MT4 navigational tips and techniques

Is there an indicator which would pick pairs which have strong volatility + low spreads on a daily basis.
It a big ask I guess. Btk

This indi will help you to choose good pairs for trading. Learn how to use it.

Display Info All Pairs

Thanks Botan626

A user started another thread asking: How do I restore my MT4 layout?

(I disagree. There are times it works. See below).

(Good advice).


I have a lot of experience with this, and my advice could be useful to more than just that user. Hence I'll post it here, since this is a great thread with lots of useful charting tips:


Actually, killing MT4 with the Task Manager (Cntl-Alt-DEL, start the Task Manager, find the right MetaTrader process, select it, then End Task)... is a useful technique!

I do it, on rare occasion, when I have messed up my charts and I want to restore back to what the current Profile was when I started that MT4 session (or to the last time I saved the Profile).

How and why does this work? MT4 does not auto-save your current profile changes during a live session. It saves them, however, when you quit MT4 normally; Or, it saves the current one when you switch to another profile; Or, if you "Save Profile" and overwrite the same name as the current one you're using.

Suppose I'm developing an indicator. I've added it to my chart. By mistake, I might have, or will create, an infinite loop in my code. It's stuck, and the waiting-hourglass tells me that MT4 is hung. I've no choice but to kill the session. FORTUNATELY, MT4 has *not* auto-saved my profile as it was when it froze, because if it did, I'd never be able to restart MT4! A restart would just resume the infinite loop! Instead, it reverts back to the profile the way it was last time I started MT4.

Or another scenario... suppose I have MT4 open and all is well. I make some changes to an MT4 indicator that I use on a lot of my charts. Maybe I don't notice, but I make a code error or typo in MetaEditor in the open indicator code. It fails to compile, either right then, OR, it will fail when it auto-compiles the next MT4 restart. But at this moment, it hasn't affected my live charts YET. They still have the last working/compiled indicator running fine.

Ok, so I quit MT4 and restart it later. HEY! Where's my indicator that belongs on all my charts??! It's gone! (Because it can't compile properly, duh). To fix it... I open up MetaEditor, fix my mistake, and recompile my code. BUT, it is NOT yet restored on my open charts! Why? Well upon startup, the code was bad so MT4 dropped it from my open charts. If I normally quit MT4, well, too bad and too late. I just auto-saved my profile the way it *is*, which is without my indicator. But if I notice the problem before I quit, then I will use "End Task" to abruptly kill the MetaTrader process. I restart MT4. Voila! My (now fixed) indicator is back on my charts, and all is normal.

See? It can be really useful to abruptly/deliberately "kill" the MT4 session to restore things as they were.


Regarding your specific example, it's hard to know for sure what happened.

When you accidentally ran two (of the very same) MT4's twice, that was strange in itself. Not supposed to happen, but it did.

Second, when you saw a very old layout of charts (which would be an old profile), that was also strange. I would speculate that the first process locked up the profile files, so when the 2nd one started up, it used another alternative profile. (Same name?? Same location?? Who knows).

If it were me, I would "End Task" on one-or-both-running MT4's and see how it starts up again.

If you have already normally quit MT4, you might have lost the Profile as it used to be. Or maybe, you could explore what Profiles are saved in your MT4.

It's possible for profiles to be stored in different places, so explore:

In MT4, Files->Open Data Folder and "profiles" folder is there, parallel to "MQL4"

Example:
C:\Users\...userName...\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Terminal\BB190E062770E27C3E79391AB0D1A117\profiles\
(The "BB190E062770E27C3E79391AB0D1A117" is unique to your MT4. If it screwed up and changed this pointer to another/older one, there's a chance your desired profile is still preserved somewhere nearby).

OR: C:\... wherever you installed MT4, usually Program Files (x86) ..\MT4 MyBroker\profiles\

This 2nd location is the one that gets used when you run the terminal.exe along with the /portable option.
My Shortcut has the Target set as: (with quotes)
"C:\Users\...userName...\MT4 MyBroker\terminal.exe" /portable

And notice that "MT4 MyBroker" is not installed in the usual "C:\Program Files (x86)" but under "C:\Users\...userName..." because it works well for me with respect to Administrator privileges, and I like the simplicity of the "normal" path to MQL4\ rather than the stupidly named one that Windows creates.

Final comment: Once you quit MT4 and it auto-saves your Profile, I don't know of any way to revert back. Therefore, it's a good idea to Save Profile to some backup space that you don't use regularly. Worst case, you can retrieve some chart(s) you lost. When you do, but if you want to "merge" Profiles, the only way I know is to save each chart as a Template, then go back to your main Profile and open a new chart and Load the Template(s) to recreate the chart(s).


Good luck.

Tip from another thread:
That's a good tip, and easier than finding the upper-left profile icon for the same menu.

For professionals who really want to simplify such keystrokes down to a single keystroke, buy one of the Logitech (or other brand?) programmable keyboard devices, and you can create a sequence of keystrokes to match and do almost anything in MT4, with few exceptions.

