amibroker

A new beta version (5.29.6) of AmiBroker has just been released.

http://www.amibroker.com/members/bin/ab5296beta.exe
(2 293 448 bytes)

If you forgot your user name / password to the members area you can use automatic reminder service at: http://www.amibroker.com/login.html

IMPORTANT: Unauthorized copying and/or distribution of materials found on members' only page is STRICTLY PROHIBITED and will result in IMMEDIATE termination of license.

Remember to BACKUP YOUR FILES FIRST !
Note that this version can only be installed onto previous full installation of version 5.20 or higher

Since version 5.27 the format of database files (quotation / stock / drawings ) has changed.
So once data are saved with version 5.27 you will NOT be able to read them in pre-5.27 version.
Please make a backup of your pre-5.27 DATA in case you want to revert to previous version at any time in the future.

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.29.6 (as compared to 5.29.2)

1. [update 5.29.6] Fixed race condition between UI threads sometimes causing "wait for plugin" window to stay
2. Sometimes when copying AA list to clipboard three dot (...) sequence appeared every 2048 characters of copied text and some characters could be missing. Fixed.
3. GUI: chart context window items re-arranged - 'Close' menu item moved to the bottom and 'Properties' menu item moved to top (after Parameters)
4. styleClipMinMax constant is now highlighted in AFL editor
5. When different symbol were selected in active chart and in the Symbols pane (because of filtering) operations like adding/removing from watchlist got confused. Now AmiBroker asks the user what to do.
6. NumToStr/WriteVal are polymorphic now (means better performance for scalar input arguments)
7. Aux1/Aux2 reserved variables are highligted now in AFL editor
8. PREV/NEXT sibling keyboard shortcut functionality restored
9. Added "wait for plugin" window when switching external plugin-driven databases because sometimes plugin may take long time to shutdown/initialize
10. New symbol bar: inability to select first symbol after new search when previously displayed was one symbol, current symbol is re-selected automatically when search string changes. In-place symbol editing disabled.
11. Under some circumstances when broker.master was deleted/corrupted/inaccessible AmiBroker could hang loading database. Fixed.
12. Cum() function does NOT use all bars any more by default.
13. BarIndex() now returns values always starting from zero (even if QuickAFL is turned on).
14. Due to operating system changes in Vista and Windows 7, structured exceptions like address violations were not handled properly by exception handler and caused immediate program exit. Fixed.
15. Status() function new fields
16. Crash report now properly lists Windows Vista (OS 6.0) and Windows 7 (OS 6.1)
17. Crash recovery window now sends bug reports directly over http (WWW) protocol instead of relying on clients' MAPI email program as on Windows 7 e-mail program is no longer installed by default.

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.29.2 (as compared to 5.29.0)

1. Some issues with datestamps (including wrong montly compression) were introduced by change to EOD markers done 5.29.0. Reverted/fixed.
2. New symbol window is properly filled with categories even if not initally visible
3. New symbol window category/list panes can be resized now
4. GetPlaybackDateTime did not return zero when playback was not active in 5.27-5.29. Fixed.
5. When plugins used InfoSite.AddStock (old one) more than once per symbol certain category assignments could be improperly set in 5.27..5.29.0. Fixed.
6. Added fopen()/fclose() tracking and error message (Error 51) when user forgot to close files. On such error files are automatically closed by AB

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.29.0 (as compared to 5.28.1)

1. contains fixed non-exhaustive optimization plugins
2. ASCII importer: added GICS support
3. Fixed loading of old AA settings so Chart dimensions are initialized with (500,300) instead of zero
4. Trade.EntryDateTime, Trade.ExitDateTime were reporting values incompatible with DateTimeToStr in 5.27/5.28. Fixed
5. Fixed assertion in Import Wizard (refering to non-existing combo box)
6. A blank chart timing is now set to arbitrary value of 10ms
7. All numeric edit fields in AmiBroker now display numbers in regular (non-scientific) notation upto 10^15 and max available precision (7 significant digits in case of single-precision IEEE)
8. ASCII importer: removed 2^31 cap on volume field and removed some (int) conversions that were left from old days
9. Implemented protection against re-entrant WM_PAINT messages sent by Vista and Win7 during COM calls
10. New symbol list is repainted immediately after some changes now.
11. Quote Editor in 5.28 editing EOD records caused creation of duplicates. Fixed.
12. When converting from old database format, Aux1/2 fields are initialized with zero instead of some random values.
13. When focus was inside new symbol window, accelerator keys did not work in 5.28. Fixed

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.28.1 (as compared to 5.28.0)

1. Re-based DLLs included to increase contiguous virtual memory space
2. "Index" category was showing nothing in a new symbol window. Fixed.
3. Quote Editor - multiple quote deletion was not possible in 5.27/5.28.0, only first selected item was deleted. Fixed
4. Right-click beyond last symbol in the symbol list in a new symbol window caused crash in 5.28. Fixed.
5. Changed the way in DateTime() values are coded to support legacy formulas that are not using currently recommended comparision method via DateTimeDiff()
6. OLE: ZoomToRange() method works for floating windows
7. ADK: Added GetDateTimeArray to site interface
8. In 5.27/5.28 DateTimeConvert function returned incorrect datenum. Fixed
9. New symbol list supports selection via typing few first letters (like symbol combo)
10. When saved Automatic Analysis settings contained some garbage data in MaxLongPos/MaxShortPos parameters the backtester could exit with "Not enough memory" error. Fixed

