$Id: README,v 1.8 2000/09/03 04:36:37 lduperva Exp $

Stock Watcher README

© Copyright 2000 Laurent Duperval <lduperval@sprint.ca>

Stock Watcher is a simple portfolio/stock watcher. It includes intraday
graphs. Stock Watcher is heavily based on Tom Poindexter's TclTicker program.
Please see the README.tclticker file for more information about TclTicker.

REQUIREMENTS:

- Tcl/Tk 8.3.1. It may work with 8.3.0 but is untested. 
- BWidget 1.3. It may work with earlier release but that is untested. BWidget
  1.3 can only be found in the Tcl CVS Repository. For information, please
  visit http://dev.scriptics.com/software/tcltk/netcvs.html.
- BLT 2.4. (Optional) The latest release can be found on
  http://www.tcltk.com/blt/.
  
INSTALLATION:

Make sure all the software mentioned in the REQUIREMENTS section is installed
and works properly for your setup. Then, unpack the archive. The stockwatcher
directory contains all the files needed to run the program.

Windows users will need to change the name of the stockwatcher file to add a
'.tcl' extension. This will enable you to start the program by double-clicking
on it.

Mac users should tell me if it works for them or not. If it doesn't and you
manage to get it working, please provide me with the patches and I'll include
them in my development tree. The same goes for BeOS users and MVS users and
...

USING STOCK WATCHER:

The ticker window at the top of the display behaves exactly like the original
tclticker program. For information on using it, please read the
README.tclticker file. In a nutshell, where it says "Click here", just click
there. It's pretty obvious after that.

The bottom of the display is made up of a notebook. Each tab of the notebook
represents one ticker symbol. Clicking on that tab will show you all
transactions that have been entered for that symbol. The Summary tab contains
the summary of all transactions for each of the symbols listed. Basically, the
Summary page tells you how much money you were to make or lose if you sold all
of your shares immediately. The information is contained in six columns:

Symbol:         The ticker symbol
Quantity:       The number of shares held for that symbol
Purchase cost:  The total cost of buying the shares for that symbol
Current value:  Total value of all the shares held for that symbol
Delta:          Difference between the amount of money paid for all the shares
                and the current value of that symbol.
Daily Delta:    Total daily gain or loss on that symbol.
Graph Button:   Pressing this button will display an intraday graph for a
                symbol.

The information on each of the tabs for the symbols are the same, except that
the data shown is for one transaction. In addition, there are two buttons,
Edit and Delete, which allow you to edit a given transaction or to remove a
transaction from the list of transactions for a given symbol. Note that the
Summary page may not immediately reflect changes made with the Edit or the
Delete button. The changes will appear the next time the symbol appears in the
ticker window.

To add new transactions, click on the "New Transaction" button or type
<Ctrl-n> at the keyboard. 

The graph window contains a Clear button. The Clear button deletes graph data
for that Graph.  This is necessary if Stock Watcher was restarted after the
buffer period when the previous day's data is reset. Use the Graph | Clear
menu option to clear all graphs.

NOTES:

Program data is saved in the $HOME/.stockwatcher directory. Information for
the ticker is saved in the .tclticker file while information abuot the
portfolio is saved in the portfolio file.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The entire quote mechanism comes from Tom Poindexter's TclTicker. Without it,
this program wouldn't exist:
http://www.nyx.net/~tpoindex/tcl.html#Tclticker

CHANGES:

1.0.2 Aug 31, 2000 - Unannounced public release
  - Doesn't try to save data if BLT isn't available
1.0.1 Aug 11, 2000 - Unannounced public release
  - Fixed "Other Option" bug
  - Disable Graph buttons if BLT is not available
1.0 Jul 18, 2000 - Public release
  - Minor user interface tweaks
  - Added user guide and help menu
  - Added code documentation
  - Minor internal modifications
0.8 Jun 14, 2000 - Internal release
  - Added French translations
0.7.2 Jun 9, 2000 - Limited release
  - Fixed intraday save bug
0.7.1 Jun 9, 2000 - Limited release
  - Added Help menu
0.7 Jun  8, 2000 - Limited release
  - Added support for saving and restoring intraday graph data
  - Fixed minor bug where graph data was stored multiple times in BLT vector
  - Made graph configuration options apply immediately instead of subsequent
	restart of stockwatcher
0.6 Jun  7, 2000 - Internal release
 - Added support for configurable options
 - Changed services file names to allow other .tcl file to be stored in lib/
   directory.
0.5 Jun  5, 2000 - First public release