How can we make it easier to see alerts – past and present – in ThinkOrSwim?
If you’re a ThinkOrSwim (TOS) user, you might be frustrated by how quickly the alert messages that popup disappear. We have a few solutions to help with this.
First, the popups don’t necessarily appear on the screen you’re using, or on the chart that created the alerts. They popup on the main thinkorswim window (the main window is the one that includes the area that offers sections on Monitor, Trade, Analyze, Scan, etc.). It can help to make sure that main window is visible at all times so when you do hear the alert sound, you can quickly look at the popup that appears without trying to find which window the alert is on.
Second, you can extend the amount of time that an alert popup stays on the screen. Go to Setup/Application Settings, and select Display. The selection, “Show message center for:” pulldown allows you to select how many seconds the alerts will display for. But you’re not limited to just the few choices offered in the pulldown. You can click in the box and type in any number of seconds. So that will help you by potentially giving you more time to view the popups before they disappear.
Third – and this is probably the most helpful – is that ToS does indeed have a place where alerts are stored and can be viewed well after the popup goes away. It’s called the Message Center, and it’s a gadget that you can add from the main screen. As with other gadgets, you can add them by clicking the plus sign that’s at the bottom of the main screen’s gadget area. Once you click the plus sign, select Message Center, and the Message Center gadget will be added. You can then click on the Message Center gadget’s hamburger menu (the options menu at the upper right of the gadget) and select “Detach Gadget”. It will then act as a floating window that you can resize and locate elsewhere on your desktop.
With this Message Center gadget, you can now easily view the latest and recent alerts with all their detail.