Filters

You select a filter as you wish. Press Cancel to cancel the filter. E.g., you want to see stocks beginning with SP9. Press Filter|Letter. Then press Use|Use Filter to see the stocks SP92, SP98, etc. Press Use|Use All to see everything.

If you want to cancel the letter filter, choose Filter|Letter. Press Cancel.

If  you just want to look at SP98, it is faster not to set a filter, but to search for in the incremental search. Type the letters in the little box, the search box, which is at the top of the database file, and for each letter you type, the data will move to those files. E.g., type S, and  you will see SA, etc. Type P, so that SP is in the box. You will see SP89, etc. Now type 9 to see SP9. The filter is good if you are going to do a run, for then it is quicker.

The filters remain in the ini file. To cancel the directory from the ini file, press

Filter|No Directory Filter.

After a run test, the filter will be those that have the output tagged. I.e., after the run, you will see only those that passed the test. To see all of them, click again Output tag number to clear this tag. You will then return to the original filter.

If you set a bookmark, and then a filter, you will receive an error message if you attempt to go to a bookmark that is not visible (filtered out).

One important use of filters is in data collection. There are three phases to data collection:

1. Adding records to the database. The database contains the list of stocks you wish to examine. You may add records manually, from a sym file, or from a csi directory.

2. Setting the filter. You must decide if you are interested in 60 minute data, daily data, or whatever.

3. Importing the data. With quote.com or MyTrack, this means downloading the data. With Stock Selector, it means having Stock Selector download the data into files, which is then read by Patterns.

Filters are saved in the ini file, so that the next time you open ContractsTable, the default is what you selected last. There are two cases: One is when you are connected on-line, and the other is when you are not connected. Each case is saved differently. In addition, the on-line filter always has minutes >= 0. When on-line, you cannot see the csi data.

When on line, and you change the filter, the program saves the data and then refreshes the grid using the new filter.

The assumption is that when on line there are a small number of stocks that you are watching (e.g., 100). If you put in 2000

stocks, it will take a few minutes to load up the memory database. That's why you want to set the tags so that when you are on line not too many stocks come up.