting programs allow the chart to continue to update in the space set to the right area...what about something like that ??...the triangle would still show as a warning when you were in the space to right for any reason, but you would not get an inactive price marker color until the updating bar moved into the price column area.

This would solve the problem where the chart is so often slightly moved to the right (and stops updating) when one left clicks on a chart as ones pointer may be moving ever so slightly to the right upon a left click.

I believe... conservatively ...I must correct charts to get them updating again 10 to 15 times a day...at 250 trading days per year this would be around ( conservatively again probably) 2500 to 3750 corrections per year for myself currently as things are set up now....

Thanks....:)

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Alfred,

I will forward your suggestion to our development team and ask them if they can add this to the list of future considerations for the software.

Thank you for your feedback.

[Alfred]

Thanks as usual. Please don't forget that we will not change NT6.5 behavior shortly before release. Thus, usability changes "only" could make it into NT7 (beta end of this year).

Any chance for a fix on this problem...?? .....It is very easy to often accidentally move a chart to the right when highlighting or moving graphic objects and therefore kill the live update of the chart......one should not have to continually monitor whether a chart is updating correctly...

If one corrects charts to get them updating again say a fairly conservative 10 to 15 times a day...at 250 trading days per year this would be around 2500 to 3750 manual corrections per year to get a chart updating correctly again....

Thanks...:)

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Alfred,

It is on the list of future considerations. Unfortunately I am not sure if and when it will be included.