Program Options Dialog

The Program Options dialog is accessible via the View Menu, or by pressing Ctrl+F10:

The options are organized into seven tabs: General, Display, Files, Calculation, Import, Trades, and Reports. The tab you were last using is remembered and reselected the next time the dialog is opened. Changes take effect when you click OK.

General

Confirmation prompts, window behavior, and computer resource limits.

•Ask before deleting tests

Specifies whether you want to be asked for confirmation when you press the Delete key in the Results window with a test row selected, or when you select "Delete Test" or "Delete All Tests" from the Results Menu.

•Ask before unloading data

Specifies whether you want to be asked for confirmation when you do anything that will cause the current data file to be unloaded from memory, such as running an Import, or loading a different data file (whether manually or by running a script that uses a different one). Note that you are only asked for confirmation when unloading the data would require closing one or more open windows that are using that data, such as charts or trade lists.

•Ask to save untitled windows

Specifies whether you want to be asked to save the contents of "(untitled)" Log, Script, or Results windows when you try to close them.

•Confirm the Stop button

Specifies whether RealTest should pop up a dialog box for confirmation before aborting a script when the "Stop" button is pressed.

•Reuse list/scan windows

Allows scans and other tabular data output to optionally reuse any currently open window of the relevant type rather than always creating a new window.

•Open CSV files in list view

CSV files can be opened by RealTest either as regular text files in a Log window, or as a structured grid in a List window. The list view makes it easier to read the contents of the file, but does not permit editing. Uncheck this box when you want to use RealTest to edit a CSV file.

•Always show text orders

When a script is run in Orders mode, RealTest generates and displays the list of orders for tomorrow in human-readable text format. If a specific OrdersMode other than Text was specified, a separate order list file in that mode will also be generated and displayed. If you prefer to not see the text order list when also generating e.g. a CSV order file, uncheck this box.

•Check for program updates

Each time RealTest starts, it compares its version number to a server-based newest release number and gives you the option to download the newer release if found. Uncheck this box to disable checking for updates.

•Maximum Memory

Specifies a threshold (percent of installed RAM) above which RealTest will stop trying to allocate memory and instead will give a warning. Program stability is not guaranteed if you try to use more than 100% of installed RAM, i.e., make excessive use of virtual memory page swapping.

•Maximum Threads

Specifies how many threads to create and use when running multi-threaded calculations, such as for the Data Section. RealTest allows up to 32 threads to be used.

Display

Date and currency formats, panel and list background colors, and other display preferences.

•Date Display

Specifies how dates are displayed in the user interface, scans, trade lists, etc. See Date Format Pictures for details about the format specification string. Use the adjacent example output to test your format as you type it. Can be overridden by the DateDisplay setting in a script.

•Date Input

RealTest can parse dates in any common format. For formats where day and month precede year, this setting governs whether day precedes month or vice versa. Can be overridden by the DateInput setting in a script.

•Currency

Specifies the default base currency of the trading account. Can be overridden per script by the Currency setting, or per run by the Currency field on the Settings Panel.

•Show bond prices as fractions

When checked, the prices of bond and note instruments are displayed in fractional (32nds) notation rather than as plain decimals.

•Panel Colors

Lets you change the background color of the Files Panel, Settings Panel and/or Debug Panel.

•List Colors

Lets you change the background color of Results Windows, Trades Windows and other List Windows.

•Status bar fields

Specifies how many of the available information fields (1 to 8) to show in the status bar at the bottom of the main window.

Files

Default file paths and Files Panel settings.

•Default File Paths

These specify the starting point to use when a script refers to a non-fully-specified (relative) file path.

The Scripts path applies to any non-RTD input file referenced in a script, e.g. Include or TradeList.

The Data path applies to any RTD file reference (whether input or output), i.e. DataFile.

The Output path applies to all non-RTD output files, e.g. SaveScanAs, SaveTradesAs, etc.

Again, all the above only apply when a partial (relative) path is used in a script. See File Path Syntax for additional details.

Please note that whenever you decide to change a default path location, you are responsible for renaming and/or moving the actual folders yourself.

Additionally, the sub-folders Info, Logs, Orders, and Reports are automatically created under your Output folder, for use as the default destination of those specific output types.

•Recent files to show

Sets how many entries (1 to 100) appear in the Files Panel's Recent section and on the File Menu's recent list (the menu shows at most nine).

•Show these file types in Recent

Filters the Recent section by file type (RTS scripts, RTD data, RTR results, TXT, LOG, and CSV). Unchecking a type hides those files without removing them; re-checking brings them back. Files of other types always appear.

