Slope Up/Down/Flat  Checking either of these boxes will cause TCScan+ to search for upwards, downwards and/or sideways sloping channels.  You must check at least one of these three checkboxes for the scan to run.  The textbox to the right of the 'Flat' checkbox is the sensitivity (0 to 90) used in determining if a line is flat.  A value of '0' will cause only perfectly flat lines to be found, but when searching for flat lines, you should rather allow some degree of tolerance, e.g., 5-10 to allow for lines that are almost flat.  This setting is also applicable to the 'Up' and 'Down' sloping checkboxes too.  For example, if you enter a value of '20' and then select only the 'Up' checkbox, only steeper up-sloping lines will be found (because lower-sloping ones will be considered flat.)

Find near Upper/Lower  Check one (or both) of these two boxes to select whether price must be near the upper or lower channel lines.  

Max Length is the maximum number of bars used to construct the channel. 

Max Leeway allows TCScan+ to find the best-fitting channel within the period specified by your Max Length and Max Leeway settings.  The channel length is adjusted on the left side by up to the leeway amount and the length that provides the best channel is used.  The channel is also adjusted on the right hand side, but in that case by the amount specified on the broken/unbroken form, and only if you have allowed broken lines (see below.)  So, as an example, if you have a Max Length of 60, a Max Leeway of 20, and a broken days setting of 5, it is possible to have a channel created that is only 35 bars long.  Note that the length of the channel drawn on the Chart will always be equal to the value in Length, though it may not be based on all the data over which the channel is drawn, because of the Leeway parameter.  The actual data used to determine the channel will be highlighted by the channel lines drawn thicker in that region. An example is shown below.  Both are for a 100 day lookback period and 80 day channel, but the left one was run with a 60 day leeway, while the right was run with no leeway.   

Min Range% and Max Range% specify the minimum and maximum range of the channel as a percentage of the average price along the channel.  For example, if the top of the channel is at 120 and the bottom is at 105, then the range is 15.  If the average price along the channel is 110, then the percentage range is 15/110 = 13.6%.  If you had a Min Range setting below this value, and a Max Range setting above it, then the channel would pass your scan (depending on other settings too.)  These settings are useful for making sure that very narrow or wide channels are not found.  An example of its use can be found in the example settings file for 'Rolling Stocks' included in the TCScan+ directory.  Press F11 from TCScan+ to open it. 

Min Touches specifies the minimum number of touches to the channel lines.  This number is the total for both the upper and lower channel lines.  Generally the more touches, the more significant a channel, so settings a higher Min Touches value should find better channels. 

Alert Proximity % specifies how close the current price must come to the upper or lower channel line for you to be alerted of that fact.  The calculation method is the same as that described above.  For example, if today's price is 48.0 and the value of the upper channel line for today is 50.0, then the percentage distance between the two is 4%.  If you had your 'Alert Proximity %' value set at 5, then you would be alerted to this proximity, because 4 is less than 5.  If you want to ignore this setting then leave the box empty. 

Use Close Prices will cause the channels to be calculated based on the close price of each bar, rather than the high or low. 

Log Scaling checking this box will cause TCScan+ to use Logarithmic Scaling (instead of the normal Arithmetic Scaling) for channel construction and charts.  When using logarithmic scaling you will notice that the price axis numbers on the chart do not increase linearly, but rather proportionally. 

Broken/Unbroken  clicking this button will open a form allowing you to specify whether the upper and lower channel lines can be broken or unbroken, and if broken, when they are allowed to have been broken.  The length of the period over which the channels are allowed to have been broken is used as the right-hand side leeway for the channels.  See the two examples below, which show the same stock with different broken/unbroken settings. 

Proximity to line that will be considered a touch (%)  specifies how close the price must come to the upper or lower channel line for the price to be considered a touch, measured as a percentage of the price.  For example, if at a particular point the upper channel line value is 50.0 and the price is 49.75, then the percentage distance between the price and upper channel line is 0.5%.  If 'Touch Prox%' is set at 1 then this point would be considered a touch to the channel, because 0.5% is less than the 1.0 Touch Proximity Percentage. 

Proximity to line that will be considered a touch (absolute) is identical in concept to 'Touch Prox%' described above, but in this case the proximity is measured in absolute terms rather than in percent. It is useful to have a touch defined in terms of both percentage and absolute value.  As an example: for a $100 stock, a 1% Touch Proximity would be ±$1, but for a $1 stock that would translate to ±$0.01, which is a very tight tolerance.  Therefore to handle low value stocks you could enter the minimum tick value into the  Absolute Proximity. 

Use chart range for proximity calculations will use the chart range as reference for proximity calculations, otherwise the channel line will be used as reference. 

Show touches to channel lines will select whether to have small arrows shown on the chart where price touches the channel lines.  Examples can be seen in charts above. 

Ensure touches to both upper and lower channel lines  will only allow channels that have touches to both channel lines.  Because TCScan+ finds the best channel by first finding the best center line through the past data and then works out how to place the channels around it, it is possible that one line could end up without any touches to it.  An alternate method is therefore available, which will ensure touches to both lines.  An example of the same chart with the two different options applied is shown below. 

Split minimum touch setting between lines  will help prevent instances where there are many touches to one channel line and one or a few to the other - it helps prevent better-formed channels.  The difference is sometimes subtle, but usually better - see the examples below.