Load MT4 price history application

'Load MT4 price history' application

One of the issues I had setting up the Recent Strength indicator was the fact that it took several minutes for the indy to download the historical data (28 pairs x 9 timeframes = 252 different charts) from the br0ker's server, which is needed for it to calculate and plot the lines. Admittedly it was only a one-time setup requirement, but nonetheless a nuisance. The attached app, which is a compiled autohotkey script, automates this process by playing back the keystrokes needed to perform a 'brute force' download of the history data, eliminating the need to type them manually. It still takes several minutes, but at least you can get out for a quick round of golf (30 minutes for 18 holes?......) while your computer does the job. This app might also be useful for any indicator(s) that likewise need historical data to be pre-loaded.

You can install the .exe file in the attached zip anywhere (your desktop is fine). Run it, then type in the symbol IDs you want to process, separated by commas. If your br0ker uses a suffix, typing it (e.g. m) into Symbol suffix field is a lot quicker than having to type the same suffix after each symbol ID (EURUSDm, GBPUSDm, USDJPYm, etc). The delay fields allow the computer some time to catch up if the keystrokes are getting played back too quickly. Hence you may want to run the process for just a couple of symbols to begin with, as a test.

Click the OK button to begin, and the "Now go to MT4, open a blank chart, and then press Ctrl-J" message appears. Go to the MT4 window and open a new blank chart (too many indicators will slow the process down, as the macro loads each chart). Click anywhere in the body of the chart, and then hold down the Ctrl key and press J. Don't move the computer away from the MT4 window while the process is running, or the keystrokes will be played back into the wrong window, causing unpredictable results. Instead, go out and treat yourself to that round of golf. If you use the default settings, then allow around 30-40 minutes for the process to complete; but if you choose less symbols and/or timeframes, then it will take proportionally less time. When the job is finished, the "Click OK to end" message box appears.

The .ahk file in the zip is the source code (no need to install it), just in case any programmers are interested.

As always, download and use at your own risk.

David

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Hi Al, many thanks for all of your hard work, I hope that people find the script useful. Best wishes, David

Upgraded the app attached to post #1, so that it now works correctly on my PC (Windows 7 Home Premium SP1; Pepperstone MT4 build 1090)........ just in case anybody finds it useful.

Working on Windows 7 Professional ; GCI MT4 build 1090

Great work hanover.

Thank you.

Hi David,
Good job as always. I have a load of your indicators and scripts and I love many of them.
Thanks.

I am yet to download this script but an idea crossed my mind that might help reduce time consumption per user:
*** The ability to choose which timeframes to load history data on will be more user friendly and need specific while reducing the time needed for the process to complete since one may not need history data on more than one or two timeframes.

Thanks very much.
Topsy

PS: Can send you a PM or is there a place I can make a request to you.

Many thanks for the feedback.
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Thanks for the idea. I've attached the updated app to post #1.

See the second section in this post, but please read the 3 numbered points.

{quote} Thanks for the idea. I've attached the updated app to post #1. {quote} See the second section in this post, but please read the 3 numbered points.[/quote]

AHhh Great!!
Thumbs Up and thanks for the link going there now.
Best Regards

GOLD , Thank you Hanover, not just for this but for all your contributions, all the best, GW

Thank you very much sir.

Hey, David!

Great tool, but the message was cut short:

Thanks for letting me know, but I'm afraid I can't reproduce the problem on my computer (see screenshot).

Why do we have different app icons?

Oops, sorry I ran the uncompiled version. But the compiled version also works correctly on my computer:

Maybe I could run some tests or check something on my computer? I don't know.

Hi David (hanover),

The font size/scaling between the two pictures is obviously different. I ran into this issue on an MT4 indicator (made by somebody else) just the other day, and I see the same thing for this auto-hotkey .exe

The cause is: In my Windows Display Settings, in the "Scale and layout" section (Win10), I use 125% for the "size of text, apps, and other items". Most people leave it at 100%, but I use 48" 4K monitors at 3840 x 2160, which is a lot of pixels, and 125% is easier on my eyes.

In MT4, and in Windows, the 125% scaling is not necessarily uniform, since text grows larger, but the form may not.

If this were an MT4 program, one can detect the DPI (see TERMINAL_SCREEN_DPI), and adjust accordingly, but this is a compiled auto-hotkey script.

The solution might be to somehow detect the "125%" (or other non-100% choice), but far easier is to either make the field bigger, or reword the form title and sentence.

In the .ahk source file, I see the line:
SplashTextOn, 400, 30, Load MT4 price history, Now go to MT4, open a blank chart, and then press Ctrl-J

The "400" is obviously the text field length, so it could of course be larger, but other parts of the form might need to change too?? I didn't try it.

The popup title is just "Load MT4 price history" which is short, and could contain more info. The instructions could just be shorter...

I suggest:
SplashTextOn, 400, 30, To Load MT4 price history in MT4..., Open a blank chart, press Ctrl-J. Wait until done

I loaded Auto-Hotkey, but haven't used my installation until now. When I double-click on the "Load MT4 price history.ahk" (your source) file, it complains:
Error at line 103. (I see this is the last line of the script)
#include file "Extensible Functions.ahk" cannot be opened.
The program will exit.


I commented that line out, after which all seems to work fine, so I assume this script doesn't need any of your custom functions?? (Please confirm).

Regardless, if you have some useful Auto-Hotkey functions, are you willing to share?

Thanks for this script. I was thinking about the topic anyway, and this is good.

(Is there any way to auto-trigger these multi-TF-data-downloads using just MT4 commands from an Indy or Script? I know there would be a delay one would have to account for, but it would still be useful).

P.S. If you change the "125%" (or 100%) setting, you *must* log out of windows (or reboot), before you will see the full effect of changing the scale. If you don't, then some things may scale but not the same as it will be after a reboot.

P4L,

Many thanks for your amazingly comprehensive reply. I feel bad that you went to this much trouble because I didn't really consider this 'cosmetic' problem to be all that important, especially as this app is not that essential. Some years ago I'd happily spend a lot of time trying to help others, and making the indicators etc that I shared on FF as multi-functional, user-friendly and bulletproof as possible. Nowadays however my circumstances have changed somewhat, and due to health and business issues and other constraints, I don't have so much spare time. (It's also fair to say that I lost some enthusiasm for MQL4 after build 600 was released). So while I'm happy to occasionally share trading related software that I've written for my own use, I'm less inclined to customize indicators to other members' requirements, or troubleshoot their problems. As a fellow programmer, I know that you fully understand the time and effort that's demanded by development projects; and of course neither of us get any tangible reward for our efforts here.

(Incidentally I've been using https://www.speechtexter.com/ as an add-on to Google Chrome, to write a lot of my recent posts. It recognizes maybe 80-90% of my speech (despite the kiwi accent, LOL) and allows me to write verbose posts more quickly....... but please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors).

The obvious solution to the message text being truncated would be to increase the width of the message window from 400 to something like 600, or to shorten the text just like you suggested.

You're correct that the "400, 30" represents the width and height of the message box (see screenshot of relevant autohotkey help text below), and also that the script doesn't call any of the functions in 'Extensible Functions.ahk'. If you want the functions library, it's available here. Autohotkey allows some quite nifty constructions that are not available in languages like MQL4.

I vaguely recall seeing a MQL4 script somewhere on Steve Hopwood's forum that forced the loading of historical prices, but it was a long time ago and unfortunately I didn't bookmark the page; and I doubt that I could find it easily again now. I didn't download or test the script.

Thanks again for your reply and also for everything that you do here.

David
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I've widened the message box from 400 to 600 pixels, and attached the new version to post #1. Please feel welcome to try it if you wish.

David,

Thanks very much for this great tool. I have recently been looking for MT4 scripts/indicators that load historical data and thankfully came across your AutoHotkeys script. I tried quite a number of others written in Mq4 and/or making kernel calls, and fiddled around with them QUITE a bit, but none that I found came close to yours!

Tried out the AHK executable you provided and it worked perfectly. The only thing that I thought would be a nice addition would be to control the amount of historical data that is gathered. And since you provide the script source, even though I hadn't used AHK before, your code was so clear that it was straightforward to add this feature.

So please find attached an updated version (2) that includes a parameter box to allow adjusting the number of page up keys strokes. I increased your value from 20 to a default value of 50. I also changed the delay between TF and symbol changes to speed things up which cut the execution time by about 15 minutes on my setup.

Still would like to one day be able to dynamically load more historical data when needed, using native mql code, but in the mean time this works great for quickly and painlessly setting up the environment.

If you do happen to come back some time and read this,

GREAT STUFF and THANKS AGAIN !

Al

Hi again,

It was kindly pointed out that Version 2 has a bug that I hadn't noticed, which caused it to skip the first symbol in the list.
Please find an updated version (3) that resolves that issue.

Al

Hi,

I noticed that the script didn't load a consistent amount of historical data.
Checking into this the PgUp key was sent off repeatedly with minimal inter-key delay, so seems that the amount of data loaded depends on the servers key handling responsiveness, and generally wasn't even close to the pages parameter.

To remove this dependency and make more consistent, I added a parameter and code to allow the inter page delay to be configurable (with reasonable defaults).
Seems to work better now...



Cheers,
Al

Hi Albry,
Thanks for your new version of the script. It's performing FINE! You are the only one who cares about this thread and keeps contributing, like if it was about your own thread.

Cheers,
Eugene

Thanks David and Albry