After being scared off for a long time by that awful demo, I finally funded my IB account. If they can keep the system up, I can save on com. But here's how I fixed that unusable screen. 1. Eliminated the tool bar and quick stock. And since I only trade es, I only need three data lines. Then I moved the screen all the way to the top, I mean I even pushed it up to where you can't even see the x close box in the upper right corner. So the whole order entry screen takes up just a few inches across the top. And I leave it open all the time so I never have to open or close it. 2. Set up the columns so the stop price is right below last price. So it is a snap to adjust stop if I want to. 3. Set up every order I use and transmit, cancel and close position with hotkeys. When I saw how easy you can trade with hotkeys, I started to get interested. I have x set up for close position and t for transmit. So it doesn't matter if I'm long or short, if I see a profit I like, I hit xt and I'm outa there. And U is price up and D is down. With my stop under the last price I can pretty much trail it tick by tick if I want just by hitting UT or DT. 4. And another thing. It was really bugging me that I had to open the execution window to check my fill price. I figured out you could keep it open but just display action quantity description and price down at the bottom of the screen in the left hand corner. I use that bottom line for my back up quotes anyway. But the execution window will update in real time, so you can always look down there and see your current fill.
There is a brilliant piece of software available entirly free which might help! Do a search for autotrader - on this site i think! Well worth a look!!