Enhanced News Feed access for Symbol with DAS HotKey/Button

[Alastair 114]

Justin,

do u know if the token info is written to a cookie or any file on the client computer ?

How is that token info formed ?

Any more info u can provide ?

 

[Justin 264]

Not sure. I don't know if you're going to be able to do what you want though. I see no way to auto fill that form field through the URL...

[Alastair 114]

54 minutes ago, Justin said:

Not sure. I don't know if you're going to be able to do what you want though. I see no way to auto fill that form field through the URL...

Justin, thks. 

Wht abt if we asked Protradingroom.com or Benzinga to format/secure it so it can be done.

Jus believe it would be easier for traders to query / search for news if we had this facility, one button or hotkey.

Dont u think it can be secured while giving us easier access as we search for a news catalyst for each symbol ?

 

 

 

[Justin 264]

My honest opinion? I don't see either of them stepping in to make changes for something as niche as this. I'm not saying it's a bad idea - just basing that off my experience in product development.

But of course you have nothing to lose by asking!

Personally I'd tackle it from a macro perspective - have it open the browser, chat room, find a way to open the link from the chat room, have the macro "press" tab and then have it type out the ticker.

[Alastair 114]

@Justin, @Paul aka Aurbano

hmmm...true statements, have the same experience as u, but I am usually an optimist, but also have to look at the reality of things.😬

I see ur brilliant suggestion, and to make it even simpler I would add the following suggestions and assumptions :

 

      1.  As we would always have / use Opera as the dedicated BBT Traders Tech Tool browser

     2.  Tab 1, 2, 3 of the browser could always be dedicated to 1=BBT website, 2=protradingroom, and 3=Benzinga News page. See above screen grabs.

     3. DAS  shell command calls macro "SHELL BenzingaNewsMACRO %SYMB%"  OR a .BAT file.

     4.  Macro accepts parameter %SYMB% (as ticker)

     5.  Macro calls Opera (if not running it would start, if already running do nothing). Opera opens with last set of tabs used.

     6.  Macro would press, CTRL-3, which takes you to Benzinga News page, the 3rd tab, and types in the symbol, which is %SYMB% passed from DAS..

     7.  Rinse and repeat for next symbol from step 3 above.

Ur thoughts ?

We trying to build a  generic tool for all BBT traders, so as part of traders initial setup of work area, they would have to login to BBT on tab 1 and then Chat Room on tab2 and start Benzinga News on tab3.

So ur suggestion would see a dev tool like AutoHotKey doing  this ?  @Paul aka Aurbano can u tackle this development script  ?  but i know u dont use DAS.

 

Thinking @KyleK29 previous tools he built, at least 3 of them (Config Line, Pivot calculator, .......and these +  more) should be grouped and exposed to new traders in Onboarding class also.

 

 

[smp 9]

For reference, there is another approach to this which I use for news and other web based content when trading - a custom application with the Chromium engine embedded.

I've used this approach for other purposes over the years to control the viewing of web based content such as CCTV, kiosk type use and even making more secure login pages for banking. When I moved from longer term trading to day trading I created another such application specifically for various web pages and content. It has specific command line parameters and built in functionality to handle content in ways that would be hard if not impossible with most full browsers as well as avoiding issues with existing desktop browsers position, sizing and features.

A lot of desktop applications embed Chromium these days (even TI) and there are wrappers for the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) for many development environments.  For the trading news/data application I used .NET and CEF Sharp which does most of the hard work. It only gets more complex if you need a lot of special handling, page modification or other such changes.

Before anyone asks: As much as I would like to share this application, at the moment its custom built for my environment and I would need to add more error handling/better packaging/more config options etc for wider use.  Once I get further along with my day trading journey I'll come back to this but in the mean time thought this approach was worth a mention in case anyone else has time and isn't aware of how easy the embedded Chrome engine approach can be.