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.28.0 (as compared to 5.27.3)

1. GICS is now available as Filter category (in Automatic Analysis, Quick Review and DB Purify)
2. Completely redesigned Symbol window (View->Symbol)
   New symbol window now features:
   a) separate category/filter view
   b) full text search with category filtering
   c) sorting by symbol or by full name
   d) GICS support
   e) hierachical filtering
   f) multiple selection of symbols
   g) super-fast operation
3. Quote Editor Aux1 field was overwritten with value of Aux2 field. Fixed
4. Quote Editor column layout/width is saved between sessions (again)
5. N-second custom intervals can now be defined in Tools->Preferences->Intraday
6. GICS categorisation. See the ReadMe for more details.
7. Added support for GICS to AFL
   There is a new constant : categoryGICS that works in conjunction with category functions like: CategoryGetSymbols, CategoryGetName, CategorySetName, CategoryAddSymbol, CategoryRemoveSymbol, CategoryFind. See the ReadMe for more details.

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.27.3 (as compared to 5.27.2)

1. HighestSince/LowestSince ignored very first bar [0] in the array. Fixed
2. Stock object date fields can be set to "empty" by assigning zero.
3. Aux1,Aux2 added to Import Wizard comboboxes
4. View->Data window is now present in Customization dialog
5. Weekly chart was not displayed if settings were to show first date of week and first date was before 1970. Fixed.
6. Added DateTimeDiff( arg1, arg2 ) AFL function that returns difference in seconds between two date time arguments
7. Symbol->Quote Editor now uses fully virtual mode - it does not require extra memory and shows up immediatelly and works fast regardless of number of quotes per symbol and is auto-refreshed every 5 sec
8. eSignal plugin does not fill AuxData with random data (they are initialized with zero now)
9. Fixed DateTimeToStr and StrToDateTime
10. Fixed crash when saving symbols that had name() longer than 32 characters

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.27.2 (as compared to 5.27.1)

1. Fixed 16-character name problem in Metastock plugin
2. Fixed monthly compression problem present in 5.27.1
3. Fixed problem when OLE automation was used to modify symbol properties on OLD format databases without saving them first in new format
4. Aux1 and Aux2 are new built-in AFL price arrays
5. Fixed Text tool bug (Vertical text instead of horizontal in 5.27.1)
6. 'Avg' field compression with TimeFrameSet fixed.
7. Added AUX1 and AUX2 to ASCII importer field definitions
8. Auxilliary data fields writable by AddToComposite field "1" (aux1), and field "2" (aux2)
9. Quotations object added new method: long RetrieveEx(long Count, VARIANT* Date, VARIANT* Open, VARIANT* High, VARIANT* Low, VARIANT* Close, VARIANT* Volume, VARIANT* OpenInt, VARIANT* Aux1, VARIANT* Aux2);
10. Aux1/Aux2 available as properties of Quotation object (OLE interface)

CHANGES FOR VERSION 5.27.1 (as compared to 5.27.0)

1. Fixed incorrect year when importing intraday data using ASCII importer
2. Fixed intraday filtering issue that occurred for auto-converted databases
3. Market ID was not properly set in 5.27.0 alpha

CHANGES IN VERSION 5.27.0 (as compared to 5.26.0):

1. changed core data structures to support the following
   1. 64 bit date/time field with date range of 4095 years and resolution down to microseconds
   2. floating point volume and open interest fields
   3. two new auxilliary data fields per bar (internally, not yet exposed)
   4. 100 new user-defined fundamental data fields (internally, not yet exposed)
   5. support for GICS (internally, not yet exposed)
   6. upto 48 character length in Symbol/Alias/WebID fields
2. Updated plugins for eSignal, IQFeed, Interactive Brokers, Quotes Plus, Metastock to support floating point volume/open int and 64 bit date/time
3. 1-second interval bars
4. Metastock plugin now reads long symbol description
5. Symbol lock fixed (does not interfere with Interval linking)
6. Added simple "BackupAB.exe" to backup entire AmiBroker folder after installation to prevent data in old format.

For more info see AmiBroker 5.29.6 BETA READ ME file.

KNOWN ISSUES:
No known issues. This does not mean that version is flawless. There can still be issues that are not identified. It is still beta.

NEW VERSION FAQ:

Q1. Do the new data plugins load as part of the update or do they need to be updated separately ?
A1. New plugins are part of the update. You don't need to install them seprately.

Q2. Do existing 3rd party DLLs work with new version?
A2. Existing 3rd party DLLs continue to work OK, thanks to backward compatibility layer added in 5.27, but
a) compatibility layer induces some extra CPU overhead (less than 0.001 sec per 1000 bars retrieved from data plugin)
b) of course new features (extended resolution and floating point volume) are not available using old plugins
Also, the change only affects DATA plugins. Any other plugins (AFL, optimizer) do not require any change.

Q3. Will new version read my old database structure ?
A3. Yes. AmiBroker 5.27.0 alpha / 5.28 / 5.29 BETA will load your old databases without problems and all your watch lists, drawings, groups, etc are preserved. What is different, is that new version, once it saves the data, will save it in NEW format that is only readable with v5.27 and above.

Filed by Tomasz Janeczko at 8:12 pm under Beta,Releases
Comments Off on AmiBroker 5.29.6 BETA released