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Thanks for your message at 11:10 AM 10/14/97 -0700, Chip Anderson. Your
message was:
>| What you want to do makes perfect sense, and I think is a major oversight
>| in Meta Stock to have left this feature out. Unfortunately the downfall
>of
>| most software applications that involve Trading is that they are
>developed
>| by people with expertise in Software Development not Trading!
>
>Here, here!! After using MS 6.0 and 6.5 for a couple of months now, it is
>_very_ obvious that Equis has not done any Useability testing on the
>product with real-world technicians. I guess they assumed that by
>emulating MS Office, they wouldn't need to Useability test it - wrong!
>
>Examples (off the top of my head):
>
>1. Almost impossible to create indicators that work on more than 1 price.
> You have to create a composite file in the Downloader - lame! Even there
>you are limited to combining just 2 prices and using simple arithmetic
>operators. Try creating a chart of your portfolio - if you have more than
>1 stock in it, you're in for a really hard time.
>
>2. Downloader doesn't interact with MS Excel.
> In theory, using MS Excel is a great way to get around the problem above.
> But the Downloader doesn't update your Excel files, so you must update
>them manually every night (yuck) or create very complicated and fragile
>macros to update things for you (double yuck).
>
>3. Doesn't save the width of your charts.
> I am constantly rescaling my charts each time I load them. This is
>inexcusable! When I save a chart and then reload it, I expect to see the
>same thing!
>
>4. Notes on charts don't scale when you zoom in or out.
> Combine this fact with #3 above and you can forget about having nicely
>maintained annotated charts.
>
>5. Having Trend Lines and Chart Notes disappear when you switch from Daily
>to Weekly mode.
> Lame, lame, lame!
>
>6. Applying a template creates a whole new chart.
> That is plain wrong. Apply the template to the current chart.
>
>7. If you print in black and white, your chart GIFs are stored in black and
>white.
> Like there is a correlation between people with B/W printers (everyone)
>and people with B/W web sites (no one!). (I admit that this one is kind of
>minor, but it is a great example of lack of useability testing.)
>
>8. Volume bars can't change color for up/down days.
> Hello? This is critical for visual volume trend analysis.
>
>9. No vertical scrollbars or chart windows
> ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!
>
>10. Saving charts does not save custom vertical axis settings.
> (See comment for #9)
>
>=================
>
>In addition to fixing the things above, here's are some suggested
>improvements:
>
> 1. Always show the Profit/Loss of any buy/sell arrows on my chart
> 2. Allow me to "manually" set buy/sell points on my chart
> 3. Create "palettes" of colors that I can apply to an existing chart.
> 4. Indicator functions should understand "default" parameters so I don't
>have to constantly look them up.
> 5. Auto-draw trendlines and Support/Resistance Levels
> 6. Allow me to create indicators with parameters that I can a.) set in the
>properties dialoag and b.) optimize in the system tester.
> 7. Allow me to create indicators that are visually composed of several
>other indicators (kinda like MACD's 2 lines)
> 8. Make it trivially easy to compare the relative strength of one or more
>securities/indicators.
>
>=================
>
>The above may make you think I hate the product - that's not true. I use
>it constantly and find it of great value. Like anything I use alot though,
>its faults get magnified in my mind. MS 6.5 is great in so many areas that
>these seemingly minor things really detract from my overall experience and
>make me question if it was useability tested at all.
>
>Please take my ramblings as the constructive criticism they are meant to
>be.
>
>Thanks,
>Chip
>
>
>
Thanks for the delineation of the MetaStock programs limits. Many of your
examples that MetaStock cannot do were at the top of my list to attempt to
accomplish. Yet, as you've stated the capabilities of the program in other
areas are quite enormous, rivaling the technology that is used daily on
Wall Street.
George Gordon
lrdbyron@xxxxxxxxxx
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