7.6 What's new?

[nedibe]

Are there any new functionalities in 7.6

Nick.

[Objectivist]

I know of a couple:

1. It crashes every time it exits, if you've been using the ActiveX API.

2. If you leave it running during non-market hours, it isn't able to get any historical data until you restart it during market hours.

[GenSpoo]

Originally posted by Objectivist
I1. It crashes every time it exits, if you've been using the ActiveX API.

I am not having this problem. Can you provide any more details on what steps are needed to cause a crash? Did you run the 7.6 installer over an existing 7.5 install or did you do a fresh install? If you haven't tried a fresh install, I'd give that a try to see if it helps.

Cheers... George

[nedibe]

If we judge from the response of genspoo, nothing has been added, no improvement whatsoever.

Only bugs at worst.

Good Job.

Nick.

[GenSpoo]

Originally posted by nedibe
If we judge from the response of genspoo, nothing has been added, no improvement whatsoever.

Only bugs at worst.

Good Job.

Nick.

I'm sorry, but my responses can't be taken to mean what you say.

First off, I am not an eSignal employee and do not have inside information. I do communicate with Jay on occassion and can relay questions to developers through him, but he is out of the office today. I am an individual end-user of eSignal who has agreed to help out on this forum when and how I can.

Secondly, I have been a bit out of touch with eSignal and this forum over the past month due a completely unrelated draw on my attention. For that reason, I have only limited usage on 7.6 up to this point in time (and have had zero time to work on my own custom charting/trading app that uses the ActiveX control other than to run it in its current state (which produced no crashes under my limited testing)). I do plan to get more involved again more and more as time progresses.

My question to you was simply a question to try and get more details on a bug you seem to be exhibiting. As I'm sure you are aware, without the explicit steps needed to reproduce an error, many bugs are difficult to sqaush.

[GenSpoo]

Ooops. I meant my question to Objectivist, not to you Nick.

[nedibe]

Hi Genspoo,

First Thanks for your help, I'm suprised you are not working for esignal.

I think esignal is doing a terrible support job, most source forge project have better support. We did not get any information about the new releases, why??

I really appreciate all your responses genspoo, and this post is not really adressed to you. I hope esignal is going to hire someone like you.

Thanks again,
Nick.

[Objectivist]

The crash only occurs if my application starts eSignal by instantiating the ActiveX control. I tried uninstalling 7.6 and reinstalling it, but it still happens. I rolled back to 7.5, and it does not happen.

The historical data problem may be the same as it was in 7.5, or maybe somewhat worse. I can upload historical data during non-market hours, but if I leave the eSignal session open and then try to use it (either through the eSignal application, or via the ActiveX interface) after the market opens, I can't get any historical data. For example, invoke the Layout\Advanced Charting applicatoin menu item in eSignal, select symbol QQQ, and eSignal will indicate "No Data" in the title bar of the Cursor Window. In my experience, this was an intermittant problem in 7.5, occurring about half the time. In 7.6, it has happened every time I've tried it (3 times so far). This is a problem for my use of eSignal, because I prefer to let my programmed trading application run unattended, after having started it during non-market hours.

[GenSpoo]

Originally posted by nedibe
I think esignal is doing a terrible support job, most source forge project have better support. We did not get any information about the new releases, why??

Hi Nick,

I would actually say that most open source projects do not have good support (there are of course exceptions). SourceForge currently has 76954 hosted projects and I would be you would be lucky to get decent support from less than 1 percent of those. Most projects start out as hobbies and fade away when the programmer runs out of free time (trust me, I know from experience ).

BTW, I do think open source is great and have contributed myself in some areas, and, I really don't have the time anymore to support even the things I have worked on. Not when it comes down to making a paycheck, or working for free when I only have time to pick one.

Anyway, I digress. I admit it is a little frustrating to have heard about new features and bug fixes being made to the ActiveX control for the 7.6 release and then not receiving any documentation to utilize those changes (or even know what made it into the release). The thing to remember is that eSignal is a company, like most, with limited resources. They have a certain number of developers, a certain number of products to develop, a certain number of products to support, etc. I imagine their workers are being pulled in many directions at once, just like myself and everyone else. I guess it is just easy for me to understand why things are the way they are. Us ActiveX developers are still probably a very small percentage of eSignal's revenue (like it or not) and thus when push comes to shove, we are the ones that will get pushed and shoved (but not ignored). I would like to see someone devoted to us, but economics might not support that and we all must acknowledge that eSignal needs to make a profit to survive.

I know eSignal wants to provide top-grade support to all users. If that weren't the case, they wouldn't have asked me to help out when I am able.

Lots of babbling from me today... Guess I do have a little free time.

[nedibe]

Hi genspoo,

The specific issue I have and that was supposed to be fixed!!! is the isTimeandSalesReady function.

Without this function how can we know that a time and sales download is finished and that we can move on to the next download.

If you have an answer It would be great.

Nick.

[GenSpoo]

Originally posted by nedibe
The specific issue I have and that was supposed to be fixed!!! is the isTimeandSalesReady function.

I just opened up the control in Visual Studio and there is a new function IsTimeSalesReady(lHandle). I would assume that its existance means it works, but I haven't tried it yet.

Cheers... George

[GenSpoo]

FYI, I just tested IsTimeSalesReady(lHandle) and it worked exactly as I expected.

Cheers... George

[nedibe]

This is great but I really do not see this function in the active x!!

Did the developers forget to declare it ?

winsig.tlb is the file I use to install the active x

To verify I opened winsig.tlb and I could not find the function istimeandsalesready, just use your notepad and make a search for "is".

Maybe I'm missing something.

Thanks,
Nick.

[nedibe]

Is there anybody finding the isTimeSalesReady function in the 7.6 active x.

I'm really curious if you guys have the same issue.

Nick.

[GenSpoo]

The winsig.tlb type library shipped in the installer does appear to be an old one. You can create the needed files directly from winsig.exe though. If you do that, IsTimeSalesReady is there.

Cheers... George