7.7 Text Manager

[boardman]

In the 7.7 features list (on the eSignal website), I see reference to a News Manager, as well as to streaming news. I assume the later is what is (in 7.6) called Text Manager??

If I read correctly, News Manager seems to be integrated into the eSignal charting program, but I want to make sure the new Text Manager can still be run independant of the charting program, as is possible in older versions. Is this right?

Thanks

[DuaneG]

Hi boardman,

You are correct. The Text Manager can be called outside of eSignal by going to Start---->Programs---->eSignal---->Text Manager. The News Manager is the integrated news client whereas the Text Manager can be run either in or out of the eSignal software.

** One important side note on this subject; if you install eSignal 7.7 on a computer that has never had any eSignal programs on it before, (i.e. 7.6, 7.4) and so on, this option will not be in the menu and sub-menu listing. If you are upgrading from 7.6, the option should appear as described above. Thanks.

[boardman]

Ok, great. Thanks.

[kbock]

7.7 Text Manager

Is the old text manager still available in version 7.7?

I tried upgrading with a clean install of esignal to 7.7 but I do not like the way this new news manager works. I keep the window popped out on another screen but when I click a news story the story appears back within esignal app that is on another monitor in my layout. I just want to be able to use the old text manager or get a fix for the new one so a new news story window opens popped out as well. I would like things to work as they did with the old text manager.

I really don't see what benifit this new news manager has to it. What did you guys spend so much time working on? Maybe I am just missing something.

Anyway I went back to the 7.6 version until I see that the new news manager has the same capabilities as the old one.

[DuaneG]

Hi kbock,

** One important side note on this subject; if you install eSignal 7.7 on a computer that has never had any eSignal programs on it before, (i.e. 7.6, 7.4) and so on, this option will not be in the menu and sub-menu listing. If you are upgrading from 7.6, the option should appear...

As you installed eSignal 7.7 cleanly, the Text Manager would not be available. If you install 7.7 on top of an existing version with the Text Manager (i.e) 7.6, or 7.4, it should still be available to you. Thanks.

[kbock]

7.7 text manager

thanks for the quick reply, but do you understand what I am asking for with the new text manager?

It needs to have new windows open popped out within the new text manager just like the old one did.

Also when I click on the headline Icon in a quote page it opens the news window within the eSignal application not popped out within the text manager like the old text manager would do.

Do you have a solution for the problem I am describing?

[kbock]

Text manager 7.7

I really don't understand why you would release a so called upgrade to the text manager without having at least the same capabilities as the old version.

Also I tried what you said to upgrade from an installed version 7.6 and when I upgraded to 7.7 the old text manager was not available.

The new text manager does not even download all headlines at startup like the old text manager did. What kind of improvements do you guys think you are making?

Will you add the old text manager back in as an option on the next service release of v7.7?

Maybe allow users to chose the new or the old text manager just like you do with advanced or basic charts.

Thanks

[DuaneG]

kbock,

Thanks for the feedback. Just so we are comparing apples to apples, the Text Manager is the feature that was the primary news client is eSignal 7.4 and 7.6. In the case of eSignal 7.7, the News Manager is the default news client. As I mentioned earlier, the Text Manager is still available in 7.7 as long as it is installed on top of an existing version that used the Text Manager as the default client. After the installation of eSignal 7.7 on top of an existing version, users can access the Text Manager by going though the following steps....Start--->All Programs--->eSignal--->Text Manager.

The News Manager in eSignal 7.7 can be configured to behave similarly to the Text Manager by going through the News Manager Options menu. By selecting the Single Preview Mode, users can then populate a selected news story within an independent window. There are some known issues with this feature and they are being addressed. As soon as we have a fix applied to this feature, I'll re-post to this thread.

[BKuerbs]

I have used the new News Manager for a while now and have some remarks:

• When the filter is set to "unread" and I click on a headline to view the story, the body of the news is displayed in a new window. So far so good. But when a new headline comes in, this window will be void / or display the new story. Have not figured out, what happens when.
• When I set the filter to "all stories", the above won't happen, the chosen story will remain displayed, when a new headline comes in. But now, the headline window will remain centered at the headline for the story I read, and new headlines will be stuck above the top of the headline window, so are not seen. Most confusing: when I close the window with the body of a news, it will auto-open and the story is displayed again and again.
• The way the timestamp is displayed is really annoying, it is an outright impudence. We have the choice between "local", which is not local, and GMT. I want the the time displayed in my local time zone and in my local time format, just as the old Text Manager did.

For now, I have switched back to the old Text Manager.

Since I use the Futures News service only, I do not need the integration with stock charts.

