Supporting Features

Supporting Features

Time slices

To quickly set the chart range, click the Stopwatch icon and choose the desired range. It defines the visible time range of the master chart. NOTE: this setting affects any synced charts.

The Bookmap chart includes dotted vertical lines, marking the area between two significant time stamps on the time axis. The length of time between vertical lines is dependent on the actual time range of the chart.

For more information on time frames, watch this video.

Zoom in and out

This can be done in several ways:

• Use zoom-in and zoom-out buttons on the controls panel
• Using the mouse scrolling wheel while hovering over the heatmap or the price axis
• Left-click and hold while moving the mouse cursor left and right on the time axis or up and down on the price axis.
• Click the Zoom by Drag button on the toolbar, then left-click and drag to mark the area you wish to zoom in to. Green-dotted vertical lines define the area of interest. Once the mouse button is released, Bookmap zooms in and precisely displays that particular area within the viewable chart range.

To zoom back out, press ctrl+z. See how it works in this video.

To learn more about zooming and navigating watch this tutorial.

Drag Mode

• You can move the chart from left to right, or up to down, by left-clicking and dragging the chart. When drag mode is active, the hand icon will be slightly depressed.
• To switch off drag mode and go back to viewing the current price, click the hand icon once more to deselect it.
• While in drag mode, users can scroll back up to 1 hour or 24 hours - depending on their Bookmap subscription. You can left-click and hold the mouse while scrolling left and right, and the arrow keys can be used to scroll too. Each arrow keystroke moves the chart one pixel in each direction. Using the arrow keys while holding the shift key will scroll the chart ten pixels in the relevant direction.
• While in drag mode, users can also zoom in and out to view specific details within the historical order book. When zooming in using the scrolling wheel, Bookmap will keep the chart centred on the cursor location. Traders can also use the zoom in and out icons while in drag mode. In this case, Bookmap will keep the presentation anchored to the middle point of the current chart view. To switch off drag mode, just click the hand icon again above the chart.

Vertical Re-centring

Bookmap automatically re-centers the chart on the vertical axis to allow the entire price action to be visible. Chart re-centering can be based on Best Bid and Ask prices, Trades or Last Price.

You can also set the re-centering to “None” to allow the chart to move on the vertical axis while you drag the chart. Releasing drag mode will keep the chart in the same position.

If the “Recenter in drag mode” checkbox is enabled, it will keep the selected re-centering mode while dragging the chart. If it’s disabled, it will switch the re-centering mode to “None” and allow you to adjust the vertical range manually.

To access the re-centering options, right-click the price ladder and choose the relevant configuration option.

Also, clicking the settings option from the re-centering options window will open additional configuration options.

There are two setting options:

• Auto mode tolerance settings applies to the re-centering by BBO or by Trades. By default Bookmap uses an internal dynamic value that determines the distance from the visible heatmap boundaries at which the chart will re-center.
  Using Percentage Tolerance the user can define a percentage deviation from this internal distance value, or in other words how far can the re-centering value deviate from the Bookmap internal value. It is mainly used to prevent too frequent re-centering.
  For example, Percentage Tolerance of 100% will double the distance at which the chart will re-center. So if the internal distance_to_bounds value is 10 the distance from boundaries could fluctuate between 0 and 20 (10 +- 100%) before re-centering will occur.

• Last price mode tolerance settings applies to re-centering by last price. The Percentage Tolerance works the same way as in Auto mode. With last trade re-centering users can also set their own absolute value instead of the internal value.
  The chart will re-center whenever the last price has moved away from the center of the heatmap more than the absolute value set by the user.

Watch this tutorial on vertical re-centering to learn more.

Horizontal bars

Configure the contrast of the Heatmap and the size of the Volume Dots using Horizontal bars.

Data tooltip

When enabled, you should see a tooltip with details of the specific data points on the main chart. These details include:

• Time, date, and timezone
• Bid or ask
• The amount and the price of the orders
• Volume traded (for volume dots only)

Watch this tutorial to learn more about the data tooltip.

Crosshair and Drawing Tools

Crosshair

Click the Crosshair icon above the chart to switch to crosshair cursor. When enabled, you should see vertical and horizontal lines crossing at your mouse position.
You can use this Crosshair with several instruments and quickly locate points of interest over multiple charts.

Click the icon for various drawing tool options. When the Single Figure Mode check-box is ticked, Bookmap will exit drawing mode after the first drawing element is completed.
Use the Change Drawing Style menu item to control drawing elements attributes.

Watch this tutorial to learn more on the crosshair.

Drawing Tools

Choose Edit mode to draw and edit your drawings. First, choose the element you want in the drop-down menu. Available figures include:

• Line
• Ray (Extended line)
• Vertical line
• Horizontal line
• Rectangle
• Ellipse
• Text

To remove or edit an element, right-click on it.

Choose Change drawing style to configure colours, line width, and type.
When you are not in edit mode, right-click on one of the elements to open the drop-down menu, where you can switch to edit mode (among other options).

