The first time you run the program you have to enter the TimeFrameInvestor user information, the Program Registration Number, and the user information for the data feed. Each time the subscription is renewed you will be sent a new Program Registration Number to enter. From the main menu you select Registration, Program Reg #, and then enter the new code.
When you first open the program the main window will fill most of your screen, I just “shrunk” it to save space in this user guide.
The top of the window will let you know the version number, and below that is the menu bar, and below that is the tool bar.
The only menu and tool bar features you should use when there are not any charts showing are the ones to open up a single chart, or one of the workspaces. You can use the “File” menu, or click on one of the tool bar buttons.
Single is for a single chart.
Analysis is for the 4 chart group that is used in the Market Analysis Report that shows the monthly, weekly, daily and hourly time frames that are useful in analyzing the longer and shorter term outlooks on a symbol.
D/T is for the “day trading” or chat room workspace that focuses on the daily and 4 intraday time frames, along with 1 market “internal”.
All of the other menu and tool bar options (except “Registration” and “Help”) are designed to only be used when you have a chart showing!
The bottom of the program window shows 2 status boxes, and the data feed server date and time.
Because of how the TimeFrameInvestor indicators work, the way to select a symbol and time frame is done a little differently in the TFI Charts program than what other programs use. Instead of showing the symbol and interval on the main form and changing it there, when you open or change a chart or workspace a dialog box comes up where you select how the chart is to be formatted.
We will begin with the selections for a Single chart.
There are 3 parts to this dialog. On the left we have the symbol selection, in the middle the interval, and on the right the activation of the real time steam, the use of the TFI indicators and also the TFI ranges.
There are some symbols that are “pre-loaded” in the drop down symbol box. They are grouped by “Indexes”, Futures, Internals or all/combined.
The future symbols will automatically show the current contract. You can select one of the symbols from this list, or you can enter a symbol into the box.
Because we are using the DDF/Barchart data feed, you can use the barchart.com Symbol Lookup page to find the correct symbol to use. There are links on that page for Indices, sectors and futures.
In a future release I intend to allow for customization of the symbol groups. My goal for this first release was to get the ones most used listed where they would be easy to find.
The interval is just the amount of time that each bar/candle on the chart displays. I grouped the ones used in the Analysis and Chat Room workspaces at the top, and included some common intraday intervals in the bottom group.
This is the most crucial part of the chart selections dialog, and the part that will have the biggest impact on the chart that is displayed.
With a single chart the real time data feed can be activated. NOTE: At this time it has not been thoroughly tested, so the real time feature is still in a “beta” stage. I have found that when you use a “traditional” chart (without the TFI indicators) the real time data stream does not place a load on the processor.
When the TFI Indicators are selected, there is a lot that happens “behind the scenes” and it does take longer for the chart to load. I have observed that when the TFI indicators are used with the real time feed, more of a load is placed on the processor. The more modern pc’s with dual processors are able to handle this load much easier, but you can activate too many charts with the real time feed and TFI indicators to where your processor will be running constantly and 100%, which is something you want to avoid.
The TFI ranges is most used on Monthly charts. But if you want to define ranges on other time frames you can turn this feature on and it will display the current and next range on the chart.
Here is a daily chart for AAPL where all 3 of the features are turned off (unchecked). This is a “standard” chart that shows the price and volume.
In the File menu there is an option to “Load New Symbol”. That will bring up the chart selections dialog and re-load the selected chart with the new selections you make on that dialog.
To use the menu and tool bar features, you first want to click on the chart. This will be important especially when you have multiple charts or workspaces open, as the click on the chart will identify that chart is the one to be the used with the menu and tool commands.
The View, Drawing, Color, Styles and Data menu options are relatively basic, and you can “play” with them to customize a chart. These are items that came with the charting “tool” that I used in this program to display the chart information on the screen.
On the tool bar the “+” & “-” buttons are used to zoom in and out. The “Zoom” button activates a zoom tool where you can define the part of the chart that you want to have displayed.
Reset returns the screen to the size and position it was in when it was first loaded.
The “<<” & “>>” buttons move the chart left or right by a screen at a time.
The “<” & “>” buttons move the chart left or right by one candle at a time.
NOTE: IF you have a mouse with a “wheel” on it, you can click on the chart and turn the wheel to scroll the chart left or right.
The “Ind’s” button is to activate the Indicator dialog.
You select the indicator you want to use from the drop down list. You can use the Help menu and click on TA Indicators to see a list of all of the traditional indicators that are built into the charting tool, and what the indicators are for.
On this dialog, there are some indicators that are better when they are applied to the price part of the chart, and other indicators that need to be shown in a new “frame” where they are separated from the price. When you choose an indicator the program will select which would be best, but if you need to you can over ride where to add the indicator before you click on the “Add Indicator” button.
When you click on the Add Indicator button, another dialog will appear where you set the specific parameters for the chosen indicator.
Here is a chart for AAPL with some of the drawing tools and indicators added to the chart.
You can right click on a line or an indicator and then click the “Delete Object” or “Delete Series” from the pop up menu.
When you select the Analysis or D/T workspaces the Chart Selects box will be slightly different to accommodate the needs of the work space. Such as for the Analysis workspace the “Intervals” are pre-set, so you only select the symbol and the features. At this time because the real time feature has not been thoroughly tested, it is not enabled for the Analysis workspace.
The D/T workspace was not completed in time to be part of the first release.