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Port Monkey for HSX
Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox, Chrome and Opera, by Eduardo Zepeda
Also see Chimp and More Scripts for HSX

After the Hollywood Stock Exchange was redesigned in 2009, I lobbied for HSX to provide the same logical and functional portfolio features that we had enjoyed for most of 10 years. I finally realized I could provide them myself, using Greasemonkey. I have enjoyed some features of the latest HSX port redesign, such as the sortable columns and mostly improved page loading times. But, the view was cluttered, and making more than a few casual trades had become a slog, at best.

Port Monkey brings back the joy of playing on HSX. I hope it may also serve as a constructive basis for discussion of potential changes to the portfolio design.

screenshot

Before I get to the goodies, I must recap the biggest impediments to trading, which have been noted on the HSX Feedback and Support Board, by myself and others.

Port Monkey features

Cleaner appearance - The number of shares are shown in green or red, to indicate long or short. Insignificant decimal places, arrows and parentheses have been removed. Column headings have been shortened so they don't wrap to a second line. Fidgety trade buttons have been removed. Clutter at the top has been removed, making a lot of data immediately visible.

Efficient and available trade tools - The My Portfolio panel is permanently locked in place. It contains key port info, links, and the trade tools. The Symbol box is automatically filled as the mouse pointer moves over tickers in the Security column. There's a quick-pick Quantity selector with customizable amounts. Empty Quantity is treated as 'max'. Trades do not take you away from the portfolio; trade confirmation appears as a popup window that is easily dismissed with the Enter key. Or, just leave the confirmation window set aside. Note that the trade widget is also available separately, as Chimp for HSX

Color picker
Custom colors - With the color styler, you can either fix that one thing that has always annoyed you, or go crazy and restyle the entire portfolio. For information and examples, see the Port Monkey Colors page. And, see the usage note, below, about protecting your color styling efforts. *
Meaningful arrows - Port Monkey arrows highlight trends or changes in price since the previous port refresh. Arrows reset automatically each day on the first port refresh after HSX reset. Or, clicking the arrow icon ▲ in the sidepanel will reset them.

Quicker navigation - Hotkeys instantly put the end of the Moviestocks, Starbonds or Derivatives section at the bottom of your screen. This makes it possible to quickly monitor price movements without re-sorting columns, and with lower numbers and down arrows down where they belong. Another hotkey gets you back to the top of a section. For Moviestocks, use < > ; Starbonds, [ ] ; Derivatives, - +, all unshifted.

Custom tagging - Tag any security with a character of your choice, in a selected color, with a short note that will appear as a tooltip. Tag use is limited only by your imagination. Tag post-adjust openers to more easily keep an eye on price movements. Tag top movers each day. Tag bonds by the number of weeks to adjust. Tag every movie opening next summer.

Click any item in the & tag column to add/edit/delete a tag. Any tag can be unique, or like some others. Identical new tags can be created with Click, Enter. The tags column is sortable, but sorting should be done after a port refresh, following any tag editing. See the usage note, below, about protecting your tagging efforts. *

Information pop-ups

Intraday price graphs - For Moviestocks, clicking the Today (today's change) number for a movie will open up a graph that shows its price history for the past 24 hours or so, with 5-minute resolution. This is useful for spotting trends and reversals. This intraday price graph example will open as a full web page. Using Port Monkey, the graph will open in a small window, much like the Port Monkey trade confirmation window. Note that you must set your browser options to allow pop-up windows for HSX (there's no downside to this). These price graphs are the handiwork of HSX user theun4gven. Very nice!

Phase view - The Δ column shows movie phase, with C, D and P highlighted in different colors.

Options - Certain Port Monkey settings are user configurable via an Options panel, which is accessed by clicking the heart icon ♥ in the side panel. Select whether to include the HSX nav bar, change color of the data stripe, tweak overall width, as well as the Port Monkey sidepanel dimensions and font size... and more.

Usage notes

Browser notes

Almost all features of the Greasemonkey native code will work in non-Firefox browsers like Chrome, Opera, and possibly others. Here are the known exclusions or issues:

Since I use Firefox, I will not be paying attention if/when Chrome or Opera are updated in such a way that it breaks Port Monkey functionality. Please let me know.

I have some observations to share, in comparing Firefox, Chrome and Opera.

Getting started

  1. Install Firefox, Chrome or Opera.

  2. Firefox users, install the Greasemonkey extension from here or here. It's a necessary extra step for Firefox; Greasemonkey is the native domain of the Port Monkey script, and by using the Firefox-Greasemonkey combo, there will be no missing features (see browser notes, right).

  3. Firefox-Greasemonkey and Chrome users, click on a Port Monkey download link, below, to install. Upgraders should first use the Greasemonkey script manager or Chrome extension manager to uninstall older versions. Settings will persist, as long as the old version was installed from this same website. But, in Greasemonkey 0.9.x, the default behavior is to remove all of your custom settings when you uninstall to do an update! So, before doing an uninstall: in the extensions manager, click Greasemonkey preferences, and uncheck "also uninstall associated preferences" for uninstalls.

  4. Opera users need to create a folder for scripts, then right-click the Port Monkey link, below, and Save Linked Content As, into that folder. Then, from the full menu, go to Tools - Preferences - Advanced - Content - Javascript Options, and under User Javascript files, click Choose folder, to select the new script folder. If upgrading, be sure to remove the older file from the script folder.

  5. Enjoy your port management at HSX! Depending on your browser and version, there may be an icon or menu item to temporarily disable Port Monkey, if you would like to view the unmodified page.

  6. And, please join the Port Monkeys league, at HSX. Be sure to indicate which browser you are using.

Port Monkey downloads and version history

For a look into the past, here is the now defunct HSX Killfile page.


Get Firefox Friends don't let friends
use Internet Explorer
Copyright © 2011 by Eduardo Zepeda
edzep@edzep.cjb.net