FFcal - Plot News indicator

Of course this is quite possible.

Perhaps I should point out - as a general comment - that I don't regard this as "my" thread, and it goes without saying that anybody is welcome to post here, about anything that they wish. I apologize if I've created the wrong impression. In this case, I was simply trying to be helpful: I thought it likely that the query might receive more "mainstream" attention if it was posted in a less out-of-the-way location (presumably only folk who are interested in the Plot_News indicator are subscribed to this thread?)

The idea of having EAs avoid news announcements has also been discussed in other threads.

David

hanover, thank you for this nice creation of yours. I've been using it daily to keep up with the news. it has been working greatly until today. I don't know what I did, but one minute it was working properly, the next it refused to work any more, and kept giving me the same error message - "Create(E:\Forex\Alpari UK\Experts\files) - Access Denied".

I've tried everything I know to fix it, including deleting the plotnews folder, downloading all the required files and then installed it again, disabling my firewall, closing all other applications, changing attributes of the relevant folder, none worked.

I've attached a screen shot of the above mentioned error message, please shed some light on this situation.

best regards.

I have the 'same' issue

I have been playing with this a little bit.

I have a shortcut from my desktop pointing to my ffcal.exe. When using that earlier, it had changed the pathname of output to the path that is visible in my previous post. I didn't notice that and hit ok, and got my error message. I have no idea where that path came from, as such a path does not exist on my PC.

I have deleted the shortcut, created a new one, and everything is working perfectly again.

I've just installed this indicator on another computer, and the same error message popped up right away. this problem seems to be system-independent.

gifog, we do not have the same issue. I'm glad yours is no more. but mine has been a lot more persistent.

I had noticed that yours said "access denied" and mine "path not found", hence I wrote the word same in single quotes, as I wasn't sure that it actually was the same problem. Just odd that we both had a similar problem in the same timeframe, but I am sure hanover will resolve your issue asap.

If you want me to produce you a news.csv for the coming week and mail it to you (a temporary solution until hanover has resolved the matter), just PM me. Happy to help

I am still working on a solution how to get the latest news into an EA, without putting the ff website into overload. Even if I got the former right, if many of us were to run that EA at the same time, that alone would always place serious load onto the website. Hmmm.....

ok, I've "fixed" this problem. it is caused by not specifying the file name - ...\"news.csv". this is embarrassing and caused me more than a few hour's frustration. I've got to pay more attention to details next time. sorry for this false alarm.
.

I appolgize up front for needing to ask for assistance as you all have been very helpful to so many other people but I hope your paitience can withstand one more "Metatrader Challenged" soul!

I just discoved this thread today and have spent about 2 hours reading through the posts (very exciting) but I cannot get the indicator to show up on my chart.

Here is what I have done so far:

 

1. Created a folder on my desktop
2. Downloaded the zip files from post #63 and unzipped files
3. Copied the .ex4 and .mq4 files into my metatrader/experts/indicators folder (4 files)
4. Downloaded the zip files fro post #102 and unzipped the files and replaced existing
5. Downloaded the files from post #138 and unzipped and replaced existing
6. Double clicked on ffcal.EXE to open
7. Hit F5
8. Set ff calendar start date to todays date
9. Set output pathname to metatrader/experts/files/new.csv
10. Set radio button for descpt line = currency
11. Hit ok(enter)
12. The program executed and the file showed up in the experts/files folder (yea!)
13. I remembered to go back and copy the new .ex4 and .mq4 files into my indicators folder repacing the existing
14. The Plot news and sessions indicators are listed in navigator window under custom indicators (yea!)
15. Double clicked on the sessions indicator - indicator appears on chart
16. Double clicked on the plot news indicator - Nothing appears on the chart. The indicator is listed for the chart when I right click and check the indicator list - but no markings appear

Any ideas where I went wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

PS - I am looking at the H1 chart EUR/USD chart, does that make a difference?

if this is not a typo, then you need to change the last part of that line to news.csv.

...Set output pathname to metatrader/experts/files/new.csv (news.csv)

Thanks Blue Fox, I double checked my file and it is correct (just a typo in message) so that is not the problem. I appreciate your assistance.

plot news indicator is simply AWESOME and very helpful. thanks very much to hanover and others. i just thought to share with you a bit of modification i made. i modified the 'wingdings' font and instead of showing 1 for US, it simply says 'US' in the charts, etc.. pls see attached screen shots and i've attached the modified wingdings. i hope this will be of use to others because i find it useful. :-)

IF YOU ARE TO TRY THIS MODIFIED WINGDING FONT, PLEASE BACKUP THE ORIGINAL WINGDING FIRST. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I am trying to load this as well and getting the same error message..

