Created by Platform Services GitHub tool on Mon Jan 23 2017

The Speed Guide utility allows users and developers, who do not have access to Thomson Reuters Eikon, a simple and quick way to easily browse the content available within the Thomson Reuters Elektron service.

Required software components:

• Elektron Message API (1.0.8 or greater) - Thomson Reuters interface to the Elektron Market Data environment
• JDK 8 - Java Development Kit - version 8

Optional software components:

• Eclipse - IDE for Java development (tested)
• Other IDE's such as: NetBeans, Intellij IDEA
• JavaFX Scene Builder - UI to author JavaFX GUI-based applications

This package includes some convenient files which will enable the developer to quickly build and run the Speed Guide utility. To build, the package includes the build.xml Ant file. Alternatively, the scripts (build.bat/build.ksh) are provided. To run, use the convenient scripts (run.bat/ run.ksh).

Within each script contains the following prerequsite section:

The following batch file assumes the following environment:

   JAVA_HOME          - Root directory of your JDK 8 environment
   ELEKTRON_JAVA_HOME - Root directory of your (EMA) Elektron Java API installation

Once setup, you can build and run the utility.

The Speed Guide utility allows users and developers who do not have access to the Eikon application to browse the contents available from Elektron.

When building Elektron Market Data consumers, developers often need a list of RICs (Reuters Instrument Codes) for a certain market, exchange, or instrument type. The Speed Guide utility is a tool to discover those RICs. In addition, provides a simple way to easily navigate and provide a better understanding of the organization of the data which includes more complex structures such as Option Chains, Indices, etc.

The utility registers for Snapshot only data content (i.e, non-streaming).

The executable program and readme is available for Download within the TR Developer Platform.

The Speed Guide application must connect to an Elektron system/TREP (Thomson Reuters Enterprise Platform) or via Elektron Connect.

The package includes 2 components offering multiple ways to launch the tool. Packaged are:

• SpeedGuide.jar: An executable JAR available for both Windows and Linux
• SpeedGuide.exe: A windows wrapper

Double-clicking either the .jar or .exe file will not pass any required parameters to the application. As such, the application will present a Connection Dialog requesting for these connection parameters. In either case, no console is involved thus no additional messages, such as log messages, can be viewed.

Note: Launching the executable JAR requires the Javaw program to open it. When not associated, you will be presented with a request such as:

You will need to choose the Javaw program within your Java installation.

At the console, you can pass command-line parameters to the utility:

• Launching the executable JAR

  > java -jar SpeedGuide.jar [options]

  When launching the executable JAR, users optionally specify command-line options and have the opportunity to see the output on the console.

• Launching the windows wrapper EXE

  > SpeedGuide.exe [options]

  The windows wrapper is strictly a GUI based facility that does not have an explicit console attached. Thus, no output can be viewed on the console. However, users can capture the output within a file. for example:

  > SpeedGuide.exe>output.txt [options]

--host=hostname:port    Server address/hostname and port of your Market Data server.
                        Syntax: <host/ip>:<port>.  Eg: elektron:14002 or 192.168.1.1:14002
--service=serviceName   Service Name providing market data content.
                        Eg: ELEKTRON_AD.
--user=userName         User name required if authentication is enabled on server.
                        Note: if no user name is provided, the utility will use your desktop login
--d[ebug]               Debug Mode.  Display verbose messages to the console
--h[elp]                Prints the options screen

If neither the --host nor --service is provided, the utility will prompt the user to enter these values.

Example: > SpeedGuide --host=elektron:14002 --service=ELEKTRON_AD --user=testuser

When launching the utility specifying insufficient command-line options, the user will be presented with a Connection dialog:

The Status Pane at the bottom of the main window provides some general feedback, whether success or failure. In the case where a successful connection can be made to your specified server, the utility will launch the root Speed Guide item, i.e. THOMSONREUTERS.

Note: While the utility will launch the "THOMSONREUTERS" RIC, which represents the root code of the Speed Guide pages, the utility is extremely useful for developers to visualize any other instrument available within Elektron.

The Home button takes the user back to this page at any time.

To navigate through the guide, double click on any text nested between < > characters.  Although suggested within the guides, this utility does not presently support NEWS codes nested between [ ] characters.

The top navigation menu provides:

• A Home button to go back to the initial main page.
• A Previous button to go back to the previous page (if it exists).
• A Next button to go to next page (if it exists).
• An input text field that displays the RIC for the current page, and allows entering a RIC to request.
• A Connect button when no connection has been established
• An Available Services dropdown providing the list of services available within the connected server

During normal operation, or possibly at startup, the Status Pane will highlight issues appropriately. In the case where the user specifies an incorrect service, the Available Services dropdown will give them the opportunity to select a valid one.

As you navigate through the guide, double-clicking on <nested items>, you may be presented with a simple fieldlist display of the IDs, or Field IDs (FIDs) for a given RIC.

For example:

Although not presented in a user-friendly display form, the native list of fields not only provides the user the ability to research all available fields for a given asset, but also the opportunity to better understand the structure of Thomson Reuters Data.

Navigating through the guide, you will likely come across some more complex structures. For example, some market data elements, such as the Nasdaq Top 25, are represented as a collection of elements, or also referred to as a Chain. A Chain contains a collection of elements represented within a preset number of underlying fields within a market data record. In the case of the Nasdaq Top 25, the underlying elements represent the Top 25 trading equities. Because a Chain is represented within a simple MarketPrice structure containing a preset number of fields, the structure offers the ability to pull up the next link within this collection.

To demonstrate, we manually entered the Nasdaq Top 25 index .AV.O:

We can see from above, the record contains a preset number of elements (1-14) and the ability to pull up the next group of elements within the next link. Feel free to navigate through the guide to discover many other assets and data elements offered by Thomson Reuters.

The utility was developed using the Elektron SDK Java API and Java's GUI library Java 8 - JavaFx.

• Elektron Message API
• JDK 8
• Eclipse - IDE for Java development (tested)

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

• Susana Chang - Release 1.1. Initial work
• Nick Zincone - Release 2.0. Additional error checking/Utilized JavaFX Scene Builder to generate FXML

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details