•Place Settings/Debug panels beside Files panel (full height)

When checked, the Files panel occupies the full height of the window's left edge and the Settings and Debug panels are placed in a column to its right, above the workspace, rather than stacked below the Files panel.

Calculation

Settings that affect how Data Section items, formulas, and indicators are calculated.

•Extract one-pass items

Provides a way to turn off this Data Section calculation speed optimization that requires more memory when used. Leave checked unless running your script causes low-memory warnings.

•Auto #OnePerX

Provides a way to disable Data Section space-saving optimization in case it is incorrect in an unforeseen item formula variation. See #OnePerDate and #OnePerSym.

•Log calculation details

If selected, the timing and other details about the calculation of each Data Section item is logged whenever calculation occurs. This can be useful to discover which items are causing calculation delays, and to see the value type and #OnePerX status of each item.

•User DLL folder

Specifies the folder RealTest searches for user-supplied DLLs used by custom data calculations.

•Use short-circuit logic

When selected (default), all formula evaluation throughout RealTest employs short-circuit optimization. When unchecked, every term of every formula is evaluated even when not logically necessary.

•EMA precision

The convergence threshold used to decide how many warm-up bars are needed before an exponential moving average is considered fully seeded. The default (0.005) suits virtually all scripts.

•Near-zero threshold

Absolute values smaller than this are treated as exactly zero during formula evaluation, preventing spurious results from floating-point rounding. The default (1e-13) rarely needs changing.

•Count post-close exits in bars held

When checked, a position that exits in post-close processing on its entry bar counts as one bar held rather than zero.

•Initialize RSI with SMA (TradingView/Wilder) rather than EMA (AmiBroker)

Selects how RSI and RsiF seed Wilder's smoothing at the start of a symbol's history. The two methods differ only during the warm-up region (roughly the first 3-4x the period in bars) and converge thereafter. See RSI for details.

Import

Settings that control bar-data imports and downloads, including data-provider API keys. These were previously available only by editing RealTest.ini.

•Earliest import year

Bars dated before this year are skipped on import, keeping very old history out of your data file. Default 1990.

•Bar time (HHMMSS)

The time-of-day stamp assigned to imported daily bars, in HHMMSS form. Default 160000 (4:00:00 PM).

•Max pad days (0=off)

Limits trailing data padding to symbols whose last real bar is within this many days of the data's latest date (0 disables the trailing pad). See PadTrailMaxDays.

•Import threads (0=auto)

How many parallel download threads to use when importing from an online provider. 0 lets RealTest choose.

•Download pause (ms)

An optional delay between successive download requests, in milliseconds, to stay within a provider's rate limits. 0 means no pause.

•Download timeout (sec)

How long to wait for each download request before giving up. Default 5.

•Download retries

How many times to retry a failed download before reporting an error. Default 3.

•Tiingo API key / Tiingo exchanges

Your Tiingo API key and, optionally, the list of exchanges to request when downloading.

•EODHD API key / EODHD exchange

Your EODHD API key and, optionally, the exchange to request when downloading.

Trades

Options that govern how an imported trade list is validated against the bar data.

•Price match tolerance (%)

The percentage tolerance allowed when matching an imported trade's price to the bar data during validation. 0 requires the price to fall within the bar's actual range.

•Suppress trade-list warnings

When checked, pop-up warnings about trade-list import issues are suppressed. The messages still go to the log.

•Replace OrderClerk -9998/-9999 with open/close

OrderClerk writes the sentinel prices -9998 and -9999 to mean "filled at the open" and "filled at the close". When checked, these are replaced with the actual open or close price from the bar data as the trade list is imported.

•Write trade-list debug log

Writes a detailed log file of the trade-list import process, useful for diagnosing matching problems.

Reports

Controls the content and format of newly created Test Summary Reports. Because reports are static web pages, these settings affect only reports created after they are changed.

•Include in New Reports

Check the report sections to include or omit: Settings and Parameters, Summary Stats, Monthly Stats, Averages, Strategy Correlations, Stats Graphs, Monte Carlo Analysis, Trade Plots, and the Test Script.

•Width

The maximum report width, in pixels, written into the generated HTML.

•MC Samples, MC Best/Worst, MC Based On

Options for the Monte Carlo analysis plots, used only when Monte Carlo Analysis is included.

•Batch Mode Display

Controls whether reports are opened in the browser after tests are run from the command line (batch mode).

•Open Folder

Opens the Reports folder, in case you want to access specific reports directly or do some cleanup.

•Refresh Index

Re-generates the index.html file in the Reports folder, which is linked to by the "Report List" link in each report.