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Date/Time: Sun, 19 May 2024 16:10:03 +0000



Post From: Horizontal time labels, vertical grid, and a bug

[2017-05-14 19:14:21]
Merlin - Posts: 81
1) I would like a way for the time labels on the horizontal scale to line up exactly with the vertical grid lines. Currently they are completely unrelated, which is confusing.

Background info:
Unless I'm missing something, Sierra currently gives me excellent, wonderful control of the vertical scale, but no control of the horizontal time scale at all.
I use "number-of-trades-per-bar" intraday charts (aka "tick charts"). I set "Vertical Grid Lines" to display every n minutes. This is excellent! Although my charts are tick-based, the minute-based vertical grid lines tell me how quickly the market is moving. When the market's moving fast, the grid lines are far apart; when it slows down, the grid lines are closer together. It's a great, intuitive visual cue.
I'd just like to be able to quickly glance down to the bottom of a vertical grid line and see the corresponding time!
I think the simplest solution would be an option: "Align time scale with vertical grid". This would work for me.
The more flexible solution would be a "Time Scale Increment" setting, analogous to "Scale Settings/Scale Increment" on the vertical scale.

During slow periods, like night session, the vertical grid lines can be very close together. If a new time label on the horizontal scale would overlap the previous label, it should just be skipped.

2) There is a small but annoying bug in the vertical grid line logic. On a 22-tick NQ chart, set to show a vertical grid line every 1 minute, every once in a while a duplicate line appears - two vertical grid lines are displayed on adjacent bars that are only a few seconds apart.
As far as I can tell, this only happens when the first bar starts on an exact minute boundary with .000 milliseconds. For example, with Vertical Grid Lines set to display every 1 minute, I see a line, correctly, when a bar paints at 9:33:00.000. But then another grid line appears, incorrectly, on the next bar at 9:33:01.016. Another case is 9:53:00.000 and 9:53:04.002. In every case I've checked, the first line shows at .000 milliseconds - the logic for the next bar is not recognizing that the line for that minute has already printed on the .000 bar.
Here's an example, with lines at 10:24:00.000 and 10:24:00.022:
http://www.sierrachart.com/image.php?Image=1494788824591.png
(This image also demonstrates the random relationship between the vertical grid and the time labels.)

3) If I have unchecked the option "Include Seconds on Intraday Chart Timescal" (Advanced Settings 3 - and yes there's a typo on "Timescal"e :-) ), then I only want to see a time label for each new minute. Currently, on my fastest chart, I see a string of duplicate labels like:
"9:30 9:30 9:30 9:30 9:30 9:31 9:31 ..."
I'd rather just see:
"9:30 ___(open space)_______ 9:31 _____ ..."
I'm trying to simplify my charts as much as possible.
(In my case, fixing #1 would automatically fix #3)

Thanks,
Merlin
Date Time Of Last Edit: 2017-05-14 20:29:42