Login Page - Create Account

Support Board


Date/Time: Thu, 25 Apr 2024 19:04:08 +0000



Post From: Version 2093: New Chartbook Format, Better Data Management in Sub Instances, Other

[2020-04-25 21:33:00]
Sierra Chart Engineering - Posts: 104368
We have released prerelease version 2093.

There are many things we want to discuss about this version and we are just going to put initially some quick notes down. More information will be gradually added.

New Chartbook Format:
=====================

This version has the new Chartbook format. This format offers the following advantages:
-About 20-27% reduction in file size
-Faster saving. Done on a background thread.
-Common file format. Same as trade activity log.
-Variable length strings. So there is no longer any length limit for alert conditions, or the trade window text tag, or study short names, or subgraph short names.
-The permanent storage block for studies is now 4K rather than 512 bytes.
-Compatibility with upcoming change for date and time values to support microsecond time stamping.

Might be best for us to say that the new Chartbook format is not well tested. There it was an immense amount of work in this, but it has undergone some basic testing but not so thoroughly. We will be completing that over the next few days. We do not anticipate any problems but we just want to put out this notice just for safety. However, there are full backups of all of your Chartbooks. So there is no risk with using it.

Chartbooks saved in this version are not compatible with earlier versions , however a backup of the version of your Chartbooks before this change is made. "Backup2092" is added to the file name in the copy of the file made. This copy of the Chartbook can be used in earlier versions just by opening it through File >> Open Chartbook.

The backups are directly contained within the Data folder for immediate access. No need to go to the Backups folder.

You can go back into a prior version of Sierra Chart with Help >> Install Previous Version. In the installer, make sure the Specific Version box is set to 2092.

Once the previous version is installed, you can then open your Chartbook's that have the name: [Chartbook name].Backup2092.Cht. You can then do a Save As to save back to the original name.

Trade Window configurations and Study Collections also use the new file format. So these files when saved in 2093, do not work in earlier versions. However, there are backups made of these files in 2094 and higher in the usual way in the Backups folder. For general information about using a backup, refer to:
Chartbooks (Workspaces): Accessing a Backup Chartbook File

This link above is for restoring backups of Chartbooks. Although the procedure is going to be similar for Trade Window Configurations and Study Collections.

Better Data Management in Sub Instances:
========================================

2093 also improves data management in sub instances of Sierra Chart. When there is missing data in the main instance due to a download failure or other scenario, if you perform a re-download of data to recover the missing data from the sub instance, it will signal to the main instance to download the data from the remote server so you actually get the complete data rather than just simply still ending up with the missing data and no change in the sub instance. So you do not have to go into the main instance to re-download the data.

Another complaint about sub instances is that there is a second copy of the data files. A sub instance does need to have its own data files, but for data which is downloaded from Sierra Chart historical data services, we can go straight to our server and bypass downloading from the main instance. We will give that some thought as to how best to do that.

However, when data is coming from other sources like for example interactive brokers or CQG, we cannot work around pulling data from the main instance of Sierra Chart.

You may be wondering how does that help to do the above, if there still is a copy of the data in the sub instance. The reason is that if you are using a particular symbol in a sub instance only and not in the main instance, then there would only be one copy of that data if the historical data is pulled directly from our servers.

Other:
======

The other thing we need to discuss is the new planned date and time class which uses a new internal format. This is going to break compatibility with custom studies. Those will need to be recompiled when that version comes out. It is just a simple recompile though. This has not yet been released!!

And we may at that time finally remove support for the 32-bit version. We have been keeping that going on still.

We have been working on the captions for Control Bar buttons to be more descriptive short names rather than just abbreviations. However, we know that users have become accustomed to the abbreviations and we have added the old short captions back with an option to use them through Global Settings >> Customize Control Bars >> Control Bar # >> Short Captions. We are still working out the implementation details of this in relation to having set custom captions. So this is still being worked on.

Server-side OCO and Bracket Orders:
===================================

For CQG and the Sierra Chart TT order routing service, server-side OCO and bracket orders are always enabled. Although with CQG only server-side OCO orders are supported.
Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level

Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy:
https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation

For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, *change* to the Teton service:
Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing
Date Time Of Last Edit: 2020-05-13 10:10:01