IB improvements

Discussion in 'Interactive Brokers' started by Babak, Aug 5, 2001.

  1. agent99

    agent99

    Def,

    One improvement that I'd love to see, and I can't remember if it's already been suggested, is a reserve feature where you could put in an order to sell for example 5000 shares, but show only 500 shares at a time time til the order's completed.

    Is this being considered?

    Thanks,

    99
     
    #111     Oct 1, 2001
  2. Babak

    Babak

    Wiseupdate should check to see if the installed version is the latest before downloading. Many times I have had Wiseupdate download a version that I had already manually installed. I know, I know, this is rather a small change, but it is an improvement.

    Also I want to repeat for the nth time that the 1st 3 columns from the left should be saveable or eraseable. Currently it is redundant to see this:

    || CIEN | BEST | Stock NMS CIEN ||

    We've suggested this 3 versions back and yet have not seen it.
     
    #112     Oct 1, 2001
  3. it appears that 722b has been released. No official release notes, but tech support told me that the major change was addition of option analytics (which is now a menu by itself)

    I haven't noticed any other changes.
     
    #113     Oct 2, 2001
  4. One of the few things that seem cumbersome with TWS is actually issuing trades. You have to click on the bid/ask, adjust prices, then right-click and select transmit.

    How about allowing a double-click on the "Action" button to issue a transmit. The "Action" button contains one of the words "BUY","SELL" or "SSHRT" so it's pretty clear what the intended action is.
     
    #114     Oct 2, 2001
  5. fleance

    fleance

    > One of the few things that seem cumbersome with TWS is
    > actually issuing trades. You have to click on the bid/ask, adjust
    > prices, then right-click and select transmit.

    You can setup a hotkey for transmit. (Settings->Hot Keys...) I use spacebar. So I click a bid/ask, adjust prices, then hit space bar. That makes it easier because having to right-click and select from a menu is very clumsy.

    I agree IB needs to add more powerful hotkeys and mouse actions.

    I would like hotkeys for Insert Row, Delete Row, Cancel Page, Cancel All, + any other action which can be used frequently during the trading day. I find myself having to click Order->Cancel Page throughout the day which is distracting.

    IB should allow actions to be assigned for single-click and double-clicks on the different columns on a contract. There already is a hardcoded behavior for clicking on the Bid and Ask. A prime example would be clicking on the new Position column. This should automatically create an order that would close the position out. This would be very helpful, esp. when you odd numbers of shares, e.g. 439.

    Overall, I don't see IB doing much to improve useability of the product. The addition of the Position and P&L columns is the biggest useability improvement IMO. But they need to offer much more customization of the contract page. There are many columns on that page I don't care about and they clutter my screen.

    At this point, I think IB just needs to work on useability and also the performance/scaleability of their servers. I'm currently using my other brokers rather than IB because JTWS keeps freezing up on me for 5-15 seconds every minute...

    Fleance
     
    #115     Oct 2, 2001
  6. I just started using IB this week. But after reading through many forums on the internet, it seemed like the best option for quick order entry was to use a separate programmable keypad.

    The XKEYS keypad was discussed on another thread. I bought the keypad last week and here is how I've set it up.

    First, using your regular keyboard, set up hot keys for the 12 hotkey options.

    Second, set up the XKEYS keypad to issue a series of these programmed hot keys. This lets you only have to press one keystroke to execute an order entry, price adjust, and transmit.

    For example, I've set up CRTL+1 as buy limit, CTRL+4 as price up, and CTRL+SHIFT+1 as transmit. I then programmed the keypad to issue these three key sequences by pressing a single key. So all I need to do is use the cursor keys to highlight the particular security that I want to buy and press the key on the keypad. This sets up a buy limit, adjusts the price up by 4 cents (my preference) and transmits the order. No mouse required.

    This is extremely fast and executions usually come back in sub-seconds.

    Now, if only I could make some money......................?

    Echo
     
    #116     Oct 2, 2001
  7. Echo,

    thank you for reminding me of XKEYS again. That really does look great. I'll probably give it a try.

    Thanks !
     
    #117     Oct 2, 2001
  8. Don't know if this has been requested before, but it would be good if we could set audible alerts. It would be even better if we could specify our own wav or mp3 file to execute when a level is hit.

    As I am sleeping when the US market is trading, it would be good to have an alarm go off that wakes me up when something big happens.
     
    #118     Oct 3, 2001
  9. Been asking for a user defined sound capability for a long time now. Real simple to implement, and can't understand why they haven't.

    def, are you listening?
     
    #119     Oct 3, 2001
  10. def

    def Sponsor

    i'm listening. all i can do is make suggestions. there have been a number of priorities that have been more pressing. I'll keep pressing.
     
    #120     Oct 3, 2001