Learning to love the new platform

[Guest techs10]

First of all I must confess that I'm still using the classic platform from choice.

 

I found the new one so different in many ways that I knew I would have to adjust to it over a period of time before using it for my full-time trading. This is simply because trading carries its own complex set of routines and introducing too many variations in one go will cause me trouble!

 

After spending weekend time familarising myself with it, I decided one Monday morning to start using it 'live'. This soon exposed to me the significance of the number of changes buried in the new platform and I had to revert to the classic platform before losing trading momentum.

 

Many things I like, such as the general appearance of it - clean and modern. But I found there were a number of changes which prompted me to wonder whether anyone with serious trading experience had had any imput to the development. I'm sure they must have had but I felt some processes had become more complex whether as a result of trying to combine some functions or condense them to save space or just wanting to demonstrate innovation.

 

I have, as I always do, given detailed comments to IG about what changes I would like or, in the case of tick charts, must be have if I am to use them as they are a very important part of my trading methodology.

 

Also I do think there are better ways to organise the setting and updating of alerts - there are now too many steps and I'd like the platform to remember my usual alert type rather than having to reset them each time.

 

I could go into more detail here but have already done so in my feedback to IG.

 

My key message is to recommend to IG that, after consulting widely with clients, all such changes in future be tested in a live trading situation for at least a week by a small group of established traders to iron out both the glitches and the rough edges in terms of slickness.

 

I really look forward to a more streamlined version in the near future so I can make the permanent switch to it.

[Guest Captain]

I also use the classic platform.  To be honest, I'm more leaning toward writing my own platform from scratch, based on the API, rather than relying on web-based javascript and Flash rendering.