Any ideas or was there a fix to this?

Hi all

I'm very sorry that I've somehow missed the latest posts in this thread. There are so many posts and posters in this forum now, and - due to a problem with my e-mail - I no longer subscribe to threads.

Gifog, bluefox - if I understand correctly, it seems that you have solved your respective problems. It is imperative that:
(1) the path and file names exist exactly as they are typed (including punctuation symbols, correct number of spaces, etc) - else you will get the "path not found" error
and
(2) that your system is geared so that you have administrator rights and/or access rights to the file. Incidentally, I have been told that Windows Vista is particularly finicky about access rights.

The pathname ...clarion5\apps\bds\forex... is the path where the app was originally developed. I have no idea why it was looking for this on your PC. My version of Clarion is very old (and I don't do enough paid development work to justify the $4,000 upgrade fee) and tends to work more reliably on the old Win 98 systems where filenames are restricted to 8 characters.

Monzulu - nice idea, thanks for sharing.

Loujill - check the filename in point #9, should be news.csv, not new.csv

If that doesn't fix the problem, try the following

1. Run ffcal.EXE and press F9. Are the news events for the week you downloaded (when you pressed F5 in step #7 of your post) showing in the scrolling table? If so, they have been downloaded correctly.

2. Load the ...\experts\files\news.csv file into a text editor (e.g. Notepad, Word, or Excel). Are these news events showing here? If so, then the News.csv file is being built correctly.

3. Check your parameter settings for the Plot_News indicator. The default looks for a file named News.CSV Provided that the file name matches that specified in step #9 of your post, then it should plot whatever news events have been output to News.CSV

Hope this helps - if not, please post again, and include a screenshot like bluefox's in post #171 of this thread, so that I can see what parameters you are using in FFcal.EXE

Friendoftrends - can you be more specific? Which error message are you getting? Perhaps my responses to the posters above may help - if not, please post again, and include a screenshot like bluefox's in post #171 of this thread, so that I can see what parameters you are using in FFcal.EXE

David

thank you, hanover! my problem is solved http://www.forexfactory.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

thank you, monzulu! I really like the new windings!

this might sound a bit bone idle (prob is actually) but looking through this thread there are lots of different versions etc.

is there any way that one of you could in a single post just put the files needed and the instructions for configuring this thing for a first time user of the news thingy?

It would be really helpful and you can have a pair of my old socks as a thank you

Hanover Thank you. Here is my situation

I have followed these steps as well
Here is what I have done so far:

1. Created a folder on my desktop
2. Downloaded the zip files from post #63 and unzipped files
3. Copied the .ex4 and .mq4 files into my metatrader/experts/indicators folder (4 files)
4. Downloaded the zip files fro post #102 and unzipped the files and replaced existing
5. Downloaded the files from post #138 and unzipped and replaced existing
6. Double clicked on ffcal.EXE to open
7. Hit F5
8. Set ff calendar start date to todays date
9. Set output pathname to metatrader/experts/files/new.csv
10. Set radio button for descpt line = currency
11. Hit ok(enter)
12. The program executed and the file showed up in the experts/files folder (yea!)
13. I remembered to go back and copy the new .ex4 and .mq4 files into my indicators folder repacing the existing
14. The Plot news and sessions indicators are listed in navigator window under custom indicators (yea!)
15. Double clicked on the sessions indicator - indicator appears on chart
16. Double clicked on the plot news indicator - Nothing appears on the chart. The indicator is listed for the chart when I right click and check the indicator list - but no markings appear

Now step 13 confuses me. I am not sure where the new .ex4 and .mq4 files are created and what folder they are located in to copy over. What I have been doing so far is just using the original folder that was created in step 1 and taking the 4 files from there after I do up to step 12. Now what I get for a screenshot is as follows and only some of the numbers work when I move my mouse over them. Also when I switch to different time frames things seem to be a bit out of whack and I dont usually see any of them

Here is the other screenshot

Hi FriendofTrends

I think you almost have it working correctly.

First I will try to explain how FFcal.EXE works (there are a lot of parameters), and then I will try to answer your specific questions. There is probably too much information here, but if you take the time to learn how the process works, you will likely feel confident in using this tool to its fullest capability.

There are TWO STEPS to FFcal.EXE, but to make operation quick and easy, they are both performed automatically when you click OK in the screen shown in your screenshot (in post #188).

FIRST STEP
The first step goes and grabs the data from the FF calendar and adds the news events to FFcal’s own “Events Database History”. You can view this history by pressing F9 when you first go into FFcal. You can then scroll up and down to see what news events have been successfully downloaded. That is a good check to make sure that this is happening correctly.

On the “F5 screen” (the one in your #188 screenshot), it is the upper panel (titled “History update from Weekly FF calendar”) on that screen that determines which events from the FF calendar get downloaded. These may be downloaded one week at a time, or you can have multiple weeks download in the same run by changing the “Number of weeks worth of data to load”. It’s generally best to set the “FF calendar start date” parameter to a Sunday (you can click the button to the right of the field to obtain a pop-up calendar). Obviously only data that’s been downloaded from this date range is going to make it to the database history. And if it doesn’t get to the database history, then it’s never going to get to News.CSV (and hence display on your MT4 charts).

The “Number of hours your MT4 is ahead of FF calendar” parameter won’t affect what data gets downloaded, but it will affect the bar/candle under which it displays on your chart. The FF calendar is (as I understand it) always set to New York EST, i.e. the “Time & Date” options on the FF website are ignored if FFcal does an automatic download via WGET (you should have that box checked ON). So if the times displayed on the horizontal axis of your MT4 charts are 3 hours ahead of NY EST, then enter ‘3’ in this field. If they are 6 hours behind NY EST, enter ‘–6’, and so on. When you view the database history, the date and time shown in the scrolling table represents “MT4 time”, i.e. where the news event objects will plot on your chart.

Finally, you must have the “Update Events History database from FF calendar” parameter checked ON, otherwise this first step will be skipped completely. And if the data in the FF calendar changes for a given week, you must re-run this process to make sure that FFcal’s database history has the latest data from FF calendar.

SECOND STEP
The second step takes the data from FFcal’s News Events database history and puts it in News.CSV, so that the Plot_News indicator can plot it on your MT4 charts. The lower panel (titled “Settings for output from History to News.CSV”) controls (1) which news events from the database history will be output, and (2) how the data will be formatted (wingding objects, colors, etc) on the MT4 charts.

The path\name of output file must be spelled 100% correctly, and point to an existing path and file (this has been covered in my earlier posts).

The rest of the parameters control which events will be output, e.g. by date range; by currency, impact (i.e. show high impact events only) and/or description (i.e. show “Interest rate” or “Bernanke speaks” events only); on which charts (i.e. do you want to plot events affecting JPY on a GBPUSD chart?); and on which timeframes (M15, H1, H4, etc) you want the news to plot. Please refer to the user manuals (downloadable from post #108) for details.

If all you want to do is change these filters, and/or output format, then simply check “Update Events History database from FF calendar” in the top panel to OFF. That saves downloading the FF calendar and (especially if your internet is slow) makes the process run much faster. It also means that you don’t need to be on-line to the internet to run the process.

If you change the filters and/or output format, then you need to edit the Plot_News indicator (keyboard shortcut: press Ctrl-I, then P as often as needed to select Plot_News, then Alt-E to Edit, then Enter twice). This refreshes the Plot_News indicator, i.e. causes it to re-gather the changed data from News.CSV


OK, now I will try to answer specific issues in your post….

The .ex4 and .mq4 files will be initially downloaded into whatever folder you unzipped the file attachment into. However, MT4 looks for these files in the c:\program files\ metatrader\experts\indicators folder, so you need to copy them there. From your MT4 screenshot, it looks like you have managed to get the Plot_News indicator onto your chart, so you must have done this correctly.

The News.CSV file needs to first exist in the c:\program files\ metatrader\experts\files folder. Again, since you are getting news event objects plotting in your charts, it must already exist there. So everything is in the correct place.

The most likely reason for this is your setting in the “Descr Line #1: what to output first” (bottom right of lower panel). Try changing this back to “Time”.

If by “out of whack”, you mean displaying under the wrong candles, see my comments about the “Number of hours your MT4 is ahead of FF calendar” parameter in the “First Step” section above.

If certain news events are not being displayed at all, then either (1) they may not have been downloaded to the database history (see “First Step” section above, and also press F9 to see which events exist in the history) or (2) they may have been filtered out (see “Second Step” section above, and perhaps load the News.CSV file into a text editor to see what events are there). The bottom line is this:
a) If (First Step) it hasn’t been downloaded into database history, it can never get to News.CSV, and
b) If (Second Step) it doesn’t get to News.CSV, then Plot_News can’t display it on any MT4 chart.

Re some news events not showing – if they do exist in the database history, but aren’t displaying on the charts, then perhaps check the “Output only events between” date range in the lower panel. News events outside this date range (or that don’t meet ALL of the other criteria) won’t get output.

Re your comment about switching to different time frames: check your settings in the “Show on” area at the lower left of the bottom panel. For example, if you want news events to show on H4 charts, you must have H4 charts checked ON.

For more information, please download the manuals from post #108 and read them.

Please post again if you have more questions.

Good luck
David