Using the Logitech Gamepad G13 as a supplement device, you have ~25 easy buttons to program (TIMES 3 sets you can switch between, so ~75!).
They have regular keyboards too, with a variable number of such keys on the far left, which are easier to access than a separate G13.
Finally, there are programmable mice (e.g. from Costco). I program a side-button to be "Middle-Mouse", which makes it trivial to do chart measurements.

I use all three, and only Logitech brand so far, but others might work similarly.


To achieve 1-key save of your Profile
1. Start by creating the Profile name first, let's say "Active"
2. Then you program a key with exactly these keystrokes (without the spaces):

Alt f DownArrow DownArrow DownArrow RightArrow a A c t i v e Return Return (This last Return is to Overwrite, therefore "Active" must already exist)

Try it now by hand. You can easily follow step-by-step exactly how these work.

The trick is to notice when you push Alt, that some single letters are underlined (starting with "F" for the File menu), so if you type that letter, it does that command. But if no letter, use the arrow keys (sometimes Tab and/or Shift) to move around the menu or form.

It follows that you can program almost anything else similarly, including a key to save your chart to a template, named say "000", then another key to load "000".

That gives you trivial keystrokes to backup your chart, make some changes, and then restore it as it was.

Or, you can open another identical chart (typically of the same symbol when you have objects on the chart at specific times/prices).

Obviously there are the usual built-in MT4 keystrokes. (See post#1 for a partial list).

P.S. David (hanover), I think post#1 could mention use of programmable keyboard devices. Plus it could mention 3 more built-ins, plus a correction:

Ctrl+Tab — switch to the previous chart window;
Ctrl+Shift+Tab— switch to the next chart window;
Ctrl+F6 — (instead of Tab) switch to the previous chart window; (corrected to say "previous" instead of "next")
Ctrl+Shift+F6 — (instead of Tab) switch to the next chart window;

P.S.S. This idea to use Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab, in combination with a programmable wheel mouse, was discussed back in 2008 in post#14!

Some time ago I was thinking of buying a gaming keyboard for the same reason.
Then I discovered Autohotkey, which allows you to remap virtually any key/mouse combo. Here is an example of a simple AHK macro:
This causes Ctrl-J to playback Ctrl-6 Alt-L, then wait for 100 msec, playback b, wait 100 msec, playback downarrow twice, then enter, tab 3 times, and enter.
(It loads a MT4 script (it has been set to hotkey Ctrl-6) that I use for placing fibo-based orders. Saves time and improves accuracy, which is especially good for doing things like scalping news events.)

Thanks, great tip. I'll try it out. The 100 msec sleep is sometimes critical for the Logitech macros as well.

But I still love my programmable keys too, and you would make great use of them I'm sure. You should buy one of their keyboards, and/or the G13 if you have desk space. (The programmable "G#" Keys on keyboards are best for ergonomics).

+1

Autohotkey is perfect. I enjoy it since few years!

Initially I downloaded Autohotkey for the purpose of developing some keyboard macros. Then, as I dug deeper, I found that it was actually a language that allowed development of simple applications, and I used it to rewrite my news downloader (here), and a library of language extension functions, much the same as I did for the old MQL4. Alas, the news downloader code (even after being compiled) runs slowly and inefficiently, which has persuaded me to return to using Clarion. If I ever get back into serious coding I'll probably teach myself either Python or JavaScript.

If anybody is nonetheless interested in developing using AHK, you can download Scite4Autohotkey (editor/debugger/IDE) here, and the AHK2EXE compiler here.

hey guys, is it possible to open a new chart that is a copy of an open chart? like in windows, when you have a file directory window open, you just do cntl-N and get a second identical window open.

thanks in advance!

Save the current chart as default template. Any new window will open with that template.

thanks cryptosurf. i know about that. i was wondering if there was another way that would not involve using your template. thanks for your help though!

I was trying to buy an indicator using the market tab on my terminal and whatever I did I seem to have lost the toolbar at bottom of terminal where Trade, Exposure, account history etc are displayed. I can't see them anymore. Will someone explain how to get it back please. Btk

Ctrl+T

Hi Guys

How Can I change zoom level of multiple chart windows open simultaneously pls. ?

Thanks

Hello.

Is there any was to plot vertical lines as background objects, but still with labels (date + time) in the bottom of terminal?

Yes, you can plot vertical lines only in a subchart if desired.

In MT4 Editor

identify the sub chart ID number when you create a vertical line object

bool ObjectCreate(
long chart_id, // chart ID
string object_name, // object name
ENUM_OBJECT object_type, // object type <== this will be OBJ_VLINE
int sub_window, // window index
datetime time1, // time of the first anchor point
double price1, // price of the first anchor point
...
datetime timeN=0, // time of the N-th anchor point
double priceN=0 // price of the N-th anchor point
);

Are you talking about "subchart" as subwindow?

If yes, I don't need to plot vert. lines in subwindows only.

And this.