Hi, I am not sure if this should be posted here. If no, pls correct it to the right area. I would like to set the charts to display a constant number of bars while the charts are being updated realtime. I have two charts, sitiing side by side with around 100 bars displayed initially, in a layouts being updated realtime today. It is quite strange that the left chart could display a constant number of bars while being updated, i.e. an old price bar was being moved to left or out from the chart when a new bar was added. However, the right chart couldn't. As a result, the chart would look a bit crowd as time goes by...... I know that this can be down manually by pressing the "+" botton on the lower right corner of the chart...... But can this be set automatic .... that will make life more easier!! sa

One more thing as I have noticed the number of bars loaded in the layouts, as updated realtime, will accumulated as time goes by. As a result, the layout that I open few days or weeks after I created this will load more data, hence reducing the speed / performance of MS. I know that I can double click the lower part of the chart, where the date are displayed, then shift the "FIRST DATE LOADED" to a later date. My key question here is:- Can I set in MS elsewhere so that it will display a "Constant Number" of bars, say 100, and load a "Constant Number" of date, say 500? ...... and it will not change as time goes by where new data has been added realtime..... Unless you are able to set MS to maintains these two numbers to be constant, I am sure you would share my experience that you find it inconvenient to use / set!! sa

There are several items that influence these options: -File>Open>Options>Load Options allows you to control the initial Load/Display values when you open the chart -Tools>Options>Realtime>Max Number of Records In Intraday Chart is how many records the chart is allowed to accumulate as it is left open, the default is 10000 (Pro users only). You can make this number the same as your load value in "Load Options" -Layouts automatically have Retain Scale checked in the X-Axis Properties. This forces the charts in the layout to be fixed on whatever Load amounts they were created with. (Because of Retain Scale being locked in layouts, date ranges should not be modified in layouts or it will break the layout) -X-Axis Properties also has a tab called Margins, which allows you to allocate space for a right margin, and a realtime margin. The realtime margin is an adjustable amount of space between the most recent bar of data and the right margin. The number is equal to the number of bars it allows to draw into the margin. So if you have a realtime margin of 5, you are allowing the chart to draw 5 new bars in before it shifts the whole chart to the left to make room for 5 new bars. You can set this value as low as 1 -Zooming in or out will overwrite the default Display value in the Load Options section

I edited my original reply as I didn't explain the X-Axis on layouts quite right. You do not ever want to modify the loaded/displayed date ranges inside the X-Axis properties of a layout. This will break the layout from maintaining the scale properly. There is also a documented bug that I just confirmed can still cause the issue. If you use Zoom Reset (The button left of zoom out) on a chart in a layout, then zoom back in, the chart will no longer maintain the number of bars displayed. Avoid using the Zoom Reset button and just use zoom in/zoom out buttons and the bug should not occur.

Correct, it would corrupt that chart of the layout, not the rest of the layout. You can resolve the issue by doing the following: -Open the layout with the corrupted chart -Left click on the corrupted chart so that it becomes the active chart window -Click Window>New Window -Open the X-Axis Properties on the new chart that opened, and uncheck Retain Scale -Click Apply/Ok -Save the chart (You will have to give it a filename) -Close and Reopen the chart (Make sure your load options are set appropriately for your layout) -Click File>Edit Layout -Remove the corrupted chart and add the new chart into the layout and click Ok -Save the layout

-If you zoom in and save, it will remember the new zoom level, yes. If you want to maintain the original zoom levels you will not want to save the layout after zooming on any of the charts. -Closing and reopening the layout at a much later time should maintain the same load/display as long as you did not zoom/save. -Layout-Templates will remember the load/display values of the original layout -The advantages of standard charts are that you can have multiple charts of a security and you can give them a custom name and save them wherever you want. Smart Charts are stored with the data and save automatically when you close them, but you can only have one smart chart per security file.