1) You can trade from $25,000 upwards. The concept of a contract isn't their with IdealPro. You basically trade an ammount of dollars. When comparing to a bucket shop a mini contract is generally $10,000 and a full contract $100,000
2) Commission is 0.00002 pips with a min of $2.50 per order
For a $100,000 trade i.e. $10 per pip, spread is 1 pip and commission is $2.5 each way.
i.e. a buy and a sell would cost $5 or put another way 1/2 a pip
3) This means that the commission is relatively more expensive if you trade less that $125,000. Its effectively 1 pip for $25,000, 1/2 a pip for $50,000 etc
4) IdealPro is a fair and proper market, you can try and trade between the spread.
5) IB provide basic charting software with TWS
6) I'm developing a Java App to make IdealPro trading easier
HTH
JonnyT