I do agree the one thing that's hurting IB is its platform. I looked at their TWS DEMO (don't know if it's up to date with the current platform), and I felt the whole thing was clunky. I guess people must use IB because they've got great rates and a good range of services. But their charting is bad news.
which TWS version is considered the most reliable right now? I need it to work reliably with excel DDE. i don't care is the charts are messed up.
When TWS loses and gets back its Internet connection, the trading window mostly returns to the way it was. Except these lines disappear: (a) lines for orders that had been set up but not yet transmitted and (b) lines for orders that were partially filled and then canceled (by me).
I'm on 906.9 also and like it but keep saving the latest "previous version" for when I must change. Most complaints seem to be charting. Solution: Sierra Chart or Multicharts if it does what you need in free.
While not part of the bug list, I posted the below on another IB software related thread a few days ago. I'm using 911.3 on one computer for trading and have 917.8 on another for back up. BookTrader works perfectly on both. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FWIW I use BookTrader for trading and eSignal for charting. The data never lags and I can't really remember the last outage. Must have been over a year now. Pretty good, I'd say. While the TWS charting still needs work, I can say for sure that the recent improvements in the charting and other TWS features, including the design, have been much better than in the past. And most of all, most of the changes seem to work the first time around. I could be wrong, but for the last few months I've gotten the distinct feeling that there is new blood working on improving TWS. And they do seem to be doing a much better job of it!! A little off the subject, but I've noticed on IB's SMF Forum in the TWS Platform thread that there is a new man from IB named John who really breaks his back to be of help, and in a very polite manner.
I have taken a new look at TWS charts. They do seem improved as of late. Never thought I'd be saying this, but got to give credit where credit is due. They were so bad for so long, but for other doubters like I was, you might want to take a look at 918. I don't know how long they have been on this level. I had given up on the charting side a long time ago.
If anyone has had trouble lanuching IB after installing on W7 64 here is an easy fix to the missing desktop shortcut courtesy of the ExcelTrader http://exceltrader.net/ ------------------------------------------------------ how to Install TWS on a 64 bit Windows 7 system. July 20, 2010 By ExcelTrader If you are unable to run TWS after installing on a 64 bit system, below are the instructions that will avoid the âmissing shortcutâ error that you might encounter and allow you to run TWS as expected. Install 32 bit Java. (remove any old java installations first) Install TWS (followed by the API if you are using it) Copy the file âJavaw.exeâ from âC:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\binâ and place it in âC:\Windows\System32″ Now open from the TWS shortcut as normal.
1) Dialog boxes steal the focus from other apps. This is really annoying, because if you have a too-late-to-cancel and it keeps happening while you are working on some error or emergency, the thing actually prevents you from actively fixing your problem. Those stupid dialog boxes need to be configurable. Apparently people have been asking for this for years. 2) API orders aren't visible on book trader, more of a feature request than a bug, but how do you use booktrader for manual stuff when APIs are managing things in the background?