Note: this page documents the 0.5 and lower version of StockMeter?, a new guide for 0.6 is currently under progress

Accessing StockMeter

On launch, the app will reside in the menubar. Click on it to access the stock symbols as well as other options.

Adding symbols

Users can add symbols via the “Add Symbol…” option in the main menu that can be accessed by clicking on the StockMeter? app icon.

Please check with the provider site to find your stock symbol.

Provider	URL	Available
Yahoo Finance	http://finance.yahoo.com/	Yes
Google Finance	http://www.google.com/finance	Coming soon!

Removing symbols

All symbols are shown as menu items with a single submenu item in them. The “Remove” sub menu item can be used to remove the symbol from the list.

Refreshing symbols

Symbols are refreshed as per the preference setting, or it can be manually refreshed using the “Refresh Now” menu item. The “Refresh Now” menu item also shows the time since last refresh.

Displaying symbols in menu bar (Cycle mode)

In cycle mode, the symbols are shown in place of the application icon for a specific time interval in a round robin fashion. The active symbol is shown in the menu bar as:

Alerts

Alerts are visual indicators on the screen that are displayed when a particular price alert is triggered. In StockMeter?, alerts are shown via the Growl framework  http://www.growl.info/. The user has to have Growl installed for the alerts to display. If Growl is not installed no warning will be displayed. Alerts are checked each time the symbols are refreshed from the Finance API server. Alerts once shown are automatically deleted from the app. The alert display is based on the settings of Growl on the user system.

Managing alerts

Alerts can be added using the “Manage Alerts…” menu item.

Preferences

Symbol refresh interval (secs)

Specifies the refresh interval for the symbols. The standard setting is 60 (1 minute).

Cycle symbols

Specifies whether the symbols should be shown in the menu bar or not.

Symbol cycle interval (secs)

Specifies the cycle interval for the symbols in the menu bar. The standard setting is 10 secs.

Show colored symbols in menu

Specifies whether the symbols should be shown in color based on the change or black.

Show percentage change

Specifies whether the change value should be in percentage. If not selected, the change will be shown as an absolute value.

Enable auto alerts

Specifies whether auto alerts should be enabled or not. Auto alerts are system generated alerts based on the upper and lower value when the symbol is first added to the application. You can choose to delete or modify them later.

Auto alert values (%)

Specifies the alert price as a percentage of the current symbol value for the upper and lower bounds. This can be used to trigger stop loss or sell signals.