Phoenix Status Updated Jan 02, 2007
I didn't work as much as I would have liked over the Christmas and New Year holiday, but it gave time for forward testing. 5.7.0 is declared stable, and a new testing version was released. Hendrick is still on vacation. I think I'm full strength and not sick anymore. Thank you all very much for your continued use of Phoenix, suggestions, bugfixes, communication and support. I added a todo list so people know how to contribute time to the project as a whole.

PhoenixFund (through an existing non profit Foundation) was approved as an IB. The paperwork is in review, and I'm mostly waiting and ready to answer any questions that they have. I won't earn anything for setting up the PhoenixFund IB, nor anything from people contributing to PhoenixFund from their own pockets. All of the funds donated or through the IB are used for trading Phoenix, minus banking fees. PhoenixFund will reinvest 50% and donate 50% of the monthly profits (never contributions) to nonprofits who are: document their costs transparently, nonsecular, aligned with the United Nations Development Program goals. I want to write this in a way that anyone who joins PhoenixFund or comes after me will need to follow the same guidelines. I think an "official meeting" along with a resolution is a decent way to do this, but suggestions are great.

I do intend to receive some benefit from my work, but the only benefits will be synergistic, like hosting the PhoenixFund and providing links to commercial services I provide. Forex-TSD.com will continue to be the main communication method for Phoenix, and most of the information will be duplicated. Some info will be better organized as a website than a forum post.
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Phoenix Development Plans
We have a (mostly) stable release of Phoenix! I say "mostly" because some features have not had adequate testing and confirmation, but there are no pending bugs in Phoenix 5.7.0. Some community developments for extra broker compatibility were added, variable organization, and a few other changes were added to 5.7.1. If 5.7.1 doesn't have any bugs after two weeks of decent testing (and/or bugs in 5.7.0 are found and confirmed to be fixed in 5.7.1) then 5.7.1 will be declared stable.

Most of my effort on Phoenix for the next week is going to be optimization testing and documentation. The documentation will be based around the new 5.7.1 style for optimization. Any "User Guides" for 5.7.0 style or 5.7.1 style are greatly appreciated.

Phoenix 6 development has begun, but slowly right now. A template with "a lot of useless code" will be released to other developers soon, so we can collaboratively build Phoenix 6. The template method is desired for organization of code, and so people can more easily modify pieces of Phoenix without worrying the entire system will shake. Phoenix Contest, 4 and 5 have made good use of functions, but knowing where to add a new function or new filter indicator is very difficult. The template system will attempt to make that easier. It may be "more code" but the part that a developer needs to pay attention to will be a lot smaller.

Here are a few features that I think are very important for Phoenix 6:
Trend Detection (Bertbin mentioned Turbo_jrsx and Turbo_jevl, I have been looking at Fish.)
Support and Resist Detection
Different Money management options

Here are a few features that I would like to see in Phoenix 6:
Filter Signals (don't enter market if...)
Confirmation Signals (linked to money & trade management)
Support for managed exits
Support for multiple sets of managed trades (several mode3 simultaneously on a single currency)
Easy optional logging
Better Magic Number management - ideally the system would detect if trades are currently open with magic numbers chosen
Weighted intelligent signal management

I have a few more ideas for things that would be nice but I'd like to keep some challenging features for Phoenix 7, building off the features in Phoenix 6. (Going to the next level of self tuning AI)