Set Up Your Workspace
Last updated
Last updated
One of our ambitious goals in the development of AgenaTrader is to provide you, the trader, with an ergonomic workspace.
Another top priority of ours is also to enable users to trade professionally with a variety of instruments using as little space as possible. In order to fulfill these objectives, AgenaTrader displays as much information as possible in as little space as necessary, making this information available with just a couple of mouse clicks.
Example of a workspace with only one monitor:
We have abandoned the concept of floating windows, which can be easily lost and misplaced within the task bar.
Our solution to this is the docking tab technology. This technology offers various functionalities such as organization and grouping of lists, charts and tools within a tab and the ability to position these "information containers" flexibly within the workspace using drag & drop.
The technology of docking tabs assumes:
The possibility to place and/or group the tabs manually on the screen and categorize anchors logically. For example, you can bring together all positions/trading/executions lists in one control center.
Other tabs such as News/Protocol/Strategy Escort etc. can be assembled to form an info center if required.
Charts and chart containers can be placed within an appropriate charting space.
The AgenaTrader workspace design and grouping is highly flexible, and can be customized to adapt the layout to suit your needs:
If you drag a tab (by clicking and holding the left mouse button), the docking buttons will become visible. Now you can release the tab over one of these buttons and it will be placed accordingly.
Alternatively, you can distribute them manually as you wish across multiple monitors (6-8).
Using the same drag and drop method you can also change the order of tabs within a group.
1. A right click on the tab will open the following contextualized menu:
2. Select the Detach menu item to move the tab to a different display.
3. To reattach the tab, right click on it and select the Attach option from the context menu.
4. To add a further tab to a detached tab, right mouse click on the tab to be attached and select the Attach to option.
5. If you want to move a detached tab back to the main window (or to a different window) use the Attach to option in the context menu again. The selected window will display the background color as slightly transparent during this process to clarify the user's choice.
Select the Rename option to change the name of an existing tab and the Close option to close the tab.
Potential issues may arise when working with multiple PCs and Dropbox.
If you save your AgenaTrader data in Dropbox in order to use the same settings on different PCs, then you may face problems involving disappearing windows due to the difference in display settings of your monitors. To avoid this issue, save your AgenaTrader workspace without detached windows. You can detach them once more after loading the configurations.
AgenaTrader loads historical prices for active instruments from the data feed provider's server. Sometimes the system may need some time to proceed. If this is the case, you can check the progress of the data download at the bottom right of your screen. The progress bar indicates the current state and quantity of bars requested. Please note that as long as this bar remains yellow, you may see only empty charts.
Historical data are necessary when using the following tools:
Indicators in the scanner ("bars required" for loading)
Indicators in the chart ("bars required" for evaluation)
Strategies in the Strategy Escort ("bars required" for loading)
Strategies in the chart ("bars required" for evaluation)
This problem may in fact occur with most data feeds.
The Interactive Brokers data feed may cause significant problems. IB only permits 60 historical queries within 10 minutes. This means that if you have a List Chart Group with 20 instruments and 3 time frames per instrument, the amount of queries is already exhausted. If you then change the time frame of a chart after the limit has been reached, the chart remains empty since Interactive Brokers will no longer deliver historical data.
Barchart offers historical packages with 100, 200 and 500 requests – but a package of 100 queries is also quickly exhausted.
It should be noted that every data feed has its own limitations. Once you have exceeded the maximum number of history requests with IB you must wait 10 minutes to load new histories. Barchart, on the other hand, may require up to one hour to load new historical prices.
On the bottom of AgenaTrader main workspace, you can see the status indicators.
They are displaying System, Internet traffic (ping), Cpu usage, TradersYard connection and DataFeed (Broker) connection status.
Colors of indicators :
Green: System and connection are good
Yellow: There are some problems with system and connection (ping is higher than usual), loading of charts takes longer. Please check if there are any error messages in the log and try to fix issue.
Red: Serious problems with system and connections (ping is very high). Please check if there are any error messages in the log and try to fix it
Aside from using the MAIN - MENU, TOOLS - MENU, CREATE YOUR OWN TRADING STRATEGY and FLATTEN menus, the basic and most important functionalities of AgenaTrader can be accessed with the space-friendly application toolbar
On the Top left of the main window, the user may find search toolbar. It allows you to search information through the Online Help in a quick way. Just type the exact term, as used in the software and click the search button
The application toolbar can be shifted to all four edges of your display or unpinned from the edges completely and moved to wherever needed
Important tip regarding an unpinned menu bar: when AgenaTrader is restarted the bar will appear in the place where your cursor is currently located.
Select the Add/Remove Commands menu item to choose which symbols are displayed in the application toolbar. If the menu bar is compressed due to a reduction in window size, you can display the obscured symbols by clicking the Hidden Commands button
The Customize button is currently not activated.
