As MT4 has grown in popularity the past 3 years around the world as the most flexible and powerful FREE technical analysis program for retail Forex and CFD trading, many newbies, programmers and professional developers started producing some very potent Custom Indicators, scripts and Expert advisors. Through the open forums, many traders on all levels of skill and experience have both contributed and taken concepts, programming, trading systems and advice about how to personalize approaches to observing and trading Foreign Currency movements around the globe.
I have become more proficient as a trader by taking the time to understand some of the basic, necessary coding and programming components of MT4 (and I have a lot yet to learn) and this has allowed me to more fully understand exactly how indicators and trading methodologies work, within the parameters of this programming language. The unique displays on my computer screens of a particular style of trading to my individual liking has been a fantastic adventure and I offer thanks to so many contributors.
But, as this technical analysis ability has continued to evolve and improve for non-programmers like me, and although I can make my way through reading indicator or EA code, I have reached some limits of my understanding of MT4 / MQL and programming protocol within this program, especially regarding customizing various alerts. It seems as though MT4's ability to make various audible alerts that EASILY can be applied to certain conditions of my particular trading environments (the indicators I use, as inputs for using alternate .wav files conditionally, timeframes, candle / bar preferences, how often it alerts, repeat alerts, etc.) can definitely be improved. I think you all will agree with this point. The limits of the programming language MQL for specialized alerts has been left to the creative trader-programmers, and not the originators of this platform. I have a few indicators that I haven't been able to utilize to their fullest extent because the alerting capabilities aren't easily able to be added in an easy, unconflicting manner.
So, I would like to start a discussion thread that could possibly allow a group effort to look at this aspect of the evolving trading systems and methodologies and help develop more intelligent Alert / Alarm solutions (which the MT4 developers seem to give such small importance) for the present version of MT4. To make a small library of our experiences in this area of MT4 could be a nice collection for a deeper understanding of Alerts and their usefulness in code.
I have seen some very clever and creative ways that members of this forum have found solutions to overcome some of the limitations of MQL / MT4 and I would like to stimulate some of these wonderful imaginations to help develop, share, find and test some coding standards that can be added to many of the common indicators and EAs that traders use. I use some basic audible alerts and these have have been great for me in my trading style but there is still a way to go in making it easier to work with alerts inside of indicators, EAs and scripts.
Instead of this becoming a thread where people are simply asking for alarms / alerts added to specific indicators by coders, I would find it useful to instead, make it an unfolding discussion to share what we presently understand about the following and ask questions to stimulate the collective mind for some solutions: (I also realize that creativity comes out of requests for coding and I don't want to leave that out of the equation)
-Examples or testimonies of code or indicators we presently have success with (functions like MessageBox, Alert, PlaySound, etc.) that consistently operate
-The code which presently needs improvement (like SendMail, SMS, etc.) and the limits for it's repetitive habits
-The miscellaneous applications we want it to work with (like Gmail or Yahoo, SMS, IM instant messaging, mobile phones, etc.) and why it can't
-The creative indicators, scripts and EA code which work great (like Chin Breakout Alert or Tesla's Alerter, etc.) and build on these concepts
-Some creative approaches regarding action when conditions are met (like alerts from a different timeframe which open and close partial positions, or pending trades placed upon confirmation of an alert by calling a script to open trades, etc.)
-Finding some ongoing testers, when some concepts in code are presented, for various conditions of the market to test and record accuracy of various alerts results and check performance of alerts so that improvement suggestions or alternate approaches can be made to submissions
I really don't necessarily want to be a moderator of this thread, but rather, I want to start a conversation that will bring about a much greater understanding of how we all can use extended capabilities of the current alerting mechanisms within the present form of MT4 and build a collection of our Alerting experiences and code. I will be happy to keep an eye on the posts to see that it doesn't become just numerous requests for programming benevolence, but the experienced Forum members seem to be able to regulate this. For this to become an open depository of our present successes and failures in utilizing alerts within this platform's analysis capabilities and trading is my goal.