Did you ever have a look at the new breed of RSS Newsreaders? I do not know, whether your technology is compatible with RSS, but I would like to use the newsfeed via a RSS-News Reader. Have a look at e.g. FeedDemon ( www.FeedDemon.com ) . This is how I would like the News Manager to look like.

Many Thanks

Bernd Kuerbs

[JayF]

When the filter is set to "unread" and I click on a headline to view the story, the body of the news is displayed in a new window. So far so good. But when a new headline comes in, this window will be void / or display the new story. Have not figured out, what happens when.

This is because of the time it takes to mark a story as read (default is 2 seconds.) Once this threshold is met the headline is removed from view (due to the "unread" filter), and the story goes with it. This could certainly be done more elegantly (i.e. only filter out the story once the user clicks somewhere else.)

When I set the filter to "all stories", the above won't happen, the chosen story will remain displayed, when a new headline comes in. But now, the headline window will remain centered at the headline for the story I read, and new headlines will be stuck above the top of the headline window, so are not seen. Most confusing: when I close the window with the body of a news, it will auto-open and the story is displayed again and again.

These issues will be fixed in 7.8, which is due out next week.

The way the timestamp is displayed is really annoying, it is an outright impudence. We have the choice between "local", which is not local, and GMT. I want the the time displayed in my local time zone and in my local time format, just as the old Text Manager did.

This sounds like a possible new bug. What local time zone is your PC set in? What is displayed in the News Manager, when you select Local for the time zone?

Did you ever have a look at the new breed of RSS Newsreaders? I do not know, whether your technology is compatible with RSS, but I would like to use the newsfeed via a RSS-News Reader. Have a look at e.g. FeedDemon ( www.FeedDemon.com ) . This is how I would like the News Manager to look like.

Thanks for this. I don't know if this is compatible or not with our systems, but I'll be happy to forward to our [email protected] address for our development team to look at.

[BKuerbs]

@Jay F

I have set the time to zero, hoping it would mean infinite.

There are two choices for the timestamp:
local and GMT.

"local" display the time in my time zone, but not in the Time format I have chosen in Windows, e.g. "19:00" is displayed as "07:00". GMT - correctly - displays this time as "18:00". But since I'm in the time zone GMT+1 I want to see it as "19:00". The old Text Manager does it correctly.

I strongly recommend to take a long look at these RSS feed readers: this is the future. Do not try to beat to life a dead horse.

In the screenshot, the left panel shows the "Channels" I have subscribed to. These correspond to "Services" in your terminology. The upper right panel shows the headlines, the lower right panel displays these headlines in a "Newspaper" style, probably not needed for your newsservices, and when clicking on a headline the full story will be displayed here.

The whole layout is very flexible and highly customizable.

Important for me: I can define "watch" channels, which search the channels for keywords defined by me, just as your searches, but the results of these watches are treated as channels of their own and seamlessly integrated into the other channels. And I can locally store any story. There are a lot of different RSS feed readers, all with their merits (and disadvantages of course).

Have a nice weekend

Bernd Kuerbs

[boardman]

What's wrong with Text Manager that you are doing away with it? Yes I can still get it provided I have upgraded from 7.6, but that seems a little silly.

I need to be able to run it independently (outside of) the eSignal charting software. Can't do that with News Manager.

What's the likelihood you will continue to offer Text Manager with future versions?

The only improvement I would make to Text manager is to allow a user to key different audio alarms to each news window in multi window layouts.

[boardman]

I didn't mean for it to sound like a rhetorical question! :-)

[DuaneG]

boardman,

The News Manager is geared to be the replacement for the Text Manager. Because the Text Manager has been part of eSignal for such an extended period of time, we are still making it available for usage in the upcoming versions with a few changes in regards to how it is accessed.

Starting in eSignal 7.9 or 8.0, the Text Manager will not be included in the program executable. We still plan to leave the feature in the eSignal folder for any user that is upgrading from an earlier version. In regards to the 7.8 release, users will be able to access the Text Manager via the eSignal directory, but there won't be a direct link to it from within eSignal or the Start menu. Again, because there is such a legacy with users on older versions, we really don't see it going away completely.

[kbock]

Text Manager support

eSignal PLEASE DO NOT remove the old text manager from your program!

You should not cripple your current subscribers with a replacement for the text manager that does not even have at least the same features as the old program.

I need to run it 'Popped out' or as a seperate application.

I really do not understand why you guys are upgrading your product with a program that is not as functional as the old.

I dont really care how 'Pretty' you guys want to make the display of news stories. I just want a seperate window that I can see scrolling realtime news and be able to view the story in that SAME window or in another window on top like the current text manager does.

If you cant make the new Program work like the old or better please leave the old Text Manager available for your subscribers who want to use it.

Thanks