Stock Viewer for TiVo - User Guide

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Disclaimer

Information provided through the application described here is provided from multiple web sources directly to your system and is not redistributed. The author, nor any of the data providers, shall not be liable for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All information is provided "as is" for information and entertainment only, not for trading purposes or advice. Neither the author nor any data provider is liable for any data errors or omissions, or for any actions taken in reliance on information displayed by this application. Your use of this application indicates your acceptance of these terms.

Overview

This application provides an easy way to keep an eye on your stocks, mutual funds, and market indices, all from your TiVo!  The application comes with a little configuration utility that will let you enter one or more lists of ticker symbols (along with an optional number of shares, if you also want to track dollar value).  Once your lists are entered, you can view your lists, updated regularly, from your TiVo.

You can also "drill down" on a stock to see a more detailed screen, showing a graph and a bunch more detailed information.

How Does this Application Work?

This application is really just a web browser for your TiVo, customized for this specific kind of surfing.  The data used by the application comes primarily from the Invesbot stock quote web service, and is delayed 20 minutes.  Certain kinds of information, such as mutual fund information and stock charts, that are not available from Invesbot, and displayed from Yahoo!, much as they would from your PC's browser.

How Do I Install the Application?

See the download page for installation instructions.

How Do I Run the Application the First Time?

The application comes with a few sample stock lists, just to let you play around at first.  From your TiVo, press the TiVo button, and go to 'Music, Photos, Products, and More.'  Use your remote control to scroll through the list off applications until you find one titled 'Stock Viewer for TiVo.'  Highlight it and press SELECT.

When the application first runs, please read the terms of use screen carefully:

If you do not agree with the Terms of Use, press the LEFT arrow key on your remote control to exit the application.  If you agree, press the RIGHT arrow key or the SELECT key to continue.  This will bring you to the following screen, where you can choose a stock list to display.  Notice that the application includes three sample lists you can choose from. 

Use the UP and DOWN arrow keys on your remote to highlight the list you want to view, then press the RIGHT arrow key or SELECT to view it.

When the list first appears, it'll look like this:

Notice that you can see all of the ticker symbols, but there is no data shown yet.  A background thread runs, gathering the data from the internet, and updates the screen as it gathers information.  This is done to prevent the screen from "hanging" for a long time while all of the information is gathered.

What's the "Yellow Dot?"

Notice in the picture above that each ticker symbol has a yellow dot next to it.  This dot indicates that the information for this ticker symbol is "stale" -- it's either missing, as shown above, or it was loaded from a local disk cache.  This information will be updated shortly, and the yellow dot will disappear.  Refreshing the entire list usually only takes a few seconds, depending on the size of the list.  You can control how often this list is refreshed using the Config Utility (described below).  Note that all refresh activity is disabled if the list screen is not visible.  This prevents any network traffic from occurring unless the list screen is visible.

Once the list has completed refreshing, it should look something like this:

Notice that the last quote, last change, and last change percentage are shown.  The rightmost two columns are empty in this example -- that's where dollar value information is shown, if a number of shares has been entered for a particular ticker.  Here's another example that includes dollar value information:

In the above example, I have entered 100 shares each for the first for ticker symbols (using the Config Utility, described below).  With the number of shares entered, the application can calculate the dollar value of your position, and the dollar change.

Invalid Ticker Symbols

In the example above, I have intentionally included an invalid ticker symbol (QQQ) to demonstrate what happens.  The list shows 'unknown ticker symbol' on that row.

Market Index Symbols

You may use any of the following market index symbols supported by Yahoo!.  Note that other symbols, such as ^XOI and ^XNG, are disabled in this release.

Other Symbols Supported

In general, the application will do what it can to find data on any 3, 4, or 5-character ticker symbol, so most NYSE, NASDAQ, and mutual funds tickers should work.  The application will typically try Invesbot first, and if that fails, it'll check Yahoo!.  If both sources fail, the ticker is reported as an unknown ticker symbol.

Stock Detail Screen

When viewing a stock list, highlight any row and press SELECT or RIGHT.  You will be taken to a stock detail screen that looks like this:

Note that this screen is NOT periodically refreshed like the list screen, because most of the information here is fairly static (except for the last trade information and a couple other fields).  To refresh this screen, go back to the list using the LEFT arrow key, then return to this screen by highlighting the correct row and pressing SELECT or RIGHT.

