The Buy and Hold line in the Equity Curve display may be useful for stock systems, but it's not for futures and forex. Every single time I view a system equity curve on futures/forex, I have to turn off the B&H line so I can actually see the equity curve.

I suspect I already know the answer to this, but: is there any way to turn the default on the B&H and the Long & Short lines to be OFF?

There's no global property for the Buy&Hold curve in the WL configuration file. It's on by design for new windows.

One way that I know to turn it off for a Strategy window is to hide the line and save the workspace. Built-in performance visualizers like the Equity tab support saving their settings (Community Visualizers have no support for that yet).

That doesn't work for me. Occasionally it will remember that I turned off the line, but usually it comes back. That's staying in the same workspace, same strategy. I click on a symbol, turn off the lines, save the workspace, click on another symbol, and the lines are back again. If I want to see how different symbols in a portfolio are performing, I have to turn off the @%#!! lines EVERY SINGLE TIME I look at a new symbol.

Actually it's worse than that. I turn off the lines for a signal or a portfolio. And EVERY SINGLE TIME I change any parameter, every time I re-run the test on that SAME chart, it turns the verdammt lines back on again!!

May I suggest that the preference of whether to use those lines or not would usually rest with the user, not with each individual window or each individual test run? So if the user turns them off, you should LEAVE them off??

Fidelity development team is overloaded with fixing existing bugs and setting up for an important release this Summer, so I guess this request would be a "low".

As a workaround, consider taking a look at Strategy Equity and Percent Drawdown - it does not have Buy&Hold at all, and there's optional semi-log scale.

Is there a known bugs list anywhere?

No.

OK, I've downloaded and installed Community.Visualizers. I see no documentation, on the wiki or elsewhere, that gives any clue how to use it. I downloaded and skimmed through the source and I still have no idea. I don't see anything in there that looks like a strategy equity display. It looks like it's mostly the community-scorecard support code, though I'm not sure how to use that either.

Am I missing something really obvious, or is this stuff just undocumented other than a mention and revision history on the wiki??

QUOTE:
I see no documentation, on the wiki or elsewhere, that gives any clue how to use it.

Really?

Firstly, every community visualizer has a "More info..." link in its right-click menu that opens its online help page in the browser.

Next, the Wiki hosts the documentation for each visualizer from day one. Just the main page of the Wiki alone has three different links to Community.Visualizers documentation. The extension's download page on this site also points to this page:

Home - Community Visualizers

That's the page where you downloaded the source code to skim through. Have you tried clicking on the links there? If not, then honestly, I don't know how to make this any more intuitive, because these links are the first that hits the eye on that page.

OK, where is this right-click menu? I've installed the Visualizers extension in WL but I see no additional functionality except the listing in the Extensions Manager.

Yes, I've looked at the home page. I've clicked on the links there. Those are all very clear and easy to find, but they don't tell me what I need. As far as I can see, the home page includes:
* A listing of visualizers in the extension
* Links to a page for each visualizer
* A link to download the source
* A revision history
* Notes and Known Issues

Each of the visualizer pages has a few sentences and maybe a picture describing the function, and any known issues.

Nowhere can I find anything that says HOW TO USE IT. How do I enable these things? Do I include code in my strategy? If so, what code? How about an example? Or is there a UI somewhere? What am I missing???

Maybe this is all painfully obvious when you already know how it works. But as someone who *doesn't* already know how it works, I am finding it very difficult to find basic information.

And FWIW I make my living learning and documenting several extremely complex software/hardware products every year. I'm very good at poking around and learning stuff on my own. I have no idea why I have so much trouble with WL, unless I'm not the only one.

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OK, where is this right-click menu?

See Preferences > Performance Visualizers.

QUOTE:
Nowhere can I find anything that says HOW TO USE IT. How do I enable these things?

It's explained in the User Guide > Preferences > Performance Visualizers.

Aha. THAT's what I was missing. May I suggest that the reference to Preferences > Performance Visualizers might be a useful addition to the Visualizers help page?

Mea culpa, I should have searched the User Guide first. I thought the visualizers were after-market add-ons so they wouldn't be in the user guide. A pointer on the wiki page would be helpful.

Thanks for dragging me to the right place. :-)

QUOTE:
May I suggest that the reference to Preferences > Performance Visualizers might be a useful addition to the Visualizers help page?

Good point. I will add it. Thank you.

QUOTE:
May I suggest that the reference to Preferences > Performance Visualizers might be a useful addition to the Visualizers help page?

Done. Also, added a similar note to downloadable visualizer extensions on this site.

Eugene,

Not to hijack this thread, but would it possible to add a (moderated) wiki page of known bugs? I understand not all bugs should be publicized (security ones for example could lead to attacks under the right circumstances so you don't want to advertise them) but a list of nuisance bugs might be useful so they can be found and added to (and people can post workarounds).

Dave

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but a list of nuisance bugs might be useful

#2

QUOTE:
a list of nuisance bugs

Please count me out re: this task.

In the Wiki, there's a list of known errors and solutions.