This is driving me batty.  Early on I created a template, made it the default, and pulled up about 100 different symbols I want to trade.

But now I have made changes to the default template that I want to use for everything going forward.  Any NEW symbols I look at do appear with this new template.  

But when I go pull up any of those OLD symbols, the chart still looks the same as when I was just playing around.

If I open one of these, and then apply the default template, it (confusingly) opens up a new chart that looks like what I want.  But confusingly the old chart with the old template is still there, behind it in another window.  And if I close both, then open the symbol again, I get the same old look that I NO LONGER WANT, rather than my new template.

Ok, I thought, maybe it saves the look of the last one you had open... so I apply my default template again, but then this time I switch to the old one and close it first.  Then I close my new good one.  Then I open the symbol again... NOPE.  Still the same old template.

It seems there is nothing I can do to make it apply my default template to one of these symbols and have it "stick" so that each time I open this symbol I get the new look with the new indicators I want.

If I open the old look, and then manually make each and every change I have already done on the template, it does seem to remember those changes.  But like I said, I have pulled up 100 symbols with the old template, and there is no way I want to go manually make all these changes 100 times.

So.... HELP!!!!

Thanks for clearing that up.

It is quite unintuitive however, and I feel the need to rant.  This is a $500 piece of software and feels like a weekend hack written in VB.  The charting capabilities are fine, but the FLOW of actually using it to accomplish things (menus, right clicking, various non-modal windows all over the place) is very confusing.   Nothing seems to be where you would expect.  The MetaStock UI has obviously been hacked together over decades by many dozens of different programmers and needs a complete overhaul. (and a Mac version, please!)

However, barring a complete overhaul, how about when you click "Apply Template", instead of opening up a brand new chart, it actually does what one would expect and APPLIES THE TEMPLATE.  (It would be different if the command was "Open New Chart With Template" rather than "Apply Template"!)  

Then, when I close that window, it can ask if I want to save those changes to the Smart Chart.  If I don't want that, I can cancel out of that and choose to save it as a new custom chart if I wish, preserving my Smart Chart with the new look.

There is a maxim in UI design to not "surprise the user", and this fails.  I'm a software developer and I've used a lot of software in my 44 years, and never have I seen anything that behaves like this.

Rant over.  Thanks again for the response.