we can have a single folder that contains the securities downloaded in day, week, and month time frames..... so the dow 30 folder would contain 90.... mine is named dow 90.... a curious thing happens when multi-time frame folders are scrolled thru with a template applied..... with the option 'use templates periodicity ' unchecked, if we apply it first to a monthly chart, the entire 90 charts will be viewed in the monthly time frame..... oh we’ll see 3 alcoa’s but they will all be monthly..... if we apply the template first to a weekly, 2 alcoa’s will be weekly and 1 monthly..... of course you see this coming..... if , and only if, we first apply the template to a daily chart will all 30 be viewed in the proper day, week, month time frames as intended.... wondering why download in week and month time frames when we can just change the period of the day chart?.... by having the weekly chart in a true weekly dat file we have the power and flexibility of the smart chart feature..... a weekly that was made from a daily does not..... layouts are opened..... templates are applied..... in a limited sense we can apply that perfect layout by first opening it and using the next security buttons to scroll thru the folder...... but what if we wanted to move to another folder...... we can’t jump folders with a layout...... i had figured a way round ‘no jumpie’ but it was inconvenient at best..... it would be so nice to be able to apply a layout.... while watching the new years eve twilight zone marathon this weekend, a worthless commercial came on.... hit mute + open metastock manual = time better spent..... while thumbing thru, there it was in just as black and white as the twilight zone..... Once the chart or layout appears as you'd like, use the Save As command in the File menu to save the template. If you create a template when a multi-chart layout is selected, a multi-chart template is created. equis dang, never thought of saving a layout as a template, could it be that easy..... open my layouts , save each as a template and then the multi-chart layout now called a multi-chart template can be applied to anything.... yep..... and all this time, dang..... if your wondering like me, can we just skip the layout step and originally save as template..... nope.... it must be saved as a layout first, then saved as a template.... that is going to simplify my folders immensely.... guess the insurance commercial wasn't so worthless after all.... but then again......h