Creating Your Own Stock Lists

The sample lists included with the application were simply a random selection of stocks -- you'll certainly want to create your own lists.  The application includes a utility to do this.  From the Start menu, select Programs - Stock Viewer for TiVo - Config Utility.  (UNIX and Macintosh users should use the run_config script.)  This is a Java Swing GUI, so it should run on any of the supported platforms.

Update Check

When you first run the Config Utility, it'll check to see if a new version of the application is available.  If so, you'll see this dialog box.  Clicking 'Exit & Download' will exit the Config Utility and attempt to start a browser at the download page.  Clicking 'Ignore' will continue you on to the main screen of the application.

Main Config Screen

The main screen of the Config Utility looks like this:

Create, Edit, or Delete Stock Lists

To get started, click the 'Create, Edit, or Delete Stock Lists' button.  This will bring up the following screen:

You'll notice that the three sample lists are listed.  Clicking one of those lists to select it will enable the 'Edit', 'Delete', and 'Rename' buttons on the right-hand side of the window:

Adding a List

Click the 'Add' button to add a new list.  A list must be 40 characters long or less, and consist of letters (A-Z, A-z), numbers, dash (-), underscore (_), and space only.  Type in the name of the list and click OK.

You will now see your new list name listed in the 'Existing Lists' box.  Click it to select it, then click the 'Edit button:

You will then be taken to the list editing screen.  Use the table to enter one or more ticker symbols.  You may also optionally enter a number of shares owned for each stock.  If you include shares owned, the dollar value will also be shown when viewing this stock list on your TiVo.

Double-click in the top left cell to begin editing the table.  Type in a ticker symbol.  You may use the TAB key to move between fields.  The stocks will be shown on your TiVo in the order they're listed in the table, so if you want to re-order the list, you may select a row by clicking on it, then using the 'Move Up' or 'Move Down' buttons.

Click the 'Save' button when finished.  Blank rows will be removed from the list when saved. 

List Limitations

Lists may have a maximum of 25 tickers per list.  There is no limit on the number of lists you can create, though.  Note that the application stores the lists in the '/lists' directory where you installed the application, and they are in XML format.

Viewing Your New List

Once you've created your list, exit the application on your TiVo and then start it up again.  You should now see it in the list:

Highlight your list, then press SELECT to see the details on it.  Notice that because we entered 100 shares for each ticker, the dollar value and dollar value change are shown:

Changing Settings

From the main Config Utility window, click the 'Change Settings' button:

Here you may change some of the settings for the application:

The setting for 'Refresh stock list every x minutes' controls how often the application refreshes the list when the list is visible on the screen.  Please be considerate of the data providers and do not set this number too low.  Because the data is delayed 20 minutes anyway, an up-to-the-minute refresh just generates a lot of web service traffic.  I recommend 5 or 10 minutes here (the default is 10).

The 'log level' setting controls how much information the application sends to the log file.  I normally recommend leaving the setting at 'all', because the size of the log file is limited to 5 MB anyway.

Updating the Application

It is not necessary to uninstall this application before installing a new version.  Simply run the installer and install the new version over top of the old one.  Do not install two copies of this application into two different directories, however (the installer should prevent this anyway).

Common Problems and Troubleshooting

• The Windows installer does its best to add an exception to Windows Firewall to allow the application to run.  however, if you have a third-party firewall running on your PC, you may need to manually add an exception to unblock the service.  The default path to this service is:
  
  C:\Program Files\Stock Viewer for TiVo\Stock_Viewer_Windows_Service.exe
  
  This typically manifests itself in the following way: the application shows in the list on your TiVo, but when you select it to run it, you get a screen that says 'Please Wait...' and nothing ever happens.  You have to press the TiVo button to get things unstuck.
   
• Java 1.5 or higher must already be installed on your system to run this application.  For Windows users, the installer should warn you about this if it can't find a Java JRE or JDK installed on your system.
   
• If you find a problem, check the 'logs' directory under the installation directory for anything that looks interesting.  You may zip up the log files and mail them to me with a detailed explanation of what problem you're seeing.  Note, however, that ticker and/or shares owned information may be included in those log files, so don't send them if you don't want me seeing that kind of information.

Version History

• 1.20: (6/4/06) Minor fixes for parsing errors and stock list formatting.
• 1.10: (5/12/06) Initial version.