Thanks for the feedback, and especially for the reassurance that 10 will continue to be supported. As to your beta testers, one suspects that they aren't the tough crowd that ET is.
Jay, it sounds like your beta testing wasn't actually done if you haven't matched the features of the last version with your new one. And I'll give you a hint about beta testing - your beta testers probably are hobby traders not pro traders. You'd have a hard time getting a good trader to even answer a feature survey much less be an unpaid beta tester. Yet we are your bread and butter that have been with you year after year. The only time you hear from us is when you break something. It's a tough conundrum and a factor easily underestimated. So here's a suggestion: pay us for our time and you might get some useful beta testers. Otherwise you will pay in the form of long debug cycles and an enraged customer base when the inevitable screwups happen. Having said all that I think I'll wait until version 12 gets released before I try version 11 since I get paid to trade, not debug someone else's code. But perhaps I'll consider upgrading to a later release of Version 10 in the meantime.
Thanks, Deco, for your very intelligent rants (IMHO) that address so much of the frustration I believe anyone who really tries to make money is going to have in converting to 11 from 10. And, even though I do not personally use the F word, etc - I appreciate your colorful language because it reflects the depth of the anger some of us have about wasting so much time and energy trying 11 out and then having to go back to 10 in sheer frustration because we cannot trade with it. And Scott from ESignal, I really do appreciate your attempt to reassure us that 10 is not going away (at least for now) - but I cannot believe that people who are really serious traders could have given you any kind of glowing report about 11. It is just the most glitchy software I have ever used (and I have used a lot). My whole trading system has been developed over 10 years and it depends on being able to draw a whole lot of lines and put in a lot of text boxes, and be able to watch multiple charts at one time - plus be able to save each stock symbol as a separate chart and retrieve it and look at historical data quickly - and rearrange multiple charts so I can see at a glance what I need to look at more closely. With 11, the lines and text boxes only "stick" if I open a whole new page with only one chart for each individual stock and redo all of my studies, then save that page with just that one stock chart on it at a time. Yes, you can cursor over the pages at the bottom of the screen and see a thumbnail. Big whoop. Because I would spending all my time doing this and go nutty with the frustration of it all. It's just totally unusable for me. You need to come up a way that we can save individual charts and be able to retrieve them, WITH ALL OF OUR WORK INTACT - plus be able to incorporate many of those charts onto ONE page and be able to minimize the nonactive ones, like was easily doable in 10. That was your promise, remember? You told us you were going to combine the functionality of pages with the functionality of layouts into something like "workspaces" - that page is still on your website, I might add. But no, you totally changed the whole thing. And released what is really LESS than a beta version - without warning us that the whole thing is a scrambled, glitchy, lesser version of what we expected. No amount of damage control on the part of ESignal can erase the loss of trust you have caused with this. We trade to make money, not to fool around. IF we don't make money, we don't subscribe to ESignal. You need to keep that in mind.
Sounds like you're looking for lunch money! I put in my 2 cents during the beta testing, and I have been living off my trading for over 30 years. If you want to call me a hobby trader go ahead. But I gave my opinions 'for free' as I realize they are designers of trading software and not traders. So if they listen to our wants and needs, they should produce a product that will be of more benefit to us than what they might come up with on their own. I try to help for free, and I hope you find your lunch money!!
With great effort of will I will resist asking you if you pointed out its flaws and if they paid any attention to you. Rather I will simply say that on those occasions as a "real" trader when I have tried to make helpful suggestions, and on one occasion even point to the solution of a serious flaw, I was greeted with stony silence. I think they don't give a shit about anyone's opinion but those of the third party developers who lure to them more flopping fish. And it is amazing to me, though I believe it to be true, that in fact they AREN'T traders. That's like being a whore who doesn't offer her clients sex.
You are far more generous with your time than I. Hats off to you. But the status of the "end product" tends to indicate you are an exception. Given how much I've paid Esignal over the years, I'm not too eager to extend them any additional charity. My criticism was aimed at companies who can't figure out why their beta testing resulted in so many bugs, not pro traders who are charitable with their time. PS. I love it when people buy me lunch. Buy me lunch some time and I'll tell you why.
Actually there were some bugs that I pointed out that they fixed, and a few of my suggestions were applied. Far from all bugs and suggestions though as I imagine that their early efforts were aimed at data flow and stability of the platform. For the rest of the bugs and suggestions, I am looking forward to the 'real 'Gold!!
Generous??? No, not by any means. I'm as selfish as can be. So if anything I, and others, can do to help results in a better product that meets our needs, selfish ol' me is the one who benefits!!
Very eloquent and well spoke. I am going to start looking at alternatives today. As you said, ten years of trust is broken.