AmiBroker 6.12.0 BETA Read Me

April 1, 2016 23:06

THIS IS A BETA VERSION OF THE SOFTWARE. EXPECT BUGS !!!

Backup your data files and entire AmiBroker folder first!

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

First you need to have full version of AmiBroker 6.10 installed. Then just run the BETA installer and follow the instructions.

Then run AmiBroker. You should see "AmiBroker 6.12.0" written in the About box.

See CHANGE LOG below for detailed list of changes. Note that only changes that affect end-user directly are listed here. Internal code changes/refactoring is usually not mentioned.

CHANGE LOG

CHANGES FOR VERSION 6.12.0 (as compared to 6.11.0)

• AFL: new function GfxDrawImage( "filename", x, y )
  
  Notes:
  The function currently supports BMP and PNG files.
  Per-pixel transparency (alpha channel) is supported ONLY for 32-bit PNG files.
  PNG files with 32-bit depth are rendered with AlphaBlend which is not be available on oldest systems (Win95).
  BMP files PNG files of lower depths are rendered without transparency using BitBlt (fast and always available)

  Loading and drawing BMP files is much faster than PNG (as much as 10 times faster), approx load and rendering time is 0.3 ms for BMP, 3 ms for PNG (alphablended).
  Timings that you get from Code check and profile are misleading for Gfx functions because they don't include actual on-screen rendering.

  GfxDrawImage( "wizard.bmp", 100, 0 ); // bitmap - fast
  GfxDrawImage( "logo.png", 30, 30 ); // png - supports per-pixel alpha channel / transparency

  
  
• AFL: new function ProdSince( condition, array ) - cumulative product of array elements since condition is met
  On bar when condition is met, initial product value is 1.
  
• AFL: new function Prod( array, range ) - cumulative product of array elements over specified number of bars (range)
  Note: when range is less or equal zero, product is equal 1.
  
• AFL: new function CumProd( factor ) - cumulative product of array elements
  y = CumProd( 1.05 ); // 1% per-bar growth

  Plot( y, "exponential growth", colorRed );

• AFL: new function VoiceCount( ) - returns number of available SAPI (Speech API) voices - to be used with Say() command
• AFL: new function VoiceSelect( num ) - select SAPI (Speech API) voice to be used with Say() function, num is a numerical index of installed voices. By default Windows comes with just one voice, but one can add countless 3rd party voices
• AFL: StaticVarAdd with non-array input produced incorrect results. Fixed.
• UI: Symbols with COMMA (,) caused problems with multiple-selection operations. Now it is handled properly.
• UI: Symbol Information - date fields (like last split date, div date or delisting date) can now be cleared (select all and press DELETE) to set Empty/Null date
• UI: Realtime quote window: a RMB context menu items are grayed when local data is used and an empty message is set to inform the user that he/she needs realtime data source to use this window
• UI: Quote Editor allows now immediate search for matching date - just type digits in format YYYYMMDD and list will automatically scroll and mark to quote that most closely matches entered date
• UI: New Analysis: Alt+Enter shortcut added to bring up settings window

CHANGES FOR VERSION 6.11.0 (as compared to 6.10.0)

• AFL: added formatDateTimeISO for ISO formatting regardless of locale settings, example:
  Filter = 1;
AddColumn( DateTime(), "DT ISO", formatDateTimeISO ); // generate a date/time column that is always in ISO format regardless of regional settings in Windows
  
• AFL: MxFromString was slow on very large matrices (>100000 cells) due to poor performance of strtod function from Microsoft C runtime. Now MxFromString does not use it and is even 1000 times faster on 100K+ cell matrices (5ms vs 5second)
• ASCII importer can now be even 20 times faster when importing NEW (non existing) data that were oddly sorted (like for example in reverse order - descending dates instead of ascending).
• ASCII importer is now twice as fast when updating already existing quotes thanks to using in-house code instead of msvcrt functions.
• Charting: Fibonacci maximum user-definable level increased to 9000% (from 1000%)
• Idle processing is forced now every 125 ms (instead of 250ms) in Analysis window to update UI components more frequently under heavy CPU load
• Ruin stop is identified by Short(ruin) / Sell(ruin) instead of Short(6) / Sell(6)
• Startup splash screen is displayed a little sooner now and some pre-loading of editor components is done at start to save time to open editor later
• When there were thousands of files in "Formulas" folder opening editor for the first time could take some time. Now this time is significantly reduced.

If you experience any problem with this beta version please send detailed description of the problem (especially the steps needed to reproduce it) to support at amibroker.com