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object_text help a beginner

  • #1
  • First Post: Dec 14, 2017 12:06am Dec 14, 2017 12:06am
Would someone very kindly throw some light on this.
The following puts the text "Opn:" on the screen at the current bar in MT4

But what I need is for the text to be on the 9am Bar every Day.

I can't find what to do in place of CurrentTime to achieve it.
Or perhaps there is a better method.
Thanks in advance for any help.

datetime CurrentTime;
{
ObjectCreate ("AtOpen",OBJ_TEXT,0,0,0);
ObjectMove( "AtOpen", 0, CurrentTime, High[1] );
ObjectSetText ("AtOpen", "Opn:",10,"Calibri",clrWhite);
}
  • #2
  • Dec 14, 2017 5:41am Dec 14, 2017 5:41am
Quoting teabreak
Would someone very kindly throw some light on this. The following puts the text "Opn:" on the screen at the current bar in MT4 But what I need is for the text to be on the 9am Bar every Day. I can't find what to do in place of CurrentTime to achieve it. Or perhaps there is a better method. Thanks in advance for any help. datetime CurrentTime; { ObjectCreate ("AtOpen",OBJ_TEXT,0,0,0); ObjectMove( "AtOpen", 0, CurrentTime, High[1] ); ObjectSetText ("AtOpen", "Opn:",10,"Calibri",clrWhite); }
Each chart object must have a unique name. Here is an example script you can run in the debugger to step through what's going on. Note: I'm using the std library class CChartObjectText to make it easier..

Inserted Code
#property strict
#include <ChartObjects\ChartObjectsTxtControls.mqh>
void OnStart()
{
   int object_count=0;
   for(int i=Bars-1;i>=0;i--)
   {
      if(TimeHour(Time[i])==9 && TimeMinute(Time[i])==0)
      {
         string object_name = "__objectname__"+string(++object_count);
         CChartObjectText text;
         if(text.Create(0,object_name,0,Time[i],High[i]+10*_Point))
         {
            text.Anchor(ANCHOR_LEFT);
            text.Angle(90);
            text.Description("<----- OPEN -----<<");
            text.Color(clrDarkOrange);
            text.Font("Consolas");
            text.FontSize(9);
            text.Detach();
         }
      }
   }
}
  • #3
  • Dec 14, 2017 6:34am Dec 14, 2017 6:34am
Thank you very much Nicholishen. I'll work through the script as you suggest.
Your help is very much appreciated indeed.
  • #4
  • Dec 18, 2017 7:11pm Dec 18, 2017 7:11pm
Quoting teabreak
Thank you very much Nicholishen. I'll work through the script as you suggest. Your help is very much appreciated indeed.
Hi teabreak, have you made progress? Learning to code is worth the effort.

Nicholishen, thanks a lot for the OOP examples here and elsewhere (Keep them coming!). I've been diving into it a bit and learning a few helpful things.

Questions for teabreak to consider:
Q: Do you only want 1 marker on the chart, for the latest matching bar? Or multiple markers, as Nicholishen's does?
(Nicholishen's example does the later, your attempt is the former, because you used just one object name, "AtOpen_Text").
Q: What timeframe of charts? <=H1, or, would you want an H4 bar to display the arrow? (The one that includes the 9AM time).
(It's best to calculate the starting time for the bar that includes the MarkAtTime. Then it works on all TF charts from M1 to H4 for this Daily marker).

Q: WHEN would you want to display it? Always at 9AM each day? Or at the bar start time that includes the 9AM time? (I assume the former is best).
Q: When the most recent 9AM bar occurs, you initially display it at the price of the previous bar High[1]. Isn't it better to adjust it if current High[0] exceeds High[1]? (Else it will be on top of the 9AM bar).

And, a suggestion: Whatever you decide, the best code should do whatever it does just ONCE, and not repeat the same thing over and over. (This requirement makes code more tricky to write but is worth it). Nicholishen's quick example runs every tick and every bar, so it's inefficient (but he absolutely knows that, so I'm not criticizing!). In his code, the "Bars-1" starting point for the "for" loop could instead be a "limit" that is:

extern int MaxBars=0; //0=unlimited

int limit = MathMin(Bars, Bars-prev_calculated); // Where prev_calculated is in the newest coding style using OnCalculate() { ... return(prev_calculated); }
if(limit==Bars) limit--; // Prevent array out-of-range
if(MaxBars>0) limit=MathMin(limit,MaxBars);
//for(int i=limit; i>=0; i--) { ... }

First time through, limit=Bars-1 (or, is MaxBars). After that, it's usually 0 until a new bar comes in, then it's "1" for just one tick. Note, it can be tricky to deal with just i==1 or i==0. Sometimes I write a unique block of code just for i==0, just to handle the context of a newbar vs. repeating the same current bar over-and-over.

