Port Monkey for HSX

After my most recent lobbying for HSX to provide the same logical and functional portfolio features that we had enjoyed for most of 10 years, I 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.

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 enhanced 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. 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.

Meaningful arrows - Port Monkey arrows highlight trends or changes in price since the previous port refresh. There are configuration options that effect behavior and appearance. The Arrows link in the sidepanel will reset them. Arrows reset automatically each day on the first port refresh after HSX reset.

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. Also, see note, below. *

Options - Certain Port Monkey settings are user configurable via an Options 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.

There are a few minor caveats. Pages are modified after downloading, and this does add a few seconds to a port refresh; you may choose to refresh less often. If you make a non-Port Monkey trade, as from a stock page, etc., the Close button may show on the regular HSX confirmation page, depending on which trade widget was used. Ignore it; it won't do anything.

* When tagging, be aware that a browser crash could cause loss of recent tag data. If you spend a lot of time setting up tags, and you tend to experience browser or system crashes or power outages, and/or your browser sessions are long (mine are weeks long), consider a close and restart of your browser, to force a reliable save of new tag data.