How can data be imported into eSignal?

[mabon]

Re: Importing data into eSignal

I've searched the site pretty well and called tech support on this issue with no success thus far so I guess I'm not missing a simple way to accomplish this. I sure don't want to re-invent the wheel.

I have prepared some indicators in Excel using data unavailable through eSignal and now I want to combine this data with a moving average-based system that I've been backtesting. To my surprise I can find no way to import any type of non-eSignal data into an eSignal chart other than adding a data I/O section to my efs file and handling all the particulars of parsing and synching the data myself. I had hoped that I could just make the data look like price and volume data on a second chart and then use GetValue(). It strikes me that doing this kind of parsing in Javascript will get very messy especially given the fact that Global globals don't appear to provide synching of data across charts. Certainly exporting data is no problem and, in fact, that's how I generated the historical data I imported into Excel to test these new indicators, but I can find no mechanism whatsoever to bring outside, non-eSignal data into eSignal.

Has anyone else wrestled with this problem of importing data? Did you solve it? Any third-party software (DLL for example) that might be of help?

Thanks,

- mabon

[gspiker]

mabon,

If you are trying to import OHLC and V information, there is no way to do this that I aware of. Certainly eSignal itself doesn't support this. I played with the idea of doing this with EFS to provide additional historical data into eSignal - but the problem is that you really can't draw further back in time than the bars eSignal supplies...so efs will not allow you to work around this.

If you are trying to import indicator data for bar data that eSignal can supply, then efs will provide a work around, but there is no other way to do it.

I have repeatedly requested the ability to import my own OHLC and volume data for eSinal. Even when they expand their historical intraday data to 1 year, that is still too limited a time period for solid backtesting results. 1 year is good enough to do initial testing on, but you really need to test systems against all market conditions. For example one year of data from today would really only let you test against end phases of a bear market conditions.

[mabon]

Thanks for your help gspiker but I figured I was pretty much screwed in trying to do this in eSignal.

You know I'm getting just a little peeved over all these limitations. I dropped the service because of frustration with backtesting bugs while 7.2 was in beta and the system is more stable now but still lacks so much functionality.

I spent most of today looking for an alternative that had the flexibility I need and I sure liked the Ensign Windows package as an alternative to 7.2 for the handling of my eSignal data. They have a very feature rich programming language and a tremendous number of options in terms of how you choose to treat chart data, including the ability to import your own ASCII data to a chart! Imagine that.

Think I might just check out their free trial.

- mabon

[gspiker]

I think you will find Ensign has even more limitation WRT their API, but what maters is what limitation affects what YOU need to do. For me Ensign couldn't do one of my most important indicators, so it was a no go almost from the start.

[mabon]

Originally posted by gspiker
I think you will find Ensign has even more limitation WRT their API, but what maters is what limitation affects what YOU need to do. For me Ensign couldn't do one of my most important indicators, so it was a no go almost from the start.

I'm sorry to hear that. I decided to setup Ensign yesterday to evaluate their API and the ESPL programming language. The other systems that looked good in my recent survey were Wealth-Lab Developer 2.1 and Investor/RT so I guess I'll move to evaluate the next candidate if Ensign doesn't work out.