March 11, 2011

Quick-Order Bar (QBar)

Because the project has now reached a stage where it requires the Control panel to function, I have not included demo code at this time. The Control panel will be covered in one of the next posts and, when that is up and running, it will be easier to test most of the features of the TDash Graphical Interface.

The QBar is a small tool bar that tracks the Y-position of the cursor. It is designed for fast real-time trading and has only three buttons: Buy, Sell, and Reverse. You can add/delete buttons, for example, you could add a button to Cancel the last order placed. Order parameters are set in the Control panel.

The main advantage of the QBar is that you can place an order with a single-click. You do not have to move your eyes away from the last bar on your chart to place the order, you simply move your mouse cursor to the required price and click.

The QBar and the Order Markers share some functionality. The main difference is that the QBar is designed for placing new orders, and that the Order Markers are designed to display and modify pending orders.

The QBar has two display modes:

  1. Auto-Hide Off. The QBar displays continuously. When the cursor moves out of the QBar area the QBar remains in its last position.
  2. Auto-Hide ON. The QBar displays only when the cursor is in the Qbar area, i.e., in the vertical column space reserved for the QBar. When the cursor leaves the QBar area, it remains positioned at the last price selected. This mode allows the display of trade and system information in the QBar area when the QBar is auto-hidden.

The QBar also has an “Auto Modify” mode. When this is turned on you can place an order and, holding down the left mouse button, drag the QBar to a new price. As long as you keep the mouse button down the order on the TWS will be modified, in real-time, each time the price changes.

Below is a short video that shows what the QBar looks like. I removed the Order markers while working on the QBar.

* Filed by Herman at 10:46 am under Developing a RT Trading Dashboard
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