(Regarding "limit", I just discovered a bug in one of my own CPU intensive programs where I thought it was using limit (mostly 1 or 0) but I was accidentally resetting it to Bars-1 every tick, and it was incredibly slow because of it, and overloaded my CPU with a bunch of wasted calculations. Fixed it!).

ROTATED TEXT DISPLAY MT4 BUG:

Regardless of OOP or regular C-style code, Fyi, one problem you may have discovered is that an OBJ_TEXT object at 90-degrees has a problem due to a bug with MetaTrader4 (b1090). I observed this when price was climbing higher, so the text would mark at the very top of the chart.

The 90-degree rotated text disappears entirely if any portion of the text is off-screen above or below! Instead, change it to 270 degrees and it mostly works fine. This vertical text may disappear when overlapping the left/right edges of the chart, but that is hopefully rare to do, so long as you use "Chart Shift" (This creates some empty space to the right of the latest bar; I prefer it anyway).

The bug is trivial to reproduce: Manually draw any text with a reasonably long Description. In the Parameters tab for the object properties, change "Angle in degrees" to "90.0". Just drag the text up or down until any portion touches the upper or lower boundaries, and the text will entirely disappear.

Make it 270 and it works much better for top/bottom.
Make it 115 and it disappears for all four edges!
Make it 315 and it works for all four edges.

I reported the bug to MetaQuotes. We'll see how long it takes them to fix it.

Because of this, it's a good idea to create (also) an Arrow along with the Text at 270. Arrows just above price should always be visible, even when price makes a new high. That way if the text disappears due to some overlap with an edge, you'll still have a mark on the chart.
  • #5
  • Dec 19, 2017 2:08am Dec 19, 2017 2:08am
Hey pips4life

First of all, many thanks for taking the time to respond. It's very generous of you to help a beginner.

Rather than learn code throughout, my approach up to here has been to get enough understanding of it just to carry out my trading ideas.
Those ideas for me are limited so in theory, learning a few specific basic procedures should be enough.
In short I've generally considered code not to be the thing itself, but the thing that gets you to the thing, as the saying goes. Eventually hoping to learn MQL more thoroughly by that route.

For that reason I found your post extremely helpful and the Q's you raised most pertinent, and in continuing to fit code to my trading, rather than learn code to carry out any kind of trading, if you see what I mean....
A: I do want to fit just one text marker to the chart at 9 and at 1700.
A: In one time frame only.
A: At the close of the 9 and 1700 Bars.
A: A very good point! Thank you. I really need the text to be at the 9 and 1700 bars' Highs when they close.

I completely agree, I want these two text events to occur only once. At the moment I am doing everything under void OnTick() function so my instinctive response to that would be to use one variable to control the days session so all events can only run between 9 to 1700, and another variable to control the text events, so that each variable is incremented 0 to 1 when their respective events first occur, being reset to 0 at 1700 ready for the next day.
Further to that, I'm now working through your for loop example which suggests a much more comprehensive solution.

Fortunately I do not wish to rotate any of the text but many thanks for the heads up. I don't find MQL to be the easiest compiler/IDE to work with so nothing more daunting than a system bug.

I very much agree with you, learning code is so worth it. The help yourself and Nicholishen give is invaluable to people starting out like myself and I guess it can also help the more experienced check some basics at the same time. The F1 button is fine but doesn't take long for a novice to get bogged down with the tech talk in there.