Voice Alerts

Voice alerts are available for Order Book Imbalance, Iceberg Detector, Large Trade Alerts, and Notes. The first three can be found under the studies panel. Click the studies icon above the chart and choose either Order Book Imbalance, Iceberg Detector, or Large Trade Alert and set the voice alerts on the right side of the panel. Setting alerts for notes can be done from the notes column.

• Voice alerts on trades could be turned on/off under Bookmap menu Settings → Configuration → Enable sounds (on trades)
• To see the enabled voice alerts is possible through File → Alerts

Snapshot Generator and Social Network Sharing

Use either the icon above the chart or ctrl+S to take a screenshot of your current Bookmap chart view.
Snapshots are saved to the user folder automatically. The default path is C:\Bookmap\Screenshots. You can share your screenshot on Twitter or Facebook.

NOTE: You can also use the drawing tool before taking a screenshot.

See how it works in this video.

Chart Synchronization

Application

If you have multiple Bookmap charts open, you can synchronize the charts together. One chart is defined as a master chart and the viewing range of all other open charts is synchronized with it. Any change applied to the chart range of the master chart will automatically be reflected in the subordinate charts.

Interpretation

Traders can use the synchronization feature to look for deviations in price or liquidity behaviour of correlated instruments or viewing various legs of spread trades.

Settings

Once all relevant charts are open, click the sync icon above the chart that you want to designate as the master chart. Any change of range you make on the master chart (whether by dragging or zooming in and out) will be reflected on the subordinated charts. To deactivate the sync mode simply click the sync icon again.

Limitations

• It is recommended that all synchronized charts are the same size in order to have a complete synchronization.
• All open charts are affected by the synchronization feature; one chart acts as a master chart and the rest are subordinated to the master chart.
• Dragging or zooming in and out on a subordinate chart will break the synchronization of that specific chart in relation to the master chart.

Watch this tutorial on chart sync to learn more.

Data Recording

Recording setup window

Bookmap provides the ability to record your live session's data into a file and replay it later for analysis and training purposes using Bookmap Replay mode. With the exception of Bookmap for NinjaTrader, to record your session's data simply check the Record Live Data check-box on the Bookmap Run Options window. When you close Bookmap, the data file will be closed as well and will be ready for a replay. Data files are located by default in C:\Bookmap\Feeds. See Bookmap Replay for further instructions on how to use Bookmap replay to view data files.

Another option to activate data recording, which is also applicable to NinjaTrader users using Bookmap and indicators, is directly from the Bookmap chart. Click the recording icon on the bottom right corner of the chart and click Start Recording. Choose the recording option from the recording setup window and click start.

Order Recording

Users who have the one-click trading add-on can record their own orders and later view their trading activity on the chart in Replay mode. To record your orders make sure first to record the session by checking the Record Live Data check-box on the Run Options window. After you launch Bookmap, make sure that the Record Orders Settings menu item is selected. After you finish recording, close Bookmap and reopen it in Replay mode. Select the relevant data file you want to replay and make sure the Replay Recorded Orders Settings menu item is selected.

Data Refresh

Scheduled Data Refresh

The Data Refresh feature allows users to define when to reset the inflow of data and start the accumulation of data anew. It can be done manually or at a preset time. If a user is recording the data, each refresh will close a data file and will start recording the new data in a separate file. To activate the Refresh feature, go to File→Restart Bookmap and click either Now for an immediate manual refresh or Schedule for an Auto-scheduled Refresh. When adding a scheduled refresh, check the Alert before refresh if you want to be alerted before a refresh is done (you will then have a chance to cancel the refresh) and set the number of seconds before the refresh to pop-up the alert. Then, click Add refresh and set the refresh time. You can set the refresh as a one-time event or a recurring daily event. NOTE: the scheduled refresh will not start while the configuration window is open.

Chart Refresh

Bookmap utilizes advanced CPUs to efficiently and rapidly render the visual information on the chart. It could be that some users’ machines will be less equipped to handle the resources required for rapid chart refreshes, whether because of the lack of advanced GPU support or low video memory. The default refresh rate of Bookmap chart is 40 FPS (frames per second) or every 25 milliseconds. If you experience resource issues using the default refresh rate, adjust the refresh rate to make it less frequent. However, setting FPS below 15 (refresh rate above every 67 ms) will make the refresh noticeable by the human eye. To change the refresh rate, click Settings→Chart refresh rate from the Bookmap Control panel and choose an in-range rate from the Refresh rate setting panel. Bookmap normally works with OpenGL 3 and above. Not all video cards support this OpenGL version or may have outdated drivers. If you cannot update your video card to support these OpenGL requirements, Bookmap can still work with older video cards, but that will require more CPU utilization. To allow Bookmap to work without GPU acceleration click the Settings menu on the Bookmap control window and deselect the GPU acceleration option on the menu.

Presentation Mode

This mode is intended to improve the quality of the presentation of Bookmap with video capture or screen sharing software. It allows recording of Bookmap sessions with video capture software (e.g., Camtasia) or screen sharing Bookmap over Skype or similar screen sharing software while maintaining the original Bookmap chart frame rate instead of lower frame rates enforced by this type of software. To use this presentation mode, click Settings→Chart refresh rate and check the Presentation Mode check-box.