Swordfish supports DDE linking but the DDE copy-and-paste functionality of the old OTS no longer exists.
To enable DDE in Swordfish:
1. Click on ‘Tools’ and then ‘Environment Options’ from the Swordfish menu.
2. On the ‘General’ tab of Environment Options, check the box titled ‘Enable DDE’.
DDE formula structure:
|
DDE Server
|
Topic
|
Item
|
|
ESOTS
|
The instrument name
eg. DEC06 ALSI
|
Short code for the field
eg BIDP for bid price
(see table below)
|
DDE Item codes in Swordfish:
|
Item Code
|
Description
|
|
BIDQ
|
Bid quantity
|
|
BIDP
|
Bid price
|
|
ASKQ
|
Ask quantity
|
|
ASKP
|
Ask price
|
|
LASTP
|
Last price
|
|
CHNGE
|
Change
|
|
TIME
|
Time
|
|
HIGH
|
High
|
|
LOW
|
Low
|
|
VOL
|
Volume
|
|
OPEN
|
Open
|
Programs that support DDE will always require the three parts of the DDE formula: the DDE server name, the topic and the item. Using the information above you can populate these fields.
To DDE link from Swordfish to Microsoft Excel, the entire server-topic-item formula is placed into the cell in a special format. For example to have an Excel cell linked to the last price of DEC06 WMAZ the formula would look like this:
=ESOTS|’DEC06 WMAZ’!LASTP
To create a sample Excel DDE-linked spreadsheet:
With Swordfish connected and running –
1. Ensure DDE is enabled (see top of this post) in Swordfish
2. Right-click the mouse in a futures window
3. From the pop-up menu, select ‘Export’, ‘CSV’,’DDE Links’
4. Now open Windows Explorer and browse to ‘My Documents\Estuary\Data\Export
5. Open the file ‘CSV_DDE.CSV’
6. You will be prompted to ‘…update the linked information..’ – select ‘YES’
7. The spreadsheet should open and display the same information as the window you did the export from.
NOTES:
This spreadsheet is intended to demonstrate the structure of the DDE formulas – you can save the sheet with a new name. Do not do a CSV export while you have the ‘CSV_DDE.CSV’ file open.