[Paul aka Aurbano 83]

 

IMHO, I agree with you guys that there are many different approaches to solve this technical problem. To name few easy ones I know:

- Use Python and Selenium to control the browser and the searchbox via a custom script

- Add a Javascript that read custom URL params and make a call to the search function

- Open a browser in dev mode and connect a script that allows search functionality from a DAS hotkey.

Even the easiest one might require several hours of coding testing tuning testing again etc..... None of them easy to mantein or release for this niche use. At the end, that is a ton of work just to avoid typing a ticker symbol inside a box...

I'd rather consider moving to TWS platform which natively shows yellow triangles in the 1m candle whenever news related to the ticker symbol is released plus the news feed is realtime connected with Bezinga and Reuters among other 30 news channels, social sentiment and sector reports

[Paul aka Aurbano 83]

@Alastair
yes ... agreed on the AutoHoyKey approach too... If you can read the ticker symbol anywhere in the active chart window and look for the Opera Finviz window, you can try and change the focus using TAB and writing the symbol before sending an ENTER key code .... that might work

I use AutoHotKey to extend TWS funcionalities using quick access to menu options without the mouse and works like charm !

Edited February 27, 2021 by Paul aka Aurbano

[Alastair 114]

 

......But I did stay at a holiday inn express last night..........LOL............watched a beginners video on AutoHotKey and did a proof of concept hack below.  Its not my most elegant code as its so custom based on window size / position, speed of target computer.  First piece of code written in 20+ yrs.  .......LOL.......took 18 mins to write after watching YT video, with no prior AHK experience.

AHK is an decent tool, it can do GUI stuff too.  Anyway code below is functional  and real simple and will save alot of typing of symbols

 

/*
 *AutoHotKey script to enter %SYMB% into Opera's third TAB which was previously started from BenzingzX01.BAT file
 *
*/
#SingleInstance Force
#NoTrayIcon
;^e::                                                       ; Hotkey used in testing
sleep 3000                                         ; Wait for browser to open
Winactivate, ahk_exe opera.exe  ; Ensure Opera is the active window
send, ^3                                              ; Select third TAB in browser
click, 299, 200                                   ; Click left mouse button at specified coordinates for search box
send, {backspace}                           ; Clear any characters in field X 6 from previous search 
send, {backspace}
send, {backspace}
send, {backspace}
send, {backspace}
send, {backspace}
SYMB := A_Args[1]                            ; Assign command line variables passed from .BAT file
Send, %SYMB%                                 ; Type symbol
return                                                  ; Rinse and repeat as required

 

 

Will improve on tomorrow ......... gym time.

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Alastair

[Alastair 114]

In addition to the above AHK code used the following command lines in a .BAT file :

==================

echo off
set SYMB=%1
start c:\Opera\DAS_Trader_Pro\launcher.exe www.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=%SYMB%
start c:\Opera\DAS_Trader_Pro\BenzingaNewsMacro.exe /f %SYMB%

==================

BenzingaNewsmacro.exe is compiled version of the above AHK code.

 

And also the hotkey/button command is :

 

FocusWindow MONTAGEMAIN;  Shell BenzingaX01.bat  %SYMB%  ;

 

This solution requires custom adjustments depending on screen and app window size as it is written right now.  Version 2 if developed will probably have auto login to BBT, protradingroom Chatroom and Benzinga website, so  it will be fully automatic. 

So the dev tool to write and compile the code is cite4autohotkey it can be downloaded with all tools required to do most AHK development (i.e. WindowSpy used to get X. Y coordinates and window names).

Using Portable version of Opera which is dedicated to integration solutions for DAS. 

BIG THANKS to all who contributed and collaborated to dev this Traders Tech Tool (TTT). @Justin who I also call "The Voice of Reason", VOR, for his brilliant suggestion. Thanks.

 

On to the next tool. ................. Pls start a  new thread with potential ideas and tag the past collaborators and see if we can help.  Different members have unique skills and may or may not be able to help code but can provide other solutions to the trading process prob.

Its all about streamlining the trading process.

 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Alastair