I look forward to all the beeping and ringing and finding out how we can control them more and use them more effectively!!
pipsqueak4x
I have become more proficient as a trader by taking the time to understand some of the basic, necessary coding and programming components of MT4 (and I have a lot yet to learn) and this has allowed me to more fully understand exactly how indicators and trading methodologies work, within the parameters of this programming language. The unique displays on my computer screens of a particular style of trading to my individual liking has been a fantastic adventure and I offer thanks to so many contributors.
But, as this technical analysis ability has continued to evolve and improve for non-programmers like me, and although I can make my way through reading indicator or EA code, I have reached some limits of my understanding of MT4 / MQL and programming protocol within this program, especially regarding customizing various alerts. It seems as though MT4's ability to make various audible alerts that EASILY can be applied to certain conditions of my particular trading environments (the indicators I use, as inputs for using alternate .wav files conditionally, timeframes, candle / bar preferences, how often it alerts, repeat alerts, etc.) can definitely be improved. I think you all will agree with this point. The limits of the programming language MQL for specialized alerts has been left to the creative trader-programmers, and not the originators of this platform. I have a few indicators that I haven't been able to utilize to their fullest extent because the alerting capabilities aren't easily able to be added in an easy, unconflicting manner.
So, I would like to start a discussion thread that could possibly allow a group effort to look at this aspect of the evolving trading systems and methodologies and help develop more intelligent Alert / Alarm solutions (which the MT4 developers seem to give such small importance) for the present version of MT4. To make a small library of our experiences in this area of MT4 could be a nice collection for a deeper understanding of Alerts and their usefulness in code.
I have seen some very clever and creative ways that members of this forum have found solutions to overcome some of the limitations of MQL / MT4 and I would like to stimulate some of these wonderful imaginations to help develop, share, find and test some coding standards that can be added to many of the common indicators and EAs that traders use. I use some basic audible alerts and these have have been great for me in my trading style but there is still a way to go in making it easier to work with alerts inside of indicators, EAs and scripts.
Instead of this becoming a thread where people are simply asking for alarms / alerts added to specific indicators by coders, I would find it useful to instead, make it an unfolding discussion to share what we presently understand about the following and ask questions to stimulate the collective mind for some solutions: (I also realize that creativity comes out of requests for coding and I don't want to leave that out of the equation)
-Examples or testimonies of code or indicators we presently have success with (functions like MessageBox, Alert, PlaySound, etc.) that consistently operate
-The code which presently needs improvement (like SendMail, SMS, etc.) and the limits for it's repetitive habits
-The miscellaneous applications we want it to work with (like Gmail or Yahoo, SMS, IM instant messaging, mobile phones, etc.) and why it can't
-The creative indicators, scripts and EA code which work great (like Chin Breakout Alert or Tesla's Alerter, etc.) and build on these concepts
-Some creative approaches regarding action when conditions are met (like alerts from a different timeframe which open and close partial positions, or pending trades placed upon confirmation of an alert by calling a script to open trades, etc.)
-Finding some ongoing testers, when some concepts in code are presented, for various conditions of the market to test and record accuracy of various alerts results and check performance of alerts so that improvement suggestions or alternate approaches can be made to submissions
I really don't necessarily want to be a moderator of this thread, but rather, I want to start a conversation that will bring about a much greater understanding of how we all can use extended capabilities of the current alerting mechanisms within the present form of MT4 and build a collection of our Alerting experiences and code. I will be happy to keep an eye on the posts to see that it doesn't become just numerous requests for programming benevolence, but the experienced Forum members seem to be able to regulate this. For this to become an open depository of our present successes and failures in utilizing alerts within this platform's analysis capabilities and trading is my goal.
I look forward to all the beeping and ringing and finding out how we can control them more and use them more effectively!!
pipsqueak4x