Again thank you both very much indeed for the help.
  • #6
  • Edited 4:39pm Dec 19, 2017 2:14pm | Edited 4:39pm
Quoting pips4life
{quote} Nicholishen, thanks a lot for the OOP examples here and elsewhere (Keep them coming!)
Well, since you asked here's a test for a project I'm working on to create chart profiles out of chart studies/objects that saves/loads all states to files instead of hacking the templates. This example features some more advanced design patterns and is a good example of inheritance, polymorphism, and managing circular dependencies. The best way to dive in is set a break-point at OnInit and step into/through it...
Attached File(s)
File Type: rar aaButtonManager.rar   69 KB | 384 downloads
  • #7
  • Dec 19, 2017 5:07pm Dec 19, 2017 5:07pm
Quoting teabreak
Hey pips4life First of all, many thanks for taking the time to respond. It's very generous of you to help a beginner. Rather than learn code throughout, my approach up to here has been to get enough understanding of it just to carry out my trading ideas. Those ideas for me are limited so in theory, learning a few specific basic procedures should be enough. In short I've generally considered code not to be the thing itself, but the thing that gets you to the thing, as the saying goes. Eventually hoping to learn MQL more thoroughly by that route....
This should do the trick.
Attached File(s)
File Type: mq4 TextAtHours.mq4   3 KB | 387 downloads
  • #8
  • Dec 20, 2017 2:52am Dec 20, 2017 2:52am
wow thank you for your code Nicholishen. Such a great help.
Reckon I should be able to figure out why/how the processes and functions work, but not able to find description for the role that the < and the > play in your line #include <ChartObjects\ChartObjectsTxtControls.mqh>
Please would you explain.
  • #9
  • Dec 20, 2017 5:20am Dec 20, 2017 5:20am
Quoting teabreak
wow thank you for your code Nicholishen. Such a great help. Reckon I should be able to figure out why/how the processes and functions work, but not able to find description for the role that the < and the > play in your line #include <ChartObjects\ChartObjectsTxtControls.mqh> Please would you explain.
Think of the include directive as a copy and paste mechanism. It literally tells the compiler to go grab this file and paste its contents at this exact place. If the include uses angle brackets then it is accessing files from an absolute path (include directory), and with MQL that'll always be the MQL\Include folder. So if you wanted to see the code you would go to the include folder and open the subfolder and file to peek the definitions. You can also include files using quotation marks which tells the compiler to locate the file in the relative path.

http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/preprocessor/include
  • #10
  • Dec 20, 2017 6:06am Dec 20, 2017 6:06am
I forgot to add that the easiest way to learn from other peoples' code is to use the built in debugger. https://www.metatrader5.com/en/metae...elopment/debug

What you want to do is set a break-point at OnInit, for example, and use the step-into button and follow the program all the way through. If the program uses any library files the debugger will automatically open up those files and take you to the line of code that's being executed.
Inserted Video
  • #11
  • Dec 20, 2017 6:31am Dec 20, 2017 6:31am
Quoting Nicholishen
{quote} Think of the include directive as a copy and paste mechanism. It literally tells the compiler to go grab this file and paste its contents at this exact place. If the include uses angle brackets then it is accessing files from an absolute path (include directory), and with MQL that'll always be the MQL\Include folder. So if you wanted to see the code you would go to the include folder and open the subfolder and file to peek the definitions. You can also include files using quotation marks which tells the compiler to locate the file in the...
Got it and thank you.
I guess "I'll Be Back" is probably going to happen at some point
  • #12
  • Last Post: Dec 31, 2017 5:02am Dec 31, 2017 5:02am
Hi again
Pleased to say made some progress since my last visit.
I've managed to open trades successfully in MQL at given points, (I know big woo) but for some reason I can't close any .
I'm in MT4 Strategy Tester, running it through to where the trade should close.
The Text Objext "Cls" appears as it should but the one open order isn't closed.
All under void OnTick()
There are 0 errors 0 warnings.
I am not getting any Alert windows popping up but assume that's because everything is in test mode.

I put a Comment in the loop to see if the code was running to it ok . To me it seems to confirm everything should work, with there being one short trade open ready to be closed, but the bool reslt variable returns 0.

The Comment shows on screen:
String = Short
Reslt = 0
Open Orders = 1

Please would you help.

Inserted Code
      for(int i=OrdersTotal(); i>=0;i--) //all open orders
      {    
         if (OrderSelect(i,SELECT_BY_POS)== true)
         if (OrderSymbol() ==Symbol())
        {
         bool reslt;
         if (str =="Long") {reslt= OrderClose(OrderTicket(), OrderLots(), MarketInfo(OrderSymbol(),Bid),3, clrMagenta);}
         if (str =="Short"){reslt= OrderClose(OrderTicket(), OrderLots(), MarketInfo(OrderSymbol(),Ask),3, clrMagenta);}
            if (reslt == false)
             {Alert("Error Closing Order(s)");}      
            else
             { Alert("Orders Closed Successfully");}
Comment("String = ",str+ "\n", "Reslt = ",reslt + "\n","Open Orders = ",OrdersTotal() );                      
         }          
       }            
   ObjectCreate  ("AtClose",OBJ_TEXT,0,CurrentTime, High[0]+0.0004);
   ObjectSetText ("AtClose", "Cls:",10,"Calibri",clrMagenta);                      
 }
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