AmiBroker 6.14.0 BETA Read Me

June 18, 2016 17:13

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 6.14.0" 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 6.14.0 (as compared to 6.13.0)

• AFL: ParamDate() added support for format=2 to return datetime instead of datenum/string
• AFL: PercentRank function now accepts variable period (range)
• AFL: PriceVolDistribution crashed if startbar argument was negative. Fixed by implementing protection against negative bar indexes.
• AFL: PriceVolDistribution sometimes produced some random values in 6.13. Fixed.
• ASCII importer now supports microsecond resolution timestamps (HH:MM:SS.mmmuuu) where mmm - milliseconds 000..999, uuu - microseconds 000..999
• New Analysis: new feature a PAUSE button to temporarily pause/resume any running analysis. Note that already running threads are not interrupted, they are allowed to complete gracefully and then pause state is entered.
• UI: A warning message is displayed when user attempts to close AmiBroker while Analysis is in progress
• UI: QuoteEditor in some cases did not properly round fractional part of millisecond down to microsecond. Fixed
• UI: QuoteEditor: Edit fields for OHLC prices, Volume, OpenInt and Aux now check for proper entry as you type and display red background if entered string is not proper numer. Also those edit fields don't accept characters other than digits (0..9), decimal
• UI: Toolbar icons are set to "Large icons" mode automatically on HighDPI screens
• When broker.workspace file was corrupted or truncated, the file remained open which eventually prevented from writing it on close. Fixed.

CHANGES FOR VERSION 6.13.0 (as compared to 6.12.0)

• AFL Editor: calling SetForeign thousands of times followed by RestorePriceArrays() could cause exception during code verify when number of symbols exceeded cache size. Fixed.
• AFL Editor: changes made in 6.11 to the way how automatic names for new formulas are assigned have been removed and replaced by new method that is faster and more reliable.
• AFL Editor: if clipboard is locked by another application the editor would retry opening clipboard upto 8 times before giving up
• AFL Editor: when formula was open cursor was located at the end. Now it is located at the top.
• AFL: GfxSetCoordsMode( mode ) accepts now four different modes
  mode parameter now accepts values 0, 1, 2, 3 with the following meaning:

  0 - X and Y coordinates are expressed in screen pixels
  1 - X coordinate is bar index, Y coordinate is price
  2 - X coordinate is pixel, Y coordinate is price
  3 - X coordinate is bar index, Y is pixel

• AFL: MA function made upto 2 times faster, StDev function made 20% faster, Correlation made 40% faster
• AFL: NormDist( x, mean = 0, sigma = 1, cumulative = True ) function. Implements hi-precision algorithm.
  
  The function uses hi-precision algorithm that gives accurate results even for extreme left and right tails (<-5 and >+5)
  The results are compatible with Excel 2003 and later which introduced higher precision NORMDIST than previous versions (Excel 2002 and earlier).

  
  x = 19;
  m = 2;
  s = 9;

  printf("PDF %g CDF %g", NormDist( x, m, s, False ), NormDist( x, m, s, True ) );

  
  x = -7;
  m = 0;
  s = 1;

  printf("PDF %g CDF %g", NormDist( x, m, s, False ), NormDist( x, m, s, True ) );

• AFL: PriceVolDistribution( priceH, priceL, vol, bins, absolute = False, startbar = 0, endbar = -1 )
  
  // a demo showing
  // re-implementation of VAP overlay using
  // PriceVolDistribution and low-level graphics
  bi = BarIndex();
  fvb = FirstVisibleValue( bi );
  lvb = LastVisibleValue( bi );

  mx = PriceVolDistribution( H, L, V, 100, False, fvb, lvb );

  GfxSetCoordsMode( 1 );

  GfxSelectPen( colorRed );

  bins = MxGetSize( mx, 0 );
  for( i = 0; i < bins; i++ )
  {
  price = mx[ i ][ 0 ]; // price level
  relvolume = mx[ i ][ 1 ]; // relative volume 0..1
  relbar = relvolume * (lvb-fvb+1);
  GfxMoveTo( fvb, price );
  GfxLineTo( fvb + relbar, price );
  }

  Plot( C, "Price", colorDefault, styleBar );

  if( ParamToggle("BuildinVAP", "No|Yes") ) PlotVAPOverlay( 100, 100, colorGreen, 2 );

• AFL: 64-bit version AFL Correlation() produced slightly different values (+/-0.00001 typ) than 32-bit version due to compiler differencies. Now 64-bit version produces same values as produced by all 32-bit versions.
• Charting: new feature - Snap to Tick grid. Snap drawing tool end points to TickSize-spaced grid (if TickSize > 0 for given symbol)
• Plugin loading routine displays a message box when plugins with incorrect bitness are found
• Plugin loading routine writes detailed error message to the broker.log in case of problem of DLL loading (must enable plugin log to use this feature)
  To enable plugin loading messages you need to create the following key in the registry:
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\TJP\Broker\Diagnostics
  and add
  Flags
  (DWORD 32bit) key with value = 5

  Example error codes:
  Loading 'AmiBroker\Plugins\FT.dll' - failed. Error code: 126: The specified module could not be found.. (0.63 ms)
  - this means that the FT.DLL could not be loaded because it depends on other DLL that is missing (or not found in search path)

  Loading 'AmiBroker\Plugins\TC2K.dll' - failed. Error code: 1114: A dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed.. (0.23 ms)
  - this means that TC2K.DLL was loaded fine but its InitInstance function exited with error code. In that case it was because Telechart was not installed and/or its OLE server not registerd

  Loading 'F:\AmiBroker\Plugins\Sample.dll' - failed. Error code: 193: Not a valid 32-bit DLL. (0.14 ms)
  - this means that you attempted to use 64-bit DLL with 32-bit application (not supported by OS)
  

• When drawn study is being modified, Y distance shown in the status bar accounts for activated snap-to-price and/or snap-to-tick mode now.

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