Guide 2.2
Beginner, 7 min read. Checked with Scalpel 1.12.8 on .
In short
Scalpel runs up to six desks side by side: four show by default, and the + rail on the right adds the fifth and sixth. Drag the grip in the gap between two desks to resize them, double-click a grip to even them all out, and click Hide to close one. Inside a desk, drag a panel's title bar to reorder it and the gaps to resize it, then press Apply to all to copy that layout to every desk. Everything is saved.
The right layout depends on your screen and how many stocks you watch at once. Most momentum scalpers trade one stock at a time but keep two or three more on screen: the next gapper, the one that halted, the sympathy play. This guide covers every control for shaping the desks; guide 2.4 suggests layouts for one, two or three screens.
Before you start
Each trading desk's header carries its controls. The focused desk shows two more than the rest:
| # | Control | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | D1 to D6 | The desk number. Bright on the focused desk, dim on the others. |
| 2 | TRADER / SCAN | Switches the desk between a trading desk and a scan desk. |
| 3 | Colour swatch | Opens the colour picker. |
| 4 | Symbol box | Type a ticker to load it (guide 2.1). |
| 5 | Session and status | PRE, RTH, AFTER or CLOSED, plus a badge when data is not live (guide 2.5). |
| 6 | X | Clears the desk: drops the stock and frees its data line. |
| 7 | Apply to all (sliders icon) | Focused desk only: copies this desk's panel layout to every desk. |
| 8 | Even widths (columns icon) | Focused desk only, with two or more desks open: gives every desk the same width. |
| 9 | Hide | Closes the desk. Shown while more than one desk is open. |
While fewer than six desks are open, a slim + column sits on the right edge of the cockpit 3. Click it to open the next closed desk. It opens empty, as a trading desk, focused, with the cursor in its Symbol box, and it takes an even share of the width (the average of the desks already open). At six desks the rail disappears.
Between each pair of desks is a short pill, the grip 2. It lights up blue when the cursor can grab it. Drag left or right: one desk widens, its neighbour narrows. A desk will not go narrower than 240 pixels, the width its header controls need. Widths are saved with your layout.
Double-click any grip, or click the even widths button on the focused desk's header, and every open desk takes the same width again.
Click Hide on its header. The desk closes, its stock is dropped and its slot goes back behind the + rail; the other desks share the space. You cannot hide the last open desk, or a desk that holds a position (a red toast says so: close the position first).
A trading desk stacks three panels top to bottom: LEVEL 2 (with the time and sales tape as a column on its right), CHART (with the order bar under it) and ORDERS & POSITIONS. By default the book takes about 46% of the height, the chart about a third and the orders panel the rest.
Each desk keeps its own panel layout, saved as you change it.
Set up one desk the way you like it, make sure it is focused, then click Apply to all (the sliders icon) in its header. Every desk takes the same panel order and heights, and a toast says Layout applied to all desks. Symbols, colours and desk widths are not touched.
Click the swatch next to TRADER to open the picker and choose one of eight colours: Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Orange, Red, Pink or Purple. The defaults are blue, amber, green and purple for desks 1 to 4, then teal and pink for 5 and 6.
The colour is the desk's identity: it is the badge behind the symbol at the top of the Level 2 panel, and it is the colour of the little squares on every scanner row that load a stock onto that desk. Distinct colours make it hard to load a stock onto the wrong desk.
Click TRADER in a desk's header and it becomes a SCAN desk: a stack of scanner panels instead of a book and chart. Its header changes to Click a desk color to load, Add panel, and the width buttons.
Switching to SCAN frees the desk's market data line; its stock is remembered and reloads when you switch back to TRADER. A common layout is one scan desk on the left and three trading desks: scan panels are covered in guide 8.5.
Interactive Brokers limits how many Level 2 books one account can stream at the same time. The number depends on your account and any quote booster packs. When a desk asks for one more book than you are allowed, a toast says Depth unavailable for the symbol, followed by IBKR's reason. The desk keeps working without the book: the quote, the tape and the chart still stream, so you can watch it, but you are trading it without depth.
To get the book back, clear or hide a desk you are not using (its line is freed), or switch it to SCAN, then load the stock again. See guide 1.6 for how IBKR counts lines and guide 13.4 for the fix.