Step by step

Step by step when you would rather be walked past every decision, with the choices explained — a first build, or a change where the order of decisions is itself the help. All at once when you already know which setting to change, especially two or three unrelated ones: you edit them on one page, save once and re-run once. The chapters are in What are the chapters of Step by step?. The two differ only in how much is on screen and how much explanation comes with it — see All at once.

The one you chose under How you build strategies in Profile › Preferences: Step by step or All at once. Until you choose, a strategy opens in All at once. The preference is yours, not the strategy's: it applies to every strategy you open, a Public one included, and the Settings tab follows it too. A Live strategy opens on Positions whatever the preference, because someone following real money wants the positions first.

You choose it the first time you create a strategy: the Create new popup asks "How do you prefer to work?" above its tiles, with Step by step preselected. The answer is stored when a strategy or a Combined is actually created — opening and closing the popup answers nothing, and creating a screener does not count. Then the popup stops asking, and a new strategy opens in Step by step on its Asset selection chapter, or in All at once.

With one control on each side, at the right end of the section band (the row of Settings, Analysis and Positions). It changes this visit only; next time the strategy follows the preference again.

• All at once → Step by step — See step by step, beside the label All at once. Every viewer has it, a Public strategy's reader included; on a member of a Combined it opens that member's walk.
• Step by step → All at once — See all at once, beside the label Step by step. On a member of a Combined it opens that member's own page.

Both views read and write the same working copy, so nothing you entered is lost, and what was unsaved stays unsaved — the switch is not a save. The old icon that toggled the views is gone, and the strategy's ⋯ menu carries no view item.

You want a two-instrument strategy that rebalances monthly. In Create new you choose Multiple instruments and, as it is your first strategy, leave Step by step selected; the strategy opens on Asset selection, with Strategy type already confirmed. You add two tickers and confirm. On Allocation you leave the goal and method as offered; on Rebalance you set one month. Risk and exits is optional, so you press Skip this chapter, and on Summary you name the strategy and press Run the backtest. You could have pressed Backtest in the header from Asset selection on.