Overview

Photon is the Marketcetera Automated Trading Platform UI client. Photon is what's know as a fat client, meaning it is a standalone native executable as opposed to a thin client, which is typically made available via a web browser. To use Photon, you must install the Photon component for your platform and architecture. See the installation guide for more information on installing Photon.

Launching Photon

Photon uses the Eclipse Rich Client Platform. If you're familiar with the Eclipse IDE, Photon will look very familiar to you. On Windows, an entry for Photon will have been added to your Start menu or Desktop, as you requested during installation. On Linux, to start Photon:

$ cd marketcetera-2.2.1
$ . ./setEnv.sh
$ cd photon
$ ./photon

On OSX, there is a Photon.app which you can add to your toolbar or Applications folder.

Logging In

Photon can run by itself, however, most of its utility comes from connecting to other components in the Marketcetera Automated Trading Platform stack, like the Order Routing System and one or more Strategy Agents. Upon start, Photon prompts you to log in to an Order Routing System.

The default credentials for the Order Routing System are admin/admin.

Once you've entered the credentials to connect to the Order Routing System, you can tell if Photon has successfully connected by the status icons at the bottom. The icons will change from

to

(the left light is for the connection to the Order Routing System, the right light is for the connection to a market data adapter, more on that later)

After connecting, some views that require a connection to the Order Routing System are populated, like the Open Orders View and the Positions View. More on these and other views later.

By default, Photon is configured to connect to an Order Routing System running on the same host. However, if you've installed your Order Routing System on another host, you can configure Photon to connect to that host instead. Select Cancel from the login dialog and then Edit->Preferences. Select Connections in the left pane.

You can enter a new IP address (in place of 127.0.0.1) for the IP address of your Order Routing System. Select OK and then File->Reconnect Server to resume the login process. There is also a menubar icon for Reconnect Server, for your convenience. If you are already connected to the server when you select Reconnect Server, your current connection will be closed and a new connection established. This is harmless, though there may be a small delay depending on the amount of trading activity that's occurred today as Photon downloads today's activity from the Order Routing System.

Views

outline

  1. Logging in
    1. Local host
    2. Another host
    3. Default credentials
  2. Views
    1. General
      1. Console
    2. Market Data
      1. Market Data
      2. Market Depth
    3. Photon
      1. Average Price
      2. Currency Order Ticket
      3. FIX Message Details
      4. FIX Messages
      5. Fills
      6. Future Order Ticket
      7. Open Orders
      8. Option Order Ticket
      9. Stock Order Ticket
    4. Positions
      1. Positions
    5. Strategy Category
      1. Project Explorer
      2. Strategy Engines
      3. Trade Suggestions
  3. Perspectives
    1. Equity
    2. Option
    3. Future
    4. Currency
    5. Strategy
    6. Custom
  4. Market Data Adapters
    1. Marketcetera
    2. Bogus
    3. Yahoo
    4. CSV
    5. Commercial Adapters
      1. Activ Financial
      2. Thompson Reuters
      3. Lime
      4. NYSE
      5. ICE
      6. Nordpool
